Jordie Barrett's sabbatical isn't going to make a difference for Super Rugby Pacific
The sabbatical as a retention tool for keeping top All Blacks around has been widely criticised but is more attractive than the alternative.
If Jordie Barrett decided to link with Toyota Verblitz for three years and disappear, how does that help the All Blacks and Super Rugby Pacific?
The short answer is it doesn’t. Which is why NZR has to come to the table and accomodate such a move. It’s a smart business decision.
New Zealand Rugby losing a player like Richie Mo’unga again at 29-years-old is a situation to avoid as long as the current eligibility rules are in place.
If all avenues were explored with Mo’unga and they couldn’t come to an agreement, so be it.
But to play hard ball in negotiations, roll back sabbatical offers, doesn’t serve NZR’s own interests.
The sunk cost investment in Mo’unga for New Zealand Rugby is huge. He’s been the starting No. 10 for the All Blacks at two Rugby World Cups. He’s been Super Rugby’s best player every year for over half a decade.He holds experience that could prove invaluable in 2027.
And now he isn’t available to All Blacks for at least three years.
Even if he was given two sabbaticals back-to-back, it would be better than none at all.
Barrett will miss one Super Rugby season and play the next two after his stint with Leinster.
This is the club that turned Jamison Gibson-Park into a world class No. 9 and James Lowe into an international calibre winger. It isn’t going to be a walk in the park and will likely do Barrett’s game good.
Super Rugby Pacific’s ills go deeper than the pulling power of one exceptional All Black. Simple fixes can make this product more interesting.
Rolling back the playoffs-for-everybody structure that makes the regular season redundant is first on the list.
Just four playoff spots would make this current season’s race real, with pressure on all sides every week. The lack of consequences currently allows for less intensity, huge player rotations, and of course, less incentive to watch.
The undefeated Hurricanes at 8-0 would not yet be assured of a finals berth, let alone the top seed. The Blues too, would have to maintain a winning pace.
The Crusaders should be mathematically ruled out already but unfortunately they still could make it despite holding a 1-7 record.
The competition’s integrity would be raised if they were denied a sniff at the title, or any other team that sports a losing record for that matter.
The second easy fix is the length. With eight out of 12 teams guaranteed to make the playoffs, there is absolutely no need for 15 rounds of regular season action.
We could cut this competition down to 12 weeks, with each team playing everyone just once with one bye week. Then two more rounds for semi-finals and a final.
This would cut four weeks of meaningless Super Rugby fat out of the calendar, meanwhile strengthening the entire competition as a product. We could start in mid-March and not go head-to-head with cricket in the height of summer.
With an extra month off, there would be no reason to rest stars, and they wouldn’t want to either. Every regular season game matters when you are fighting for just four playoff spots.
That brings back some intensity to the competition and moves it a step away from just being a development playground.
The first counter-argument to cutting down the length of the season will be the loss of TV revenue to support the current cost base. Maybe the TV revenue can stay the same with guarantees the on-field product will be stronger.
That extra month in the calendar could support pre-season tours overseas if needed, to Japan and Europe as was seen in 2024.
However, improved competition integrity would offset the loss of any star All Black on a sabbatical.
Comments on RugbyPass
I am really looking forward to Leigh Halfpenny playing his first Super rugby game for the Crusaders Playing a long side his former Welsh and Scarlets team mate Johnny McNicoll.Johnny has been playing great, back in a Crusaders jersey.The attack has strengthened big time. Also looking forward to David Havili at 10. David is a class act, it also allows Dallas McLeod to remain at 12. A good thing.
1 Go to commentsIf he had stopped insisting on playing in the backrow, instead of wing, where everyone told him he should, he would have been a Bok years ago….
11 Go to comments‘Salads don’t win scrums’ 😂 I love that.
19 Go to commentsCan’t wait for the article that talks about misogyny in Ireland. Somehow.
16 Go to commentsI would like to see a rule change, when the attacking team is held up over the try line, by allowing the defensive team to restart a goal line drop out releases the pressure for the defensive team, but what if the attacking team had to restart a tap 5m out from the defensive team it gives the attacking team to apply more pressure, there are endless options for the attacking side and it will keep the fans in suspence.
