'It's an issue': Blues worried about competing with Moana Pasifika for players
Blues head coach Leon MacDonald says competing with Moana Pasifika for players has become “an issue” due to the depletion of New Zealand’s player pool.
Alongside the 11 other franchise, the Blues announced their squad for next year’s inaugural edition of Super Rugby Pacific, a revamped version of the competition featuring two new franchises in Moana Pasifika and the Fijian Drua, late last month.
Upon confirmation of their roster, most pundits viewed the 2022 Blues squad as one of the strongest in the league, rivalling long-time Super Rugby powerhouses, the Crusaders, for talent, depth and quality.
With nine players who featured for the All Blacks this year (including returning playmaker Beauden Barrett), the Blues also have three further ex-All Blacks – Caleb Clarke, Alex Hodgman and new signing Luke Romano – in their ranks.
Add to that former NRL star Roger Tuivasa-Sheck and a slew of promising youngsters, headlined by Anton Segner and Zarn Sullivan, and it’s easy to understand why the Super Rugby Trans-Tasman champions are seen as title frontrunners for next year.
However, despite the impressive strength throughout his team’s roster, MacDonald has maintained that the off-season recruitment drive has become more difficult following the induction of Moana Pasifika into Super Rugby Pacific.
Set to be based out of Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium for its first seven seasons in the competition, the new expansion franchise provides Super Rugby with its first cross-city rivalry in the league’s history.
By sharing the same city as the Blues, Moana Pasifika has utilised similar resources as their neighbours, and the rest of the Kiwi teams, by plucking most of its playing squad out of New Zealand’s NPC competition.
That, in turn, has thinned the nation’s player pool for Super Rugby recruiters, which has become a source of concern for MacDonald given clubs from Europe, Japan and the United States also look to New Zealand to bolster their sides.
“It is an issue. I think it’s an issue. It’s definitely tougher,” he told reporters at the time of the 2022 Blues squad announcement last week.
“The depth of our players is just getting less and less and less. Moana’s obviously come in and, ultimately, there’s a lot of players from the New Zealand system that have ended up with them.
“We’ve got an American league that’s started up and they’re pulling a lot of players in the NPC, and obviously we’ve got the traditional rivals with Japan and Europe, who have been taking players for a long time.”
Where is the best place for Damian McKenzie to utilise his talents? #AllBlackshttps://t.co/ZpgPpSakkG
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According to MacDonald, the impact of having teams both from within New Zealand and abroad circling players from the same region has made it difficult for the Blues to sign players with experience to counterbalance the ever-present youth in his squad.
It’s for that reason, he said, that acquiring the likes of Romano, a World Cup-winning former All Blacks lock who helped the Crusaders win five titles between 2011 and 2021, is an invaluable addition to the franchise.
“Players like Luke Romano are like hen’s teeth,” MacDonald said of the 35-year-old, who played the last of his 32 tests for the All Blacks in 2017.
“The older 30-something-year-old guy that’s played heaps of rugby, that’s not around anymore, and you can’t have a team full of young bucks.
“There’s so much going on, it’s so cut-throat and you need experience, you need that balance of experience and youth, so to be able to secure Luke was a real bonus for us because they’re not there.
“It took some convincing because he is getting a little bit long in the tooth and he’s wondering whether his old body can keep going, but the depth is something that we’ve noticed that’s starting to become harder and harder for us to find the players that we need.”
That experience could prove to be extra useful heading into next season on the back of a provincial campaign that saw Auckland, North Harbour and Counties Manukau withdrawn from the NPC after two rounds due to Auckland’s Covid-19 lockdown.
Players from those three teams haven’t played since August, and those who are signed to Super Rugby Pacific teams aren’t likely to until early February when pre-season fixtures get underway.
That six-month layoff will undoubtedly be detrimental to the development of youngsters and rookies, of whom the Blues have plenty.
One of those is Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens, the 20-year-old wing who MacDonald was impressed by after he made his sole Super Rugby appearance in his debut campaign for the Blues earlier this year.
The year didn’t end the way many All Blacks fans would have hoped… But it certainly wasn’t all bad news for the #AllBlacks in 2021.https://t.co/yxtxVWTjnz
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“It is what it is. We’ve just got to make sure we prepare them as best as we possibly can. We missed an opportunity to develop our players,” MacDonald said of the axing of Auckland, North Harbour and Counties Manukau from this year’s NPC.
“You look at a young Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens who had a year with us, trained brilliantly. From the start of the year to the end, you could see his game growing and growing.
“He had one opportunity, played really well for us, and then he went back to Taranaki this year and played brilliantly.
