Rugby: Tweaking the rules over 'loan' of Boe to Samoa

By Wynne Gray

What next from the New Zealand Rugby Football Union?

First the Henry clause and now the IRB clause.

One coach, Graham Henry, goes to Wales but is forbidden from ever coaching the All Blacks, while John Boe can trip off to coach Samoa under a nifty loan arrangement which leaves him eligible to coach New Zealand sides.

You could almost see a weird glow searing from the pages of the media release when it arrived yesterday.

It began with a farewell to one of its "top coaches" before labelling the scheme "innovative."

That description comes from the Latin innovare which means to alter or make new.

Alteration seems best to depict the NZRFU's latest tweaking of their own rules.

You can understand the theory behind developing the game and giving a variety of work for New Zealand's coaching staff like Boe in the Pacific Rim series..

But the NZRFU has scarcely been magnanimous to Samoa and their rugby players in the past.

The All Blacks have not played a test in Samoa, there is no Samoan team in the Super 12 and New Zealand have been very ready to use their players when they needed them.

Boe has been a consistent reject as a Super 12 coach in recent seasons, while there is a consistent concern in the NZRFU about its inability to retain players and coaching staff.

Now the union may be diagnosed with curvature of the spine after bending over backwards for Boe.

The explanation is that they are using "an IRB clause that enables us to loan him to another rugby nation within the Oceania region" - a deal which does not eliminate Boe from coaching New Zealand sides.

It is an interesting clause, one which Boe himself did not seem too familiar with yesterday.

Did the IRB clause not apply to Italy (ironically also in the Pacific Rim series) who had pursued Boe to coach them last year?

You wonder why the IRB would allow that dispensation for a team like Samoa, who have been a consistent success in the last three World Cups, rather than Italy, who need needs all the help they can get.

While it is at its benevolent best, why does the NZRFU not loan Doug Howlett, Orene Ai'i, Keven Mealamu, Leo Lafaiali'i, Keith Lowen, Loki Crichton and Romi Ropati back to their island of origin for the Pacific Rim series?

If they are all eligible, their legal advisers should get a special IRB clause written into their contracts so they can be loaned to Samoa without infringing their future international rugby rights.

It would be as logical as the Boe deal.