2 Go to commentsLess modern South African males predictably triggered.
16 Go to commentsMy heart is with Quins, but the head is convinced Toulouse have too much. Ntamack is back, his timing and wisdom has been missed.
1 Go to commentsWow, what a starting line up for the Sharks) Tasty up front,kremer vs Tshituka or venter …fiery ,,Lavannini ,,will he knobble etzebeth? Biggest game for belleau?
1 Go to commentsIt was rubbish to watch, Blues weren’t even present. Did what they had to do, nothing more. Should be better next week against canes.
1 Go to commentsI’ve just noticed that this match has an all-French refereeing team. Surely a game like this ought to have a neutral ref? Although looking at the BBC preview of the Saints game, Raynal is also down as reffing that - so there may be some confusion about who is reffing what.
1 Go to commentsIf Havili can play anywhere in the back line, why not first 5. #10.
11 Go to commentsThe dressing room had already left for their summer break before they ran out in Dublin that year, and that’s on the coach. Franco Smith has undoubtedly made progress, particularly their maul, developing squad players and increasing squad depth. And against a very tight budget too. That said they were too lightweight last year and got found out against both Toulon and Munster in consecutive games. Better this season so far but they’ve developed something of a slow start habit occasionally, most notably losing at home to Northampton who played them at their own game. Play offs will ultimately show whether there has been tangible progress on last year, or not…!
2 Go to commentsAustralian Rugby has been a disaster, by not incorporating learning from previous successful campaigns. QLD Reds 2011 - Waratahs 2014. Players, coaches and administrators appoint there representatives for scheduled meetings, organisation’s agreement’s assessments and correspondence. This why a unified Rugby Union under one entity works. Every Rugby nation has taken that path. Was most difficult in the Northern hemisphere with over 100 years of club rugby before the game become professional. Took a lot of humility for those unions to eventually work together.
7 Go to commentsThough Wilson’s sacking was pretty brutal, it wasn’t just down to that Leinster game; Glasgow had a lot of 2nd half collapses that season, in the URC and Europe, and only just scraped into the playoffs. Franco Smith has definitely been an improvement, some players are delivering far more than they did under Wilson.
2 Go to commentsjesus - that front 5!
1 Go to commentsShould be an absolute cracker of a game! Will be great to see DuPont & Ntamack in tandem once again🔥
1 Go to commentsBest team ever…. To have played? These guys are still pressure chokers. Came nowhere when it counted. What a joke
84 Go to commentsMusk defends anonymous terrorism, fascism, threats against individuals and children etc etc But a Rugby club account….lock ‘em up!!!
2 Go to commentsActually the era defining moment came a few years earlier. February 2002 to be precise, when Michael D Higgins as finance minister at the time introduced his sports persons tax relief bill to the dial. As the politicians of the day stated “It seems to be another daft K Club frolic born in Kildare amongst the well-paid professional jockeys with whom the Minister plays golf” and that the scheme represented “a savage uncaring vision of Ireland and one that should be condemned”. The irfu and Leinster would be nowhere near the position they are in today without this key component of the finances.
5 Go to commentsIt is crystal clear that people who make such threats on line should be tried and imprisoned. Those with responsibility in social media companies who don’t facilitate this should be convicted. In real life, I have free speech to approach someone like Reinach and verbally threaten him. I am risking a conviction or a slap but I could do it. In the old days, If someone anonymously threatened someone by letter the police would ask and use evidence from the postal system. Unlike the Post, social media companies have complete instant and legal access to the content in social media. They make money from the data, billions. Yet, they turn a blind eye to terrorism, Nazi-ism and industrial levels of threats against individuals including their address and childrens schools being published online all from ananoymous accounts not real people. They claim free speech. Free speech for anonymous trolls/voilent thugs threatening people under false names? The fault is with the perps but also social media companies who think anonymous personas posting death threats constitutes free speech.
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