NEW ZEALAND has always had two main exports, lamb and beef, with the latter coming in the form of no-nonsense, muscular rugby players. Now such is the demand for their biggest stars that there must be more All Blacks playing abroad than in the land of their birth.
No sooner has the post-World Cup exodus settled into their European clubs than another entire raft of Kiwi players look set to join them in the Northern Hemisphere. No longer are the fleeing hordes made up of pensionable players looking for a final p
ay day; the bulk of these men are in their prime.
All in all 11 of New Zealand's World Cup squad jumped ship to either Japan or Europe and it looks like another raft of All Blacks is due to set sail for the Northern Hemisphere at the end of the current season.
Names such as Greg Somerville, Chris Masoe, Andrew Hore, Joe Rokocoko, Conrad Smith and Piri Weepu are all strong candidates because none of the above has signed a contract extending beyond the current season.
The one-man Hurricane, Jerry Collins, has already stated that it is a matter of "when, not if" he moves to Europe. Meanwhile Blues fly-half Nick Evans had been linked with the Tigers, until they decided to concentrate their efforts on hiring Argentina's Juan Martin Hernandez, and with the Dragons, until the £300,000 per annum asking price put paid to their interest. Still, Leicester are expected to sign All Black breakaway Craig Newby and the same reports state that the Dragons have already captured New Zealand hooker Tom Wills.
Troy Flavell, Isa Nacewa and Daniel Braid are all said to looking elsewhere and former All Black skipper Reuben Thorne has already announced that he will be playing his rugby in Japan next season. Will the last player to leave please turn off the lights.
"Potentially we will lose all the guys currently playing for the All Blacks and others," is the gloomy prognosis of the NZRFU professional rugby manager Neil Sorensen."That's their career move these days. It's a logical progression. They make the All Blacks, they play for the All Blacks as long as we can keep them and then secure themselves a contract offshore."
What Sorensen does not admit is the fact that the famous All Black jersey is losing just a little of its lustre in the professional era where the frequency of Test matches has approximately doubled.
Furthermore the All Blacks have failed to win a (professional) World Cup and, with his policy of developing two players in every position, Graham Henry has capped an awful lot of players over the past four years.
It seems as if just about every All Black with the exception of the talismanic Richie McCaw is dusting off his passport and viewing the autumn Grand Slam tour of the UK as an opportunity to flaunt what they've got. And the biggest prize of all for the ambitious and well-heeled European clubs has to be Dan Carter. He was below his best during the World Cup but at least part of that problem was down to a nagging injury and Carter remains the single biggest draw in world rugby today.
The NZRFU have all but given up in their quest to keep their brightest star in New Zealand and, it recently came to light, they are even preparing a special contract with a 12/18 month sabbatical written into the small print which would enable him to play in Europe while still, technically, being employed by the NZRFU. There is talk of New Zealand suspending their "no foreigners" rule and even rumours that the authorities might, like Ireland, offer tax breaks to keep their best players at home.
But there are 750,000 compelling reasons to explain why the fly-half is eyeing a move and every one of them is a pound. Carter is reputedly earning something in the region of £250,000 per annum back home, a figure which he tops up with lucrative personal endorsements.
Against that the best-paid players in Europe are reckoned to be Luke McAlister (Sale Sharks) who earns around £500,000 and Victor Matfield who earns much the same from Toulon. The French second division side is bankrolled by club president Mourad Boudjellal and they are now said to be in a bidding war with Toulouse over Carter, a tug of war that has already reached £750,000 for a one-year contract.
Boudjellal's money evidently outstrips his knowledge of rugby. He met one B Botha with the opening line, "you're very small for a lock" only to be informed that this B Botha was actually BJ Botha, the Springboks prop and not Bakkies Botha, the Springboks lock and a Toulon target for many months.
The numbers the French clubs are talking put Carter out of reach of any Magners club although Cardiff Blues remain an outside bet. The Welsh club's financial backer, Peter Thomas, is an ambitious man who reckons his team, Heineken Cup quarter-finalists, are only a couple of players shy of competing with the best. Moreover, he is a friend of Graham Henry and the All Blacks coach would rather see Carter play in the Celtic League than the war zone that is the French Top 14.
"We are looking at the very best players in the world," said Thomas recently, and they don't come any better than Carter.
The possibility of losing the 26-year-old playmaker in his prime has gripped New Zealand and added to their persecution complex which sees the rich European clubs stripping the poor little country of its best talent. Still, as Oscar Wilde once noted about the death of Little Nell, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh out loud at the Kiwi's plight since they have been systematically denuding the Pacific island teams of their best players for over a decade.
Anyway, New Zealand seem to have an inexhaustible supply of classy players to call upon as the Welsh fly-half factory has obviously followed the call centres and relocated overseas. With Carter currently sidelined by injury, his replacement, Stephen Brett, has already caused quite a stir. He not only looks a little like Carter but, whisper it, he may be just as good.
In his debut season last year, Brett finished as the leading points scorer for both the Crusaders (Super 14) and for Canterbury (National Provincial Championship) for whom he accumulated 149 points, just two shy of the record set by Robbie Deans back in 1989. If Evans and Carter both move abroad as expected, Brett will become favourite to fill the All Blacks No.10 shirt. The king has fled, long live the king.
The full article contains 1140 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
