The very idea that the NZ Rugby Union is considering breaking Richie Mo’unga’s Japanese contract and bringing him home to play in the July tests will be an absolute disaster for New Zealand Rugby and the death knell for Provincial Rugby as well.
Once the rule that any player wanting to be selected for the All Blacks has to be playing in New Zealand is changed or even a small exception made for one player the dam will burst and all of our top players including potential future All Blacks will be chasing the big money overseas. Now I do not know what Super Rugby players are paid but I think not so long ago a tradesman player was on something over $200,000 – not bad for five months work.
The secret to restoring New Zealand’s rugby standing is to get All Blacks playing in NPC, or whatever the Provincial competition is called these days. That will bring spectators back into the stands – especially for afternoon games.
As far as Richie Moung is concerned I am a huge fan. In fact I will say that if he had been left to play his own game by Foster and Beauden Barrett had stayed away from first receiver the All Blacks may well have won last years Rugby World Cup. Having said that Mo’unga chose to take a 3 year contract in Japan and there he should stay and honour his contract.
There are some capable 10’s here and one I like who never seems to get on the paddock these days is Josh Ioane, Fergus Burke will soon be back in Super Rugby I think, then there are Damien MacKenzie, Brett Cameron and Stephen Perofeta so we are not badly off. Even if Mo’unga at his best is many notches above them.
I would be more worried about halfback. Hopefully Cam Roigard will recover quickly because if Perenara is considered to be the answer then it will not matter who is at first five. To paraphrase either Fraser or Godfrey from Dads Army WE WILL BE DOOMED!!
No Minister 
Exodus 9:21
😉
Super Rugby killed the NPC long ago. And New Zealanders have a weird attitude to this. Harry Kane plays for a German club, but nobody thinks twice about selecting him to captain the English Football team. All the rugby money is in England, France and Japan. Why shouldn’t the All Blacks be allowed to go where the money is?
It’s this sort of attitude that has destroyed Trent Boult’s test career. For some reason Gary Stead wants our best bowler to turn out for Northern Districts again if he wants to play another test match. It’s utter madness.
Ms Perese and her excrement haka… Means that this ‘honky’ a long time match going and jersey buying supporter of the Canes and All Blacks, no long cares about rugby.
The NZRU can collapse for all OI ccare… A woke organisation deserving of no support
Trev your last paragraph could come true sooner rather than later
The NZRFU Board is past it’s diversity decreed use by date it seems.
The big switch to professional rugby happened when I was in the US and I wondered whether NZ could handle the impact of money, possibly big money, starting with the domestic scene (small unions suffocating from purloined stars), then the same process repeating itself on the international front.
Since almost all sports in the US has been professional from the start they’ve had about 140 years to learn the lessons. So teams have caps for spending on players, revenue-sharing and so forth. But even then there have always been so-called “small-market” teams that have struggled: the Cleaveland Indians baseball team for example, and the Oakland A’s baseball team have quit the area for Las Vegas, following other Oakland teams. It’s ugly
So when I came back from the US I was really curious to see what had happened here and what the NZRFU was doing to protect traditional provincial teams and …. I didn’t see much beyond a dog-eat-dog attitude and short-term thinking.
So PDM’s story does not surprise me, and like many other things in this nation, I don’t see it improving.
Oh, and like “Trev” I stopped watching rugby, almost twenty years ago now when I dumped SKY. I got invited to watch the 2015 Final which was great, but all I had to do was walk up the street and breakfast was on hand.
I’ve watched no other match in the 2007, ’11, ’15, ’19 and ’23 WC’s.
Did take time out to watch the Hurricanes and then the Highlanders with the Super finals, because of supporting teams that hadn’t won it before.
When the Boomers and Gen-X pass from the scene I think NZ rugby will be in worse trouble than it is now.