September 17, 2024 • 10 mins
One expert wonders if All Blacks fans have gotten too complacent with losses.
The team is set to face off against the Wallabies this weekend - following a brutal thrashing against the Springboks in Africa.
NZ Herald rugby writer Gregor Paul joined D'Arcy to discuss.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Duncie Wildergrave
from News Talk ZIB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Time out to introduce to the Fray mister Gregor Paul
from a New Zealand Herald premiere rugby writer. And it's
good to chat with you, Gregor. I trust you well
and looking forward to what's going to happen this weekend
at the very odd time of quarter the sixth or
somethinghow strange.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome though.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I think an afternoon kickoff sun might be shining in Sydney,
so that's a nice little change, I think, and welcome
a few more.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Of those, and look, yeah, I think we'll get a
good game.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
I know that we've got some issues across the Tasman
about what quality we're going to get out of the
Australians and they were walloped in the last encounter in Argentina,
which doesn't board particularly well. But I do have a
feeling that the stadium and Sydney will be close to
being full. That will get the best out of the Wallabies.
They just need to look at those black jerseys and
(01:05):
that'll get a bit more out of them. The hacker,
that'll get a bit more out of them, and we'll
hopefully see whatever this Australian team's got in it, I
think they'll.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Get it all out.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
He wrote a piece today and their heirld Worth talking
about and it's based essentially on tolerance, tolerance of the
All Blacks and their results post COVID, suggesting there was
none previously. But now as a nation of sports fans,
of rugby fans, we can almost accept that the All
Black's going to get beaten from time to time and
(01:37):
that's okay. Oh, how things have changed great.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Maybe you've grown up as a nation, darc I don't
know other things to do. Maybe COVID was a sort
of realization that there is more in the world than rugby,
and it was just it was a moment to reset
everybody and recalibrate expectations and realize as you go around
the world that you know, there's no inherent reason to
(02:02):
believe that the All Blacks will always be better than
everyone else.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You've got to earn that right.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You've got to keep developing your own systems, your own players,
your own coaches to stay ahead of everyone else.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And there's no doubt that.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
What has also happened is that we've seen real growth,
particularly in Ireland.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
South Africa have her purple patch.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I mean, they've always been a very strong rugby nation,
but they're in a real purple patch at the moment
where they're at the French hosting the World Cup. We
saw them thrive become a different type of nation in
terms of how much resource and connection they had with
their team. England have been on and off, but they're
predominantly you know again, when they're on, they're very good.
(02:42):
And so I think maybe there's a realization out there
mentioned Argentina, you know, who've improved as well. Realization maybe
that New Zealand's dominance is something that cannot be taken
for granted, it is completely unrealistic, and that there has
to be a sense of what can we tolerate here?
(03:03):
Where can we realistically put a line and say, well, okay,
the odd defeat to South Africa, that's okay, But what
about if we start losing regularly to Australia?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
How do we feel about that?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Unlikely considering the state there incurrently, but not to say
it won't occur so in acceptance from the rugby public,
but surely looking back and going why were we so good?
Why can't we keep one step ahead of the opposition
because they always have what's altered post COVID.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Do you think gregor Well, there'd be a lot of
reasons well to go through around it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Clearly Super rugby's reconfigured.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
We can debate this forever, but there's no doubt that
it's weakened the competition. Let's not get into who's to
blame for that. Let's just be realistic. It's not the
competition it was without the South African teams in it.
From a high performance perspective, New Zealand's under exposed to
the body tights, the sizes and strategies it's going to
that the players will encounter in the Test Arena and
(04:06):
Australia are really really quite weak at the moment, which
doubles down on that he take South Africa out and
put them into the European competition. That's a double whammy.
It's like an intercept on your own goal line, isn't it.
You're about to get seven and you're con seeding seven
down the other end Because they're benefiting Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
Italy by having their teams over there. The isolation didn't
(04:28):
help New Zealand you know, not having players exposed to
a wide enough gene pool.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Maybe the eligibility.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Policy needs to be reviewed because maybe we're losing players
at an earlier age, you know, key players, Richie Muwanga,
Shannon Frazel. You know, you could even argue that Aaron
Smith probably Retalic have gone a year or two earlier
than they Perhaps, you know, they could still be playing
international rugby despite the fact they're in Japan.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So maybe that has to be looked at.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
And just maybe generally we need to look at the
whole development program internally and ask are we getting the
right people and the right jobs. Are we innovative enough,
you know, are we changing the type of rugby enough
to keep everyone else guessing?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Greg Apaul from his inl on Hell joins the program.
