Former All Black Pita Alatini, director of rugby at Pakuranga, has witnessed first-hand the rapidly changing face of Auckland club rugby. Photo / Michael Craig
Former All Black Pita Alatini, director of rugby at Pakuranga, has witnessed first-hand the rapidly changing face of Auckland club rugby. Photo / Michael Craig
Pacific Islanders make up more than half those playing senior rugby in Auckland and those numbers are rising rapidly. On the flipside, participation numbers suggest Pakeha in New Zealand's biggest city are deserting the national sport.
Figures supplied to the Weekend Herald show that fewer than one in four senior rugby players in Auckland identified as New Zealand European last year - a 14.2 per cent drop since the statistics were last collated in 2012.
With 10 per cent of senior playing identifying as Maori, the ratio of Polynesian players to Pakeha is close to three to one (65 per cent to 24 per cent) in New Zealand's largest city.
Pakeha make up 60 per cent of Auckland's population. Pacific Islanders acount for 14.6 per cent.
A number of potential reasons have been identified including the spectre of serious injury due to increased awareness of the long-term dangers of concussion; the disparity in size between ethnic groups, which ties in with the injury fear; the professionalisation of rugby at schools discouraging those not on a potential career pathway; and increased alternate recreational opportunities for millennials.
The importance of these rationale can be debated but what is accepted is the turn-off most often occurs during early teens, when the clubs lose control of the players to secondary schools.
Tongan-born former All Black Pita Alatini has been a first-hand witness to the change during his six years as a coach and now director of rugby at Pakuranga RC. The East Auckland club was once dominated by Europeans, but will field a Pasifika majority starting XV in their premier grade opener this weekend.
"We are seeing less and less white kids coming back to the clubs. Unfortunately, that's definitely a trend coming through," Alatini said. "In general kids are giving up earlier and with white kids that is definitely happening."
Alatini believes the time has come for Auckland and New Zealand Rugby to come up with specific strategies and "concepts" to encourage Pakeha kids to stay in the sport.
Fewer than one in four senior rugby players in Auckland identified as New Zealand European last year. Photo / Michael Craig
Mt Albert Grammar head of rugby Geoff Moon agreed with Alatini's sentiments and pointed to the challenges schools face. One is that Pacific Island boys and girls mature physically much younger than Europeans.
"In my Year 9 intake, my smallest player is 38kg and my biggest 160kg. They're in the same class," he said. "Those two players require two different pathways."
At MAGS they have the resources to operate both open and restricted weight classes, but not all schools do.
"We're seeing restricted weight rugby all but disappearing at many schools, with an emphasis on open grades," Moon said.
At many schools the restricted weight teams, which generally consist of younger players, are relegated to back fields and have less skilled coaching. Many just walk away from the game.
"The weights of European and Pasifika boys tend to come together about Year 12 but for some they never come together because they're out of the game," Moon said.
Another factor is wealthy independent and high-decile schools that were once pipelines of Pakeha talent "now recruit to win competitions", and that recruitment usually targets big, young Pacific Islanders, again proving a discouragement to those left behind.
Anecdotally, many believe the official figures paint a conservative picture of what has happened on the Auckland's playing fields.
"I would say at the premier level those percentages would be more than that," said Bryan Williams, a Ponsonby, Auckland, All Black and Samoan icon whose brilliance paved the way for many Pasifika players to follow.
New Zealand Rugby has made small gains in overall playing numbers in recent years, mainly on the back of the growing popularity of women's rugby and Rippa rugby.
In 2016, registered rugby players stood at156,000 people, up three per cent on the previous year, with the biggest increase coming in junior players, with around 85,000 registered players between ages 5-12. Not all these players are registered with clubs, however, as Rippa - a non-contact, entry-level version of the sport - is also rolled out through a primary school programme.
Frank Bunce, the former Samoa and All Black centre who has been involved with Manukau Rovers for 45 years, pointed to rugby's high-performance and career pathways as a turn-off for many kids. From too young an age kids become aware of whether they are on track to "making it" or not and those that aren't just turn their backs on rugby.
"Not everyone wants to become an All Black, they just want to play with their mates, " he said. "You can't lose someone at 13 and try and get them back at 20. Not without jumping through hoops."
The Weekend Herald asked Auckland rugby CEO Jarrod Bear whether it mattered that European numbers were dwindling so rapidly, or whether his union needed to make more of an effort to keep them in the game.
He replied: "With the increasing diversity across the wider Auckland population, Auckland Rugby has experienced similar diversity across our playing numbers."
Except you could argue the numbers don't reflect Auckland's diversity, they have gone a long way beyond that.
