THREE KEY FACTS
Richie Mo’unga signed a three-year deal with Japanese club Toshiba Brave Lupus in 2022.Under current eligibility rules, this prevents him from being selected for the All Blacks.New Zealand Rugby general manager professional rugby, Chris Lendrum revealed in May discussions were under way to bring Mo’unga back to NZ
Gregor Paul is one of New Zealand’s most respected rugby writers and columnists. He has won multiple awards for journalism and written several books about sport.
OPINION
New Zealand Rugby is hoping that it will shortly have confirmation that Richie Mo’unga is going to return home next May and re-commit to playing for the All Blacks.
No one inside NZR headquarters is counting this particular chicken until it has hatched, however.
The whole
business of trying to firstly convince Mo’unga to break his three-year contract with Japanese club Toshiba Brave Lupus, then deal with the mechanics of how that could happen, has strained personal and professional relationships.
It has generated massive uncertainty for two incumbent All Blacks, illustrated precisely why the current eligibility rules are no longer fit-for-purpose, and has heaped the pressure on the soon-to-be-appointed new board of directors to change them.
This saga began in December 2022 when Mo’unga announced that he had signed a three-year deal to join Brave Lupus after the 2023 World Cup.
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Mo’unga was 28, he had been in and out of the All Blacks starting team since 2020, never quite managing to retain the No 10 jersey in a ding-dong battle with Beauden Barrett, until August 2022.
When he came to assess his post-World Cup options, he was interested in testing his market value and seeing what an offshore move would look like.
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Toshiba, coached by former Crusaders coach Todd Blackadder, tabled a three-year, $2.2 million-a-year-offer. It was life-changing money, but it would mean, almost certainly, that his All Blacks career would end at the World Cup.
Having only played 44 tests, Mo’unga was not eligible for a sabbatical clause should he have decided to extend his contract with NZR.
There would be no opportunity to commit longer-term to New Zealand with a one-off massive payday coming from playing a season in Japan.
The guidelines are that only players with 70 caps should be considered – although, like everything in NZR’s self-made rules, exceptions are always made.
Potentially Mo’unga could have negotiated to leave for only two years, but he told the Herald in December 2022: “The reason for the three years is rewarding the team I go to in Japan and making them understand I’m not just there to clip a ticket and be there for one year and leave again.
“I’m going to invest myself in a club and do my best to help them win a championship.
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“Three years gives me the best chance to get to know the players and have the influence I know I can.”
He was honest that the money – one of the biggest deals in world rugby – was a significant driver, but it is also understood that when he signed, he was content in his own mind to walk away from test rugby.
He felt that by the time he left, he would have played at two World Cups, won 50 caps and achieved all that he wanted.
He also had a fair idea that it was possible/probable that his Crusaders mentor Scott Robertson would likely be taking over as All Blacks coach after the World Cup, and yet he was still willing to believe he was finished.
He also told the Herald: “The All Blacks are brutal – one person goes and another steps up. I’m expecting that to happen; for guys to fill the role and immediately stamp their mark on it.”
But as is often the case when players leave, thinking they are done with the All Blacks, Mo’unga started to feel differently once he arrived in Japan this year.
He enjoyed an incredible season, steering Toshiba to the title, but looking back at New Zealand from afar, he felt that pang of wanting to be part of Robertson’s new team.
The way the World Cup had ended, a one-point defeat in a game the All Blacks feel they could have won, left Mo’unga with an increasing sense that he wasn’t quite done with international rugby after all.
Then in March, Robertson called in to Japan to catch up with Mo’unga, Ardie Savea, Shannon Frizell, and Beauden Barrett.
And whatever feelings Mo’unga was brewing about being open to coming home early intensified.
Mo’unga was tearing up Japan’s Top League, but Robertson felt his protegee could instead be lighting up the world stage – that at 29, his best years were ahead of him and not behind him.
There was strong mutual trust and respect between the two of them and whether it was explicitly said or implied, both men knew then that they wanted to explore how Mo’unga could be extricated from his Toshiba contract early and be brought back home to be installed as the All Blacks’ chief play-maker on the quest to win the 2027 World Cup.
A few months later, Mo’unga was back in New Zealand and said: “I signed for three years with Toshiba and my intentions were, ‘Yep, I’m going do the three years’.
“[But] obviously with Razor coming along and saying he’d love to have me back home, it’s just given me another opportunity to think about where I’m at with my footy.
“I obviously had a successful year in my first year and I’m trying to weigh up the options of what would be best for my family, but also what would be best for my footy as well.
“So, those conversations are still happening and to be honest there’ll be no rush before we all come to a decision.”
In Japan, respect is everything. It has to be earned, and it has to be shown, or trust breaks down and relationships fail.
And this is where the mission to bring Mo’unga home early smashed into a roadblock – NZR didn’t show Toshiba any respect in the way they went about trying to negotiate an early exit for the club’s star asset.