It's almost as if I haven't quite hit rock bottom.
But it might have to take that before change is
swept in. Now you mentioned the prickly subject of eligibility.
This keeps coming up over and over again. Just the
Master was on breakdown talking about it over the weekend.
(05:33):
Is it time for us to forget about the tradition
and to actually move forward? And you know what everyone
else is doing we just got to play catch up.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I don't know about a blanket lifting because the ramifications
of that could be significantly damaging. And I don't think
because everyone else is doing it is a strong enough
rationale for New Zealand to do it. I do, however,
think that you have to say, well, you've made a
decision to take a private equity investor on silver Lake,
(06:01):
and the whole rationale there is to generate cash via
the all blacks that will filter back into the whole
of the ecosystem. So everything is dependent on the all
blacks being successful. That is your whole rugby environment built
on that one premise. So you've got to ask on
the on the back of that, does your eligibility policy
make sense given the importance you've attached to winning test matches,
(06:25):
And the answer there would be probably not anymore. And
could you allow some kind of loosening of the regulations
which already occurs, you know, via the sabbatical process where
guys are able Boden bar Ardisavia Sam Kaine, all of
them played in Japan this year but were deemed eligible
on the on the basis that they serve longer term
contracts to come home what's the difference between that and
(06:49):
Richie Muwanga doing it for three seasons in Japan and
not coming back to play Super Rugby, but just playing
in Japan and being.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Eligible for the All Blacks.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
If you create a system where you say, how about
we have eligibility in Super Rugby and see if you're
playing in rugby, you're eligible to be playing for the
All Blacks and or look at a cap and say
at their boards discretion, the All Black coach will be
able to pick up to two or three players who
(07:19):
are currently not playing in Super Rugby. You know, if
guys go to Europe or France or to play whatever,
you can do it that with so.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
You can control it.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And then you've got the ability to put to bolster
a team a little bit and ensure that you can
you can win games and develop for the future at
the same time.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
And that's the key you've got.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
You've got to win now and you've got to be
preparing your team to win tomral That's what All Black
coaches have to do. You look at South Africa, they've
kind of got away for the last twelve years just
winning World Cups. Look at the record in between World Cups.
Really not very good, not much above fifty percent between
World Cups.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
But they've got to World Cups. They win, everyone's happy.
New Zealand can't do that.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
New Zealand needs to win between World Cups and ideally
at World Cups.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
So you've got to find a way to win today,
but plan for tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So the eligibility laws change, What effect does that have
at a at a grassroots, at a New Zealand level,
because that's been the age old argument we need our
stars playing at home. That's good for the brand, is
that something can still be leaned on, maybe even with
slight adjustments.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Yeah, there's still really good players playing in your own
The fact that this year you had three high profile
names all playing in Japan outside of Super Rugby anyway,
Barrett Bon Barrett Ardie Servia, Sam King, So no one's
kicking up a fuss about that that they missed one season.
Next year j already Barrett will be missing and that
Paddam will continue. It'll be Rickle you any the year
(08:49):
after that or whoever it's going to be. We're going
to see these sabbatical deals where the top players take
take a season out of Super rugby as it is anyway,
So you're not you know, it's not absolute starting. We're
not talking about taking you know, fifteen all blacks out
of the competition for the you know, for the for
the entire duration, one of the two guys missing. Yeah,
no problem. Look what happened this year Ardie goes off
(09:10):
to Japan and look at the Look at the Hurricanes
backro Look what happened Peter Lukai and Brain. You'll say,
they come flying through because they get game time. All
of a sudden, You've given young guys the opportunity that
they couldn't get with Ardi being here, and you're and
you're building depth, You're building new guys that you can market,
promote and brand fantastic. So a little bit of common
(09:31):
sense tells me, as long as you don't open the
floodgates and say you can all go, then I think
you can afford to have because it's already happening. You
can afford to have three to four to five players
heading offshore, and you're leaving a little bit of breathing
space for the next guy to come through. Look at
Twopuvai this year. He's performing brilliantly because he's got a
(09:52):
chance because Brody Retiler Can Sam Whitelock have retired and
that is that the whole premise of the New Zealand
system is that then you know, you chop, you chop
one tree down, the next one comes through and it
grows up to be strong and we see that through
time immemorial and that's what you've got to promote and
doing a little bit of this to sort of fast
track that, you know, guys heading away for the club
(10:14):
rugby creates openings and opportunities for the next guys to
come through at Super Rugby.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to News Talks.
