Remember the name Fergus Burke. He is is not a big drawcard on the international stage – at least, not yet – but his conundrum of multi-qualification could be central to the future of the game.
Burke is a New Zealander. He was born in Gisborne on the North Island and attended St Paul’s Collegiate in Hamilton before entering the Crusaders academy and studying business at the University of Canterbury. He played for the Crusaders age-group sides before appearing in six games for the national under-20 ‘Baby Blacks’ in 2019.
His progress at senior level has been an uninterrupted march of all red-and-black. He started five matches for the Canterbury NPC representative side before making his Crusaders debut on 14 March 2020 against the Sunwolves. Within three years, he had established himself as the starting 10 at NPC level and a regular at full-back in Super Rugby, and the natural successor to Richie Mo’unga in the Crusaders’ twin-playmaker system.
Burke’s ascent through the New Zealand ranks seemed so seamless and natural it appeared to be only a matter of time before he would be knocking on the door at number 10 for the All Blacks. Then the inexplicable happened, and the worst nightmare for the Kiwi rugby development system.
Although he stayed loyal to the red and black, Burke signed for multiple English Premiership winners Saracens ahead of the 2024-25 season and announced his intention to test out the international possibilities with either Scotland or England. It was the ultimate ironic twist in the ancestry plot, the final reversal in what has become a ‘Cluedo’ game of multi-eligibility.
Although Burke’s father Richard is a New Zealander, his mother Julie is English and his grandfather hails from Scotland. Under World Rugby’s Regulation 8, that qualifies him to represent any of the three nations on a rugby pitch.
The three primary qualifiers are place of birth, parentage or grandparentage, or five years spent playing rugby in another country. Although Burke readily admits “I am driven by international rugby”, his final destination is still unknown. He could be one day replacing Finn Russell in the navy blue of Scotland, or challenging Marcus Smith for the right to wear a red rose on his chest, or cycling all the way home to the silver fern. It is all ‘Professor Plum in the billiards room with the lead pipe’ type guesswork, as things stand.
Burke is not the only player of his generation to seek his fortunes outside New Zealand. Ethan Roots was a contemporary of the young pivot in the Crusaders academy before going on to represent Exeter and England in the UK, while Taine Plumtree was in the same U20s side as Burke before switching allegiance to the Scarlets and Wales. Starting England six Chandler Cunningham-South was born in England but attended Hamilton Boys High School, represented Canterbury U19s and even trained with league’s NZ Warriors before jumping to London Irish and integrating into the England age-group system.
The interest in Burke has been intense, akin to bees buzzing busily around a honey-rich rugby hive. Scotland supremo Gregor Townsend wanted to him to sign for Glasgow Warriors, sparking a tug of war for his signature with Mark McCall’s Saracens. Burke opted for North London on a three-year deal and his loss to New Zealand rugby has been described as “devastating” by former All Black full-back Israel Dagg.
McCall was in no doubt about the quality he was getting.
“We saw a player who was very measured and calm,” he said. “We liked the fact he is not easily hurried or rattled. I also spoke to Scott Robertson, who said he was a player who could command a room and a team. That ability to grab a team and take them to where they need to be is not a quality everybody has.”
If such comments smack of a natural field general and replacement for Owen Farrell, those qualities also happen to be exactly what New Zealand has been missing at 10 since Mo’unga left for Japan. The complete game manager, the navigator supreme with a firm grip on the strategic picture is what Robertson most needs.
Burke would have started for the Crusaders in Super Rugby Pacific had he not suffered an Achilles tendon injury which sidelined him until the back end of the season. As ex-Crusaders and Australia head coach Robbie Deans commented: “If he had been there from the start of the year, the Crusaders would probably have been winning a whole lot more. He understands the game, he is reliable and he obviously has skill. He is just getting started. He is a very good player. I think he is a good recruit. Mark runs a good programme, he’s no slug.”
The Saracens experience promises to round out Burke’s skill set as a first five-eighth in the Andrew Mehrtens or Grant Fox mould. There is never any shortage of the instinctive Carlos Spencer/Frano Botica type in the Land of the Long White Cloud but as Burke himself noted, “the microscope on certain areas of the game here [in the UK] is different to New Zealand.”
The Barnet-based club specialise in developing inside backs who can handle the chores related to the kicking game and the kick-chase game, and the streamlining of Burke’s skills in those aspects was already on view in a recent game against Premiership champions Northampton Saints, played out in very gusty conditions at the StoneX Stadium.
The 10 started with two decisive contributions in the short kicking game within the same sequence of play.