“That was an ability for him to just keep stacking seasons on top of each other to develop his game, whereas a lot of our Auckland boys are exactly the same as him but left our Super season and hit a brick wall, really, and not being able to grow their game.”
MacDonald refused to complain about the circumstances he has been forced to deal with, though, as he said the extended break has given his match-deprived players a chance to train themselves into peak physical condition.
“There’s a massive opportunity missed by these guys. It’s not their fault, it’s just Covid, and we’ve got to make sure that, with our training, we replicate that as much as we can and still try and get those development opportunities for them.
“It can be a problem or an opportunity, and we think, ‘Okay, well if we can’t play rugby, what can we do and make the most of this time?’, and it’s about conditioning.
“The players have never had a conditioning window ever, probably, in their lives like we’ve got now, so we can potentially push some conditioning limits [more] than we’ve ever had before, and that can be an opportunity for us to turn it into a positive.
“You should be seeing some players in good nick by the start of the season.”
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Big empty stadium does nothing for atmosphere but munster are playing well with solid performance
1 Go to commentsYes, Fiji can win the World Cup! With that belief plus their christian faith🙏 and hard work it is achievable. Great article. Ian Duncan Fiji resident 1981-84
2 Go to commentsInteresting comments about Touch. England’s hosting the Touch World Cup this year and the numbers have exploded since their last World Cup in 2019, something like 70% more teams and 40 nations taking part. And England Touch have made a big thing about how many universities are in their BUCS University Touch Championship as well as Sport England membership. Can only see this growing even more domestically as more people become aware of it
10 Go to comments“Cortez Ratima is light years ahead of anyone on current form, while TJ Perenara has also skyrocketed into contention following the unfortunate injury to the talented Cam Roigard.” At last some sanity. Hitherto so many pundits have been wittering on about Finlay Christie to the point one wondered if they were observing a FC in a parallel universe where the FC they saw wasnt just the mediocre Shayne Philpott project of Fosters hapless AB reign in the real world. Ratima, Perenara and Fakatava are the ONLY logical 9s for Razor now Roigard is crocked.
2 Go to commentsThis game was just as painful as the Hurricanes game. It was real fork-in-the-eye stuff.
2 Go to commentsNow if they could just fire the Crusaders ground PA guy who likes to play his dance music and just loves the sound of his own voice the entire game, even when play is going on. And I thought their brass band thing of a few years ago was bad.
5 Go to commentsUnfortunately when you lose by far the two form players this season in Roigard and Aumua, you're left replacing two game changing Tanks with a couple of pea-shooters. Which is also about the speed of TJs pass.
2 Go to commentsBit rich coming from the guy with zero loyalty to anyone or any team, including happily taking a players place in a league world cup squad because well, SBW wanted to play in it and thus an already named player got told he was no longer going. And airing stuff like this, which may or may not be true, doesn't exactly say you're a stand up guy either SBW. Just looking to keep his name in lights as usual.
38 Go to commentsTamati Tua. …the Taniwha NPC midfielder. Ollie Sapsford, Hawkes Bay NPC midfielder…doing well
2 Go to commentsFiji deserve to be in the rugby championship, fans love seeing the Fijian national team play, the Fijian Drua is a wonderful idea but the players can still be stolen to play for NZ and AUS…
2 Go to commentsThe first concern for this afternoon are wheather forecast…
1 Go to commentsWhy cant I watch Rugby games please?
1 Go to commentsBeautiful shot from Finau, end of story. Gutted for Shaun Stevenson though.
4 Go to commentsThe Chiefs definitely didn’t win ugly. They had the superior scrum, a dominant lineout, and their defence was excellent once the Waratahs scored their two tries (thanks to some lucky refereeing calls mind you). They put pressure on the Waratahs lineout throughout the game, and the mind boggles as to why the referee did not award a yellow card or a penalty try against the Waratahs for repeated scrum infringements on their own try line before Narawa’s first try. And the Chiefs were slick with their passing and running angles on attack. It was a dominant performance all round, even with many questionable refereeing decisions.
1 Go to commentsWasnt late. Ref 2 assistants andTMO all saw it so who are you to say it was?
4 Go to commentsAre the Brumbies playing the Blues twice in a row?
4 Go to commentsBig difference from the Saders. Forwards really muscled up and laid a solid platform. Scooter brought some steel and I liked the loosie combination. Newell has been rather disappointing this season but stepped up big time - happy also to see Franks dot down. He should do that more often! Reihana had a good game and there seems to be more flair and invention with him in the saddle. McNicoll plays well from the back and is reliable plus inventive when he joins the line. Keep it up chaps!
5 Go to comments🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
34 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to comments