It'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Duncie Wildergrave
from News Talk ZIB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Time out to introduce to the Fray mister Gregor Paul
from a New Zealand Herald premiere rugby writer. And it's
good to chat with you, Gregor. I trust you well
and looking forward to what's going to happen this weekend
at the very odd time of quarter the sixth or
somethinghow strange.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome though.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I think an afternoon kickoff sun might be shining in Sydney,
so that's a nice little change, I think, and welcome
a few more.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Of those, and look, yeah, I think we'll get a
good game.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
I know that we've got some issues across the Tasman
about what quality we're going to get out of the
Australians and they were walloped in the last encounter in Argentina,
which doesn't board particularly well. But I do have a
feeling that the stadium and Sydney will be close to
being full. That will get the best out of the Wallabies.
They just need to look at those black jerseys and
(01:05):
that'll get a bit more out of them. The hacker,
that'll get a bit more out of them, and we'll
hopefully see whatever this Australian team's got in it, I
think they'll.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Get it all out.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
He wrote a piece today and their heirld Worth talking
about and it's based essentially on tolerance, tolerance of the
All Blacks and their results post COVID, suggesting there was
none previously. But now as a nation of sports fans,
of rugby fans, we can almost accept that the All
Black's going to get beaten from time to time and
(01:37):
that's okay. Oh, how things have changed great.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Maybe you've grown up as a nation, darc I don't
know other things to do. Maybe COVID was a sort
of realization that there is more in the world than rugby,
and it was just it was a moment to reset
everybody and recalibrate expectations and realize as you go around
the world that you know, there's no inherent reason to
(02:02):
believe that the All Blacks will always be better than
everyone else.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
You've got to earn that right.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
You've got to keep developing your own systems, your own players,
your own coaches to stay ahead of everyone else.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And there's no doubt that.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
What has also happened is that we've seen real growth,
particularly in Ireland.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
South Africa have her purple patch.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I mean, they've always been a very strong rugby nation,
but they're in a real purple patch at the moment
where they're at the French hosting the World Cup. We
saw them thrive become a different type of nation in
terms of how much resource and connection they had with
their team. England have been on and off, but they're
predominantly you know again, when they're on, they're very good.
(02:42):
And so I think maybe there's a realization out there
mentioned Argentina, you know, who've improved as well. Realization maybe
that New Zealand's dominance is something that cannot be taken
for granted, it is completely unrealistic, and that there has
to be a sense of what can we tolerate here?
(03:03):
Where can we realistically put a line and say, well, okay,
the odd defeat to South Africa, that's okay, But what
about if we start losing regularly to Australia?
Speaker 3 (03:12):
How do we feel about that?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Unlikely considering the state there incurrently, but not to say
it won't occur so in acceptance from the rugby public,
but surely looking back and going why were we so good?
Why can't we keep one step ahead of the opposition
because they always have what's altered post COVID.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Do you think gregor Well, there'd be a lot of
reasons well to go through around it.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Clearly Super rugby's reconfigured.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
We can debate this forever, but there's no doubt that
it's weakened the competition. Let's not get into who's to
blame for that. Let's just be realistic. It's not the
competition it was without the South African teams in it.
From a high performance perspective, New Zealand's under exposed to
the body tights, the sizes and strategies it's going to
that the players will encounter in the Test Arena and
(04:06):
Australia are really really quite weak at the moment, which
doubles down on that he take South Africa out and
put them into the European competition. That's a double whammy.
It's like an intercept on your own goal line, isn't it.
You're about to get seven and you're con seeding seven
down the other end Because they're benefiting Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
Italy by having their teams over there. The isolation didn't
(04:28):
help New Zealand you know, not having players exposed to
a wide enough gene pool.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Maybe the eligibility.
Speaker 4 (04:35):
Policy needs to be reviewed because maybe we're losing players
at an earlier age, you know, key players, Richie Muwanga,
Shannon Frazel. You know, you could even argue that Aaron
Smith probably Retalic have gone a year or two earlier
than they Perhaps, you know, they could still be playing
international rugby despite the fact they're in Japan.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So maybe that has to be looked at.
Speaker 4 (04:57):
And just maybe generally we need to look at the
whole development program internally and ask are we getting the
right people and the right jobs. Are we innovative enough,
you know, are we changing the type of rugby enough
to keep everyone else guessing?
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Greg Apaul from his inl on Hell joins the program.
It's almost as if I haven't quite hit rock bottom.
