South Africa’s utter dominance against the All Blacks in Wellington has again put the spotlight on New Zealand Rugby’s eligibility laws, with former halfback Justin Marshall calling for players residing overseas to be in the frame for selection.
Currently, those playing abroad, such as high-profile former All Blacks Richie Mo’unga, Aaron Smith, Brodie Retallick, Shannon Frizell and Sam Cane – all of whom are in Japan – are ineligible to wear the black jersey, but one suspects the recent 43-10 collapse to the Boks at Sky Stadium may force a re-think.
World champions South Africa have far greater depth than the All Blacks thanks to their liberal selection policy – a third of their squad play for European clubs in the United Rugby Championship – and Rugby Australia has just relaxed their eligibility protocols, to the immediate improvement of the Wallabies. The same applies to Argentina.
Eight of New Zealand’s players in last Saturday’s match-day squad had played fewer than 10 Tests. Only two Springboks had played fewer than 10.
Marshall, analysing his former team’s meltdown on Sky’s Breakdown show, said NZ Rugby had to face up to the reality of the modern game and relax its rules, adding the organisation could set its own criteria to ensure a player’s loyalty to the domestic game was rewarded.
In that way, the NPC and Super Rugby would remain strong.
“You cannot leave until you play five games of Super Rugby or 50 games of Super,” Marshall said. “You have to play a certain amount of games to be eligible.
“The guys [Mo’unga, Smith, Retallick, Frizell and Cane] we have mentioned have all done their due diligence for this country – they would play enough rugby here that they would get the opportunity to come back.
“New Zealand Rugby can set whatever criteria they like – Australia change it all the time.”
Former All Blacks first-five Aaron Cruden agreed, saying on the show: “Rugby, like anything in the world now, is evolving, and I think New Zealand Rugby possibly have to have those conversations. Put parameters around it, of course, so they’re dictating terms to a certain extent.”
Highlighting the incongruous nature of the eligibility rules is the fact Mo’unga, who is returning to New Zealand from Tokyo club Toshiba next year, will not be available to play for the All Blacks until he plays a full season for Canterbury in the NPC.
It means he will not be eligible for the All Blacks’ tour of South Africa, where they will play three Tests (an extra Test will be played at a neutral venue as a money-making exercise), and mid-week games against clubs.
All Blacks head coach Scott Robertson has been a big advocate of relaxing NZ Rugby’s eligibility rules, with Mo’unga, New Zealand’s premier No.10 when he left after the 2023 World Cup final, his biggest target.
Robertson has been more circumspect on the issue after being given the top job last year but has repeatedly called on the NZ Rugby board to keep an open mind on the subject.
Should Mo'unga be prevented from touring South Africa ahead of the 2027 World Cup, it may be seen as a decision akin to self-sabotage because the record defeat at the Cake Tin, during which the Boks scored 36 unanswered points, has prompted a near existential crisis among some former players.
On Sky’s commentary last Saturday, Muliaina said it appeared the All Blacks had “almost given up”, while former All Blacks captain Kieran Read asked, “where’s that spine that we want to see?”.
A night later, Marshall said there was no doubt that the All Blacks’ legacy had been damaged, saying: “That’s what hurts me the most. There’s a lot of hard work that has gone into the preservation of that history and continually… that’s being rattled and changed and all of a sudden it’s irrecoverable.”
Marshall et al. bemoaned the lack of leadership on the field as the game got away from the All Blacks following a promising start, with Cruden saying: “I really want to see the alignment of the coaches with the leadership group of the players… because once the momentum started to fall away it looked like we didn’t have any answers".
Muliaina said: “As the game wore on, it always seemed as though they panicked, like ‘there are so many things we should try to do’, an individual will go ‘OK, well I’ll chip over the top’… they didn’t come up with a collective understanding as to what that plan looked like.”
Host Jeff Wilson, a former All Blacks outside back, added: “We changed what was working once we went under scoreboard pressure."
Part of Muliaina’s analysis showed No.10 Beauden Barrett trying low-percentage chip kicks in the second half as the All Blacks chased the game.
The first was in the 56th minute with the score 17-10 when the All Blacks, who had exploited the wide space well in the first half, had a four-on-one overlap.
An almost carbon copy came in the 64th minute with the score 24-10, prompting Muliaina to say: “We’re not trying to win a moment, we’re trying to win a miracle.”
However, there is no doubt the All Blacks had experience in crucial positions.
For example, the Barrett brothers – skipper Scott (85 Tests), playmaker Beauden (140) and vice-captain Jordie (75) – celebrated their 300th collective cap in Wellington.
Ardie Savea, the other vice-captain, was playing in his 101st Test.
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