If the new recruit’s kicking in the air was good, the weighting and judgement of Burke’s kicks along the ground was exceptional. The backspin imparted to persuade the ball to stand up off its end in the first grubber, and the assessment of distance into a short in-goal area in the second, are both outstanding skills. That touch was also present on longer tactical kicks along the deck.
The implicit demand of the coaching at Saracens is you have to be adept at all aspect of the kicking game, and Burke was asked to turn from kicker into chaser on a couple of key occasions.
With Sarries’ nine Ivan van Zyl kicking or making play, the 10 has to assume his role as the first inside support runner, to pick up all the crumbs which fall from the table of the kicking game.
Burke was equally good in defence of the kicking game when Northampton looked to turn Saracens’ preferred weapon on their hosts.
The case of Burke is not singular, it is legion. At least three other players who the new Saracens pivot knows from his days in junior rugby in New Zealand have chosen to seek their fortunes in the UK, rather remain in situ.
Burke’s decision to test the waters with either England or Scotland has been thrown head-first into the spotlight by the relative lack of competition for the New Zealand 10 shirt. Burke was seen as the Crusaders’ natural heir to Mo’unga, and that also meant he was in pole position for the next generation of the national team too.
He mattered because he is the kind of first five-eighth New Zealand finds it most difficult to produce from its domestic set-up: the strategic schemer, the man who sees all the angles and all the bigger potential pictures with the detail of a single play. The microscope will naturally turn on why he is available for two other nations under the law of multi-qualification, when he has been developed in New Zealand. A Kiwi product no longer belongs to New Zealand, and that is the way it is. Great credo or greater con it may be, but the free market is here to stay.
No, I was responding with pretty direct evidence that refuted the argument YeowNotEven was making.
I agree that getting worse is often the way it works for any player, any position. Pointing that out is in no sense a refutation of anything I've said.
"Do you think Ntamack now is a better player than he was at 21?"
That's hard to say, but he certainly hasn't got much better. At 20 he was the top scorer in the six nations, and hasn't been since. At 20 he scored 3 tries in the six nations, and hasn't scored that many since. At 20 he was nominated for 6 nations player of the tournament, and hasn't been since. At 22 he was selected at 10 in the offical 6 nations team of the tournament, and hasn't been since. About a year or two ago a load of people started saying he was the best 10 in the world, which they hadn't previously, but my perception was that this was less because he had gotten better, and more that in 2020 his world class performances could be written off as flukes whereas by 2023 they were clearly representative of his genuine talent.
"Isn't that what your asking for from Marcus?"
Is what what I'm asking for from Marcus?
This thread began with me trying to explain that there is no reason to think that Marcus Smith will improve going forwards. Do you agree or disagree with that point?
"that the team wants/needs an older version of Dan Carter? Or are you just basing this of win ratio."
What? I literally argued that Dan Carter was at least as good when he was young as he was when he was older. And no, I'm not basing this off win ratio; I just think that England's low win ratio is partly a result of Marcus Smith being much worse than people realise.
"Of course some don't continue to develop past the age of 20. You're not really making any sort of argument unless you have new data. 26/27 is undoubtedly the peak of most positions/peole."
That is literally the argument I am making though. The fact that you agree with me doesn't invalidate my point. People in this thread were arguing that Marcus Smith would continue to improve going forwards; I argued that he might not, and that even if he does he is already not far from his peak. He will literally be 26 next month, so if you are right that 26/27 is undoubtedly the peak of most "peole", he's only got 5 more weeks of development in him!
"Hahaha, define "good"? I'd suggest to you theyre a "good" side now"
I think finishing 3rd at the world cup is good. I think beating Ireland is good. I think losing 5 consecutive matches isn't good. I define good in terms of winning games, and I think that the world rankings are a pretty good metric for quantifying whether consequential games have been won in a team's recent history. How are you defining "good"?
"Surely Ford or Farrell must have had a period of great success somewhere? What about 2015?"
I honestly don't know what you're talking about, or how it bears any relation to this conversation. Farrell probably peaked sometime around 2016 or 2017, Ford probably peaked a couple of years later, but Ford is still a better player now than Marcus Smith is.
"But my point was more the game in England. Having only recently adapted a more open game, the pioneers of that are going to find others take a while to catch up (your point about the rest of the team)."
England adapted pretty quickly to an open game in the six nations last year, and have got worse since then. If England play in the attacking style of play that is common in the premiership the players will pick it up quickly, as they are well used to it.
"So you want the rest of the team trying to halt this momentum and go back to a forward based game ala the success of the last two WCs?"