But it might have to take that before change is
swept in. Now you mentioned the prickly subject of eligibility.
This keeps coming up over and over again. Just the
Master was on breakdown talking about it over the weekend.
(05:33):
Is it time for us to forget about the tradition
and to actually move forward? And you know what everyone
else is doing we just got to play catch up.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
I don't know about a blanket lifting because the ramifications
of that could be significantly damaging. And I don't think
because everyone else is doing it is a strong enough
rationale for New Zealand to do it. I do, however,
think that you have to say, well, you've made a
decision to take a private equity investor on silver Lake,
(06:01):
and the whole rationale there is to generate cash via
the all blacks that will filter back into the whole
of the ecosystem. So everything is dependent on the all
blacks being successful. That is your whole rugby environment built
on that one premise. So you've got to ask on
the on the back of that, does your eligibility policy
make sense given the importance you've attached to winning test matches,
(06:25):
And the answer there would be probably not anymore. And
could you allow some kind of loosening of the regulations
which already occurs, you know, via the sabbatical process where
guys are able Boden bar Ardisavia Sam Kaine, all of
them played in Japan this year but were deemed eligible
on the on the basis that they serve longer term
contracts to come home what's the difference between that and
(06:49):
Richie Muwanga doing it for three seasons in Japan and
not coming back to play Super Rugby, but just playing
in Japan and being.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Eligible for the All Blacks.
Speaker 4 (06:59):
If you create a system where you say, how about
we have eligibility in Super Rugby and see if you're
playing in rugby, you're eligible to be playing for the
All Blacks and or look at a cap and say
at their boards discretion, the All Black coach will be
able to pick up to two or three players who
(07:19):
are currently not playing in Super Rugby. You know, if
guys go to Europe or France or to play whatever,
you can do it that with so.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
You can control it.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
And then you've got the ability to put to bolster
a team a little bit and ensure that you can
you can win games and develop for the future at
the same time.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
And that's the key you've got.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
You've got to win now and you've got to be
preparing your team to win tomral That's what All Black
coaches have to do. You look at South Africa, they've
kind of got away for the last twelve years just
winning World Cups. Look at the record in between World Cups.
Really not very good, not much above fifty percent between
World Cups.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
But they've got to World Cups. They win, everyone's happy.
New Zealand can't do that.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
New Zealand needs to win between World Cups and ideally
at World Cups.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
So you've got to find a way to win today,
but plan for tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
So the eligibility laws change, What effect does that have
at a at a grassroots, at a New Zealand level,
because that's been the age old argument we need our
stars playing at home. That's good for the brand, is
that something can still be leaned on, maybe even with
slight adjustments.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Yeah, there's still really good players playing in your own
The fact that this year you had three high profile
names all playing in Japan outside of Super Rugby anyway,
Barrett Bon Barrett Ardie Servia, Sam King, So no one's
kicking up a fuss about that that they missed one season.
Next year j already Barrett will be missing and that
Paddam will continue. It'll be Rickle you any the year
(08:49):
after that or whoever it's going to be. We're going
to see these sabbatical deals where the top players take
take a season out of Super rugby as it is anyway,
So you're not you know, it's not absolute starting. We're
not talking about taking you know, fifteen all blacks out
of the competition for the you know, for the for
the entire duration, one of the two guys missing. Yeah,
no problem. Look what happened this year Ardie goes off
(09:10):
to Japan and look at the Look at the Hurricanes
backro Look what happened Peter Lukai and Brain. You'll say,
they come flying through because they get game time. All
of a sudden, You've given young guys the opportunity that
they couldn't get with Ardi being here, and you're and
you're building depth, You're building new guys that you can market,
promote and brand fantastic. So a little bit of common
(09:31):
sense tells me, as long as you don't open the
floodgates and say you can all go, then I think
you can afford to have because it's already happening. You
can afford to have three to four to five players
heading offshore, and you're leaving a little bit of breathing
space for the next guy to come through. Look at
Twopuvai this year. He's performing brilliantly because he's got a
(09:52):
chance because Brody Retiler Can Sam Whitelock have retired and
that is that the whole premise of the New Zealand
system is that then you know, you chop, you chop
one tree down, the next one comes through and it
grows up to be strong and we see that through
time immemorial and that's what you've got to promote and
doing a little bit of this to sort of fast
track that, you know, guys heading away for the club
(10:14):
rugby creates openings and opportunities for the next guys to
come through at Super Rugby.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
For more from Sports Talk, listen live to News Talks.
It'd be from seven pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio
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