Super Rugby's sorry state takes the blame for All Blacks' losses

Ultimately, I blame New Zealand Rugby and Super Rugby.

I did blame Ian Foster for a long time and I could blame Scott Robertson now. Just as there are one or two players whose lack of game management ability continues to hamper the All Blacks.

In the end, though, the decision to dispense with South Africa and Argentina from Super Rugby is not helping our national side.

Without those nations being represented in our franchise competition, the standard is abysmal and rugby one-dimensional.

That lack of diversity and competition is limiting the All Blacks’ ability to a) win away from home and b) absorb and then repel pressure.

They will fold – and run out of ideas – at some point and every team knows it.

I think it’s absolute insanity to be rolling out the same game-drivers every week, but I can only assume that Robertson believes they are his only options.

He tinkers on the wings, in midfield, the loose forwards and so on, but the guys charged with winning games never change.

The object of this exercise was to opine about what might happen – or what it might mean – if the All Blacks lose to South Africa in Cape Town this weekend.

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Honestly, it won’t mean or change anything.

Nor would a win.

For much of my life, teams were beaten before they even took the field against the All Blacks. Now they’re not.

That doesn’t mean South Africa or Ireland, France, Argentina and whoever else will beat New Zealand every time. But the fact they believe they will – and the fact they’re not remotely intimidated by the men in black – means the damage is done.

Robertson has already lost two of his six tests in charge. Are we going to start calling for his head should that become three, on Sunday morning NZ time?

No. Because all of us can see there’s only so much he can do with what he’s got.

On that score, I will apologise to Foster.

I still believe he owed being All Blacks head coach to succession planning, rather than ability. And I still think he should have gotten more out of a team in which Sam Whitelock, Brodie Retallick, Aaron Smith and Richie Mo’unga were regulars.

But I think it’s clear that New Zealand Rugby (NZR) has not managed our resources well.

Allowing players to take up sabbaticals and contracts in Japan has not prepared them for test football, while badly diluting Super Rugby.

You see that in a guy like Harry Plummer, whose performances for the Blues this year were largely dismissed by All Blacks assistant coach Scott Hansen.

Essentially, Hansen said, yes, Plummer had done well in Super Rugby Pacific, but it’s such a mediocre competition that you can’t use it to measure potential success in the test arena.

That’s on NZR, I’m afraid.

Wallace Sititi and Samipeni Finau are others in this All Black squad whose 2024 Super Rugby Pacific campaigns were outstanding.

Yet their impact on test rugby this year has been next to nothing. In fact, more often than not, Robertson doesn’t have enough confidence in them to put them in the match day 23.

Asafo Aumua – another who was physically dominant in Super Rugby Pacific – is a regular on the bench, but isn’t trusted to play significant minutes.

This is more complicated than whether there is enough direction coming from halfback, first five-eighth and fullback. This is about the fact that the New Zealand pathway no longer equips players for test rugby.

Time was when players, fresh from running rings around their peers at secondary school, went into club rugby. They played with and against men and, if they proved themselves in that arena, went into provincial rugby.

There they met seasoned pros, All Blacks, you name it.

Survive that and your reward was a Super Rugby contract and trips to Pretoria and Canberra or a packed house at Carisbrook.

Now they go from school and into Super Rugby setups, without ever doing a genuine apprenticeship and still relying on athleticism alone to succeed.

By the time they get to the All Blacks, having excelled in the touch footy that suffices for Super Rugby these days, they remain completely ill equipped to cope with Malcolm Marx, Eben Etzebeth and the like.

And that leaves Robertson to keep picking blokes whose winning percentage as All Blacks has sat below 70% for five years now.

If you do think New Zealand’s model remains fit for purpose, then riddle me Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu. How is it that, seven caps into his test career, he can manage a game and yet our vastly experienced playmakers can not?

The All Blacks could win this Sunday. Heck, Robertson might even make a clinical team of them before his time is done.

But it’ll be in spite of the system we’ve designed to produce elite players.