Seriously, what are you talking about? I don't want "the rest of the team trying to half this momentum", I want the rest of the team to be allowed to play the attacking rugby that comes naturally to them. You seem to have decided that because Marcus Smith has pioneered a style of rugby that works for a mid-table premiership side, the entire England national team should be forced to play it, even if it takes them years to learn it, and lose almost all their matches in the process?
"I wasn't after conjecture/opinion thanks. Just a list. I guess I have to look myself now (I just want to read data atm)."
I literally listed all the games under Borthwick where Marcus has started at 10. Do you want me to apologise for telling you who won those games?
"you suggested they didn't use him and used a different setup instead"
I suggested switching out Marcus for Ford or Fin. I didn't suggest that that would require other changes elsewhere in the team. My entire argument has been that Fin would better suit the strengths of the rest of the team, and allow England to play an attacking gameplan that (i) comes naturally to the players, and (ii) has worked well for them in the recent past.
"Oh right, so the side is starting to play better with him?"
No, its playing much much worse. In 2022 England didn't lose 5 consecutive games. In 2022 England beat Australia in Australia. In 2021 Marcus Smith helped England beat South Africa. That was the best England have ever looked with Marcus at 10, and its been downhill since then.
"I'd like to see it continue now and see how good a Marcus side could get"
We know the answer to that. Marcus Smith was England's starting flyhalf for 21 months from mid 2021 to the start of 2023, and they went from 3rd in the world to 6th in the world. He's a good club player, but his club performances haven't improved since then, so there's no reason to think there'll be a different outcome this time, and so far there hasn't been. This summer he came into a good (but not great) England team who seemed like they were on the up, and performances have got worse almost every week since.
Do you think Ntamack now is a better player than he was at 21?
Isn't that what your asking for from Marcus? Or that the team wants/needs an older version of Dan Carter? Or are you just basing this of win ratio.
Of course some don't continue to develop past the age of 20. You're not really making any sort of argument unless you have new data. 26/27 is undoubtedly the peak of most positions/peole.
Hahaha, define "good"? I'd suggest to you theyre a "good" side now. Surely Ford or Farrell must have had a period of great success somewhere? What about 2015?
But my point was more the game in England. Having only recently adapted a more open game, the pioneers of that are going to find others take a while to catch up (your point about the rest of the team). So you want the rest of the team trying to halt this momentum and go back to a forward based game ala the success of the last two WCs?
You litterally brought up his name was one of the people who should be playing instead of Marcus.
That's often the way it works for any player, any position Finn. You appear to be trying very hard to find arugments. Cherry picking some might say ;)
"And you think they are finished products? 🤣"
I think Ntamack was a better player at 21 than Marcus is at 25. I think his game will continue to develop, but I don't think either of them will get very much better. Dan Carter became an incredible game manager as he got older, but he never dominated the opposition more than he did aged 23. Wilkinson pretty indisputably hit his peak at 24. Not everyone is Johnny Sexton, and most players who are touted as prodigies turn out to have peaked young.
"That, or the English game has been slow to develop. I'll let you decide the answer to that one Finn 😉"
no, England have generally looked like a good side when Smith isn't in the team.
"Great job illustrating he's the man to take England to WC 27' though, kinda counter to wanting a 35yo Farrell!"
literally no one is arguing for Farrell.
I want to select a good fly-half.
Defence is a problem, but I don't know what should be done about it. I'd like england to stick with the felix jones system, but its pointless for me to make that claim, given I have no idea whether el-abd is capable of coaching that system. Ultimately I just have to trust him and Borthwick to come up with the best solution.
But I do know enough to say that Marcus is a worse fly-half than Fin and Ford, and that some of the issues with defence would be fixed if they prioritised a more controlled attacking and kicking game over the chaos that Marcus brings and which allows the blitz to be thrown into disarray on the counter.
his best season was 2021.
I'd play Ford or Fin.
that's really not a fair comparison at all. England started the 6N with an entirely new backline; Feyi-Waboso was uncapped, Freeman was coming back for the first time in over a year, and an uncapped Fraser Dingwall was starting at 12. England were also trying to adopt a new attacking system at the same time as a dramatic overhaul of their defence, which actually meant that they couldn't spend much time training their attack until after the first 3 weeks of the competition.
Marcus Smith is playing in a much more settled system. Yeah, the defensive system is changing but not as dramatically as it was in the 6N, and the only reason the attacking system would be changing is to adapt it to Smith's weaknesses.
I have been doing some research on immigration into Australia and it's revealing that the number of immigrants from the UK has been radically dropping over the last 30 years.The vast majority are from non rugby playing countries. It appears that the same trend is happening in NZ. If this continues it must mean that the number of Australasian players who qualify for the 4 home unions by dint of their parentage or grandparentage will greatly diminish in the future.
Thanks Fran.