Rugby: Experience winning fans

The Chiefs really appreciate the skills of Tana Umaga. Photo / Getty Images

It has taken a while - all of the professional age - but finally New Zealand's leading coaches appear to have lost their reluctance to trust players in their 30s.

It's the Brad Thorn factor, helped, too by the likes of Tana Umaga, Tony Brown, Keven Mealamu and Andrew Hore. The mature footballer used to be written off in New Zealand - deemed too old, too slow, too difficult, on the basis they had been alive a certain number of years.

Not now. With a drastic injury toll, Highlanders coach Jamie Joseph was straight on the phone to Brown. With the Chiefs struggling and in need of cohesion and direction, it has been Umaga to whom coach Ian Foster has turned. As for Thorn, the All Black selectors don't even contemplate life without him.

Veterans have never felt love like this in New Zealand before. In previous years most coaches have ignored the value of experience - seen Super Rugby as being exclusively about younger, faster, more explosive players.

Thorn has done more than anyone to change the mindset. Every coach in the country would gladly have him and pay scant regard to the fact he's almost 36. He returned to the Crusaders when he was 33 and since 2008 has shown age is no barrier to progress.

In his second stint at rugby, after everyone thought Robbie Deans was mad to bring Thorn back, the former NRL star has become a recognised world class force. No one in their right mind would suggest Thorn is too old; an elderly passenger barely clinging on.

Mealamu and Hore have played their best rugby in their early 30s and the former, probably the latter, too, looks like he has maybe even three good years left.

The selection of Umaga and drafting of Brown probably do more to show attitudes are changing. Thorn, Mealamu, Hore and Chris Jack - who at 32 is making a late run to resurrect his All Black career - are all tight forwards.

But Umaga and Brown are out with the whippets, the younger men who seemingly plug into some source of electricity to power their way through 80 minutes.

The midfield is supposedly no place for old men yet at almost 38, Umaga has not been embarrassed nor looked out of his class. He's not the player he was in 2005 - the pace, the electric feet and the ability to hunt down even the fastest are not so evident.

But he doesn't need to stand up to a comparison of his former self; he only needs to compare favourably with the other players the Chiefs could have selected. On that score, there is little doubt he was worthy of his place.

His performances are handy rather than electric but he frequently breaks the line, offloads out of tight corners and tackles, tackles and tackles.

"He is playing pretty well," says Chiefs coach Ian Foster. "He's not lacking desire is he? Halfway through the ITM Cup he asked me not to judge him on what I was seeing then. He'd just come off a season in France and he felt that if he had some rest then a pre-season he would only get better. That's not a bad attitude to have."

It's almost paradoxical that older players are all the rage at a time when the game is faster than it has ever been. Physically the sport has never been so demanding with ever bigger, more explosive men able to keep the ball alive for longer and withstand the aerobic requirements.

But Umaga, who played in the inaugural Super 12 competition in 1996, believes the quicker game has increased the importance of better decision-making - which is why the more experienced players are able to command a place.

"The change is in the intent," says Umaga. "With turnover ball, it is not there to kick it away - it's about keeping it in hand. So decision-making is paramount ... whether to push the pass or consolidate and lay it back to get going again."

He says the important thing is for players to have the right mindset, approach and the desire to prepare and succeed. If that is all there, then age is irrelevant.

Yet neither the coaching fraternity nor the national body bought into that view in the past.

Many players of the last decade say they felt under pressure when they neared 30 - nothing specific, just a vibe in the changing room that it might be best to look offshore.

Some players even received letters close to their 30th birthday from their insurance companies to say they would no longer be covered.

Usually, though, the definitive proof of ageism came in contract negotiations. But now, six of the highest paid players in New Zealand are 30 or older. Also, the New Zealand Rugby Union are hoping to persuade Richie McCaw, who will be 31 this year, and Mealamu and Hore to stay after the World Cup.