Toshiba had signed their man in good faith, and yet in May this year, NZR’s general manager of professional rugby, Chris Lendrum, appeared on NZME’s Rugby Direct podcast and talked about the respect he had for contracts while saying the national body was in a process to try to find a way to break the one Mo’unga had with Toshiba.
“The fundamental is a player is committed, wants to play for the All Blacks, wants to be back in New Zealand, otherwise we’re talking about picking All Blacks from offshore – which is not in the plans,” Lendrum said.
“We would love Richie home as soon as we can. There are contracts. We respect those. He’s employed by Toshiba currently, but we’ll be involved in conversations to see what’s possible.”
Toshiba were upset by the public exposure of discussions they felt should have been behind closed doors. That disrespected established business protocol and generated a lack of trust in NZR.
But Toshiba were more upset that they were being portrayed as the barrier preventing Mo’unga from playing for the All Blacks, when the problem was NZR’s own eligibility rules.
Toshiba are not only bound by World Rugby Regulation 9 to release players for international duty, they support the idea of Mo’unga reigniting his All Blacks career while he’s playing for them.
“I find it really weird that they say these are the rules that they govern themselves by,” says Blackadder. “No one else.
“I have no problem with the fact that they say these are the rules. But what I find interesting is that they are always talking about breaking their own rules.
“You have got All Blacks coaches and the contracting guy, if I use Richie as an example, talking about breaking contracts because they don’t fit their own eligibility criteria rules.
“Well, you make the rules, don’t moan about something which you decided. That is your job.
“These things should be discussed behind closed doors. And NZR needs to prioritise what is important to them, whether it is the domestic or international game – even sabbatical criteria.”
If NZR had conducted a respectful, private and considered negotiation with Toshiba, they probably would already have reached an agreement that Mo’unga will return next year.
But instead, they thrust Mo’unga under a spotlight he doesn’t want to be caught in the glare of and put Toshiba in a position where they feel they now have to be appeased and offered some kind of compensation or face-saving measure to be able to publicly sell an early departure of their star player.
There are now three options being considered to appease Toshiba.
The first is that Mo’unga plays in Japan next year, then re-signs with NZR and is eligible for the All Blacks through to the 2027 World Cup, but is released to play the third and final year of his Toshiba contract in 2026 under a retrospective sabbatical clause.
That would need to be approved by the in-coming NZR board and is considered a long shot likely to fail for fear it would create a precedent for an arrangement no-one would like to see repeated.
There is a possibility, one that NZR can’t control or negotiate, that Toshiba are able to independently agree to a deal with Damian McKenzie and bring him to the club in 2026 to replace Mo’unga.
But the most likely solution is that Mo’unga plays in Japan next year and then signs with NZR through to the next World Cup, in a deal that will see him become eligible for the All Blacks in July next year, with an agreement to fulfil the third year of his current Toshiba contract in 2028.
As Blackadder says, the covert manoeuvring to gain access to Mo’unga could all have been avoided by NZR simply amending its own eligibility rules.
Any organisation that finds itself conspiring to create loopholes to its own legislation to try to out-fox itself, surely must realise that’s farcical and that the legislation needs to be amended.
But to date, NZR has been steadfast in its opposition to making change, preferring instead to bend, twist, and break its own rules in a haphazard and unpredictable manner that is riddled with inconsistencies and conflicting rationales.
Jordie Barrett, for example, will be staying on in Europe to play for Irish giants Leinster on a six-month sabbatical in the world’s most confrontational and bruising competitions.
That’s on the back of New Zealand’s 10-month gruelling season and it’s hard to understand why an organisation that has been at the forefront of player welfare initiatives and is a world leader in looking after its athletes, has signed off on one of its best playing 18 months without a break, the last six of which will be physically brutal.
It’s hard to understand why Patrick Tuipulotu was afforded a sabbatical in 2022 – when he had amassed 38 tests – and yet longer servers such as Damian McKenzie and TJ Perenara weren’t and played in Japan in 2021 with no certainty that they would be coming home.
All this happens because the system isn’t governed by fit-for-purpose legislation that aligns with commercial and high-performance goals and is instead held hostage by the competency of the NZR board to evaluate on a case-by-case basis in a fair, logical and consistent manner.
And, of course, what has been independently determined is that NZR has not been operating with a competent board for many years now, and if they stepped back and looked at all the ad hoc, piecemeal decisions that have been made, they would surely agree none of it makes sense or could be considered a cohesive high-performance strategy.
One of the first priorities the new governance team will have to address when it is formed later next month, is whether it wants to continue to hold the somewhat hyperbolic and poorly reasoned party line that changing eligibility rules would be catastrophic.
Robertson, earlier this year, presented to the NZR board proposals which he felt would better reflect the changing trends in the global player markets and give the All Blacks a better chance of achieving the success rate that the entire commercial strategy is predicated on.
It is understood that his view is that the sabbatical clause afforded to senior players to enable them to play one club season offshore as part of a long-term deal, is going to become an increasingly ineffective retention tool and that the broad criteria