Rugby Review: Beware the Bite
by Vaughan Lovell
Timeline: Mid-winter in New Zealand. Rugby is on the minds of the collective nation as the world cup looms closer. The All Blacks have had their mid-season run, the glamourous Super 14 has finished months ago, and now we are left with the Air New Zealand Cup - New Zealand’s very own competition.
So what are we to make of this then?
A relatively new domestic competition, the Air New Zealand Cup came into being last year as a re-vamped NPC, with the intention of spreading out the success and profile of premier-level provincial rugby in the wee islands of New Zealand.
The big question in my mind is this: isn’t it really just a waste of time and money?
To put the Air New Zealand Cup into perspective, you must factor in much of the surrounding competitions - the Super 14 and the World Cup, to be precise, and wonder: can the might of Manawatu, or the tittilating Tasman, really warrant all that money being spent to diversify and increase the level of rugby in New Zealand?
The Air New Zealand cup is essentially the first of two steps in a glorified All-Blacks selection process, where players will play for their province in the hope of gaining selection for a Super 14 franchise. If they play superbly in the Super 14, then
they might become an All Black- the pinnacle of a rugby player’s career.
Ultimately, in my mind, New Zealand rugby has become almost solely about our desire, and, subsequently, failures, to win the World Cup and prove on paper that we truly are the best rugby nation in the world, if not universe.
So, therefore, I wonder: why should we worry so much?
When the national game is really only about how well 20 or 30 players perform, what is the use of having some farmer or teacher show up on our television screens each week to run around in front of 5,000 people in the Taranaki when there are bigger things at stake in this crazy world?
If an All Black can command a salary of upwards of $100,000 a year easily, then how much are we paying the rest? Nurses, teachers and journalists are paid as if they were unskilled burger-flipping buffoons; our dollar is inflating to a rate that can cripple many exporters; an often bleak internal economy seems to ber brushed aside for not only the All Blacks, but also the smaller, weaker unions.
How many Kiwis shed a tear at the thought of King Countrynot getting enough money for broadcasting rights?
Fair enough, sport does give the average fan a boost of pride and happiness when their team wins - and I personally cannot wait to see the All Blacks perform and hopefully win the bloody World Cup for once.
But, as beacons of society, how much of a role model or respectable man is your average All Black when he gets paid six-figures for running around all day, being put on a pedestal, and then buggering off to Europe so he can earn a million dollars a year playing for someone else?
All this seems a bit rich, if you will excuse the pun, when I , the student, am made to feel unpatriotic and guilty about moving off-shore to pay off $15,000 or more to get a degree and avoid being underpaid in my industry. It’s a brain-drain if ever there was one.