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The recruitment of Burns is an admission of defeat for the nanny state model

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

I’m fully in favour of real professional rugby coming to New Zealand.

For us to pick our best players from wherever they may live in the world and welcoming elite overseas contractors to our competitions.

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New Zealand Rugby (NZR) favours a nanny state model, though, and that is their right. If you want to remain an All Black you must play here.

The domestic game is sacrosanct – at least in the sense it has to remain a vehicle by which to fairly select our national teams.

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So what’s this Freddie Burns thing all about then? How is importing an English first five-eighth – nearer the end of his career than the start – consistent with maintaining Super Rugby’s status as the breeding ground for All Blacks?

Either we have genuinely professional competitions, or we have the nanny state. I don’t see how we can be doing both.

If nothing else, the recruitment of Burns is an admission of defeat. It says our pathways are broken and we need other people’s cast-offs.

Now, that might be an unfair way to characterise Burns and he might well make a telling impact at the Highlanders. But it doesn’t alter the fact that his signing is entirely inconsistent with our model.

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And what of our coaching?

Is hiring recently-retired players to do their coaching apprenticeship at the Super Rugby coalface dumbing our game down. Why can’t we make the players we actually have better, rather than recruit them from elsewhere?

I’m going to go off on a tangent here.

From Vaea Fifita’s club coach in Wellington, to those who looked after him at provincial, Super and All Blacks level, I’ve asked them all why they couldn’t make a rugby player out of that bloke.

I get that English wasn’t his first language and I understand that maybe he was slow or unable to understand what was required of him, but the man had every physical tool you could wish for in a forward.

And now he’s long gone.

We can wring our hands when seasoned All Blacks decide to cash in overseas at the end of their careers, but the current crisis is in the tier that Fifita occupied. It’s the absence of the good provincial and Super players – who go on to accumulate a few All Blacks caps – that is really hurting our game.

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But Fifita is also emblematic of something else.

It’s the athlete who relies on talent to succeed and then has nothing else to fall back on when that’s not sufficient.

Our game is full of them, for a variety of reasons.

The player pool doesn’t just get shallow at secondary schools’ level now. Kids are leaving the game at intermediate, because they simply aren’t robust enough to play safely.

The big kid and the fast kid remain and then progress from 1st XVs and into Super Rugby squads.

At no point do we adequately appear to coach them, because the same flaws in their game persist even up to All Blacks level.

The Burns signing is an admission of failure, from what I can see. It says we don’t have the players or the coaches to sustain our own – alleged – professional competition.

We have neglected the bottom and middle parts of the pyramid to the extent that we don’t have the ability, intellect or work ethic to prosper in the high-performance part of the game.

Which is fine, if you’re running a professional league. You just sign someone from France or Ireland or wherever and you plug the hole.

Only we’re not doing that in New Zealand. And yet Burns is coming to save everyone’s blushes, just the same.

It’s laughable.

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Comments

10 Comments
J
JB 902 days ago

It’s a sure sign of the Dunning-Kruger effect when someone starts criticising the intellect of others. NZ rugby has made its fair share of mistakes, but the these “everybody is stupid except me” type articles do little to advance the conversation around what those mistakes are and what the solutions might be. If Burns has been signed to help someone like Cam Miller develop, well OK then, but that’s not likely the real reason. Burns will get a lot of game time, especially if Mitch Hunt still has concussion issues. As for the central contracts debate, if this guy knew anything he would realise that it is precisely because we loosened the controls around contracts that some franchises are able to horde talent in certain positions.

P
Poe 902 days ago

Lord what nonsense..if you want to kill rugby as a pathway for local players just serve it up on a plate to big money. Northern rugby, a few local boys and imports. Is that what this guy wants for New Zealand? Pass on that.

J
JB 902 days ago

I’m wondering where he thinks the money will come from for all these imports, Super rugby would drop to the standard of major league rugby in a heartbeat.

D
Dunnos 902 days ago

Odd article. I’m a Landers fan and have loved us scouting overseas players. Himeno was revelation and wished we could have kept him. He was our best 8 in years. Landers have struggled since Soponga left not having a consistent 10 to control the game. We need experience and Freddie can also help grow Millar who is a young talent coming through. I’m hoping Freddie bring a different northern hemisphere style that could prove an advantage for us.

P
Poe 901 days ago

I reckon it will be a great day when a Kiwi born Japanese player turns out for NZ. Have

I missed it? Ferns?

K
KS 903 days ago

As an English rugby fan, I think this is an outstanding signing. They have signed an experienced, international class ten, who has a wealth of experience, who plays a different style of rugby and can help your tens develop a different way of playing. He has almost definitely taken a pay cut, many English, French and Japanese teams would love to have him on board. He has no major injury history, is not going to be called up for internationals, has spent a large part of his career as the second choice ten, so won't be too perturbed if he finds himself in that role. Indeed, last season he came off the bench in the English final, and made the winning contribution!!

P
Poe 902 days ago

Yeah. I think it's great. NZ rugby can include a few signings and keep what makes it NZ rugby: NZ players....

J
JD Kiwi 903 days ago

Another poorly thought through hatchet job from this author.


So one of our Super Rugby teams have brought in a foreign first five (at a time when Mitch Hunt is injured and there is a ton of young talent coming through in the position.) How many foreign first fives are regular first choice at French and English clubs?


So far eight out of nine Rugby World Cups have been won by countries with centralised models. Why on earth would we want to copy the serial underachievers?

J
JB 902 days ago

Whole heartedly agree. Even the suggestion that he engaged in anything approaching thought is kind, just look at what Ireland have achieved by centralising their contracts

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Jfp123 28 minutes ago
France push All Blacks to 80th minute in narrow Dunedin defeat

Sorry, I don’t think all your points hold water.


You agree that the Top14 was sticking within the rules. Describing it as ‘attack’ing international rugby isn’t fair. It’s simply doing it’s own thing, which benefits many other rugby nations too, more of which below. NZ rugby has one system of earning money, the French have another, and it looks to me like theirs is more successful, but that’s no reason to try and shoot it down. Unlike some NZ commentators, I haven’t heard any of the French expressing the wish to interfere with how NZ organise their domestic competition and finances. Different circumstances require different arrangements.


The way you talked about earning money from home internationals, it sounds as if you think the French B team are depriving NZ of income. Really? Instead accusing the French of acting badly, wouldn’t it be better to think of ways of improving the NZ system, even it’s just being more careful who’s invited on tour. It’s well known France never send out their top players in summer.


In any case, the charge of loss of income doesn’t seem to be backed by the facts. As far as I’m aware there haven’t been any complaints about the size of the TV deal. It’s been reported that the NZ- France summer internationals are sell outs, and since you or another New Zealander - I can’t remember which set of comments it was - was complaining about how outrageously high the ticket prices are, it doesn’t sound as if NZ rugby has lowered prices and been hit in the pocket - NZ can’t have it both ways.


If NZ were to have a rethink and follow the example of SA and Scotland to allow players who sign on with a Top14 team to play for the ABs, I think NZ could use the Top14 for its own benefit. Players often improve through being exposed to different approaches, and previously hidden talent can come to light. Cheslin Kolbe was overlooked by the SA main team, until his immense talent was showcased during his time at Toulouse. More recently, Jack Willis and Blair Kinghorn have both acknowledged that Toulouse has helped them broaden and develop their skills - Willis has done quite a lot of interviews which are freely accessible online, if you want to hear what he says. Scotland have benefited, but England haven’t because of their self-imposed rules. From what Willis said around the time of the WC when he had special dispensation to play for England in consideration of the Wasps debacle, it seems Toulouse encourage their foreign players in their international ambitions, rather than acting as an insurmountable obstacle.


I don’t see where your point about home grown talent is coming from. The vast majority of the French team IS home grown talent. Listen to Squidge’s or 2 Cents podcasts on the subject before the last WC. Mauvaka and Moefana both were born in islands which are part of a French overseas territory, came to France young, trained there and have French nationality, Meafou was rejected by Aussie clubs as too large, and was advised to go to France where they appreciate size to get an opportunity to continue his career - do you think he should have been left on the scrap heap in Oz? The only French international I can think of who came from NZ is Uini Atonio, he doesn’t seem to have been appreciated in NZ and has played his entire senior club career at La Rochelle, where he’ll become a player/coach next season; he’s actually of Samoan heritage. I’ve read that NZ was interested in Patrick Tuifua, but he was born in the French territory of New Caledonia, not NZ and is moving to Toulon. Marchand, Aldegheri, Baille, Gros, Cros, Jelonche, Alldritt, Ollivon, Dupont, Penaud, LBB Lucu, Ramos, Fikou, Barrassi, Villiere etc, are all indisputably French, Ntamack is French on his mother’s side, 2nd generation French on his father’s side and has played for Toulouse since infancy, Pasolo Tuilagi has lived in France since the age of 3 and is French, similarly Joshua Brennan. I believe they have both declared their desire to play for the country where they grew up, not Samoa or Ireland. Flament, it’s true, is from Belgium, but his talents could hardly have flourished fully in a team which almost certainly isn’t fully professional. A rugby side is 15 with 8 on the bench in France as everywhere else, packed with all these talented native players, they’re not going to suck the life out of other nations. In fact, there’s a counter example. Capuozzo was born and raised in France, and I’ve heard it said both that he began playing for Italy is because he didn’t think he’d make the French team, or alternatively, that he preferred to play for the country of his paternal grandparents.


I can’t see why you say NZ, England and Ireland are more homegrown than that. De Groot, Lomax (Aus), Frizzell, Fainga’anuku (Tonga) and Christie (Scotland) and other ABs weren’t born in NZ, some of them played for other countries at U20 level, and isn’t your new guy from the Netherlands? England welcomes players born abroad, eg Manu Tuilagi, and Feyi Waboso (born and grew up in Wales who could really do with his talent). And as for Ireland, they are arguably the least home grown of the lot, as Jamison Gibson Park, James Lowe, Bundee Aki and Mack Hansen were not only not born in Ireland, they weren’t brought up there either. This is not a criticism, as I don’t think it’s an issue to get hung up about.


If you’re referring to the number of foreign players in the Top14, ProD2, I reckon it’s a good thing. Players from upcoming second tier nations like Uruguay, Spain and Portugal are exposed to top flight competition and can play fulltime - where else would they get such a good chance to hone their skills? Argentina too is strengthened when it comes to the WC, even if not all their Top 14 players can play in every set of internationals - they still play in a lot of them. Then there the ex-internationals who get a chance to earn decent money before they retire, and enjoy thrill of French rugby. I reckon they deserve that and it shows good money can be earned from rugby, which must help stop talented youngsters from turning to other sports.


I don’t think the Top14 should be charged with making rugby financially unsustainable. I don’t think its existence was the reason Wasps, London Irish and Worcester Warriors went bust. Covid, the English system and the clubs themselves were to blame. I don’t think the Top 14 is the threat you think it is to other nations - the Top 14 and Pro D2 may be large and wealthy, but they’re not infinitely large mopping up all the top players from across the world, they have to obey strictly enforced rules about a compulsory number of Jiff players and a salary cap, which if you count the special allowances for marquee players etc, is comparable in size to the English one. That’s not to say some of the French clubs aren’t very rich, have excellent facilities etc., it’s just they can’t spend all their money on players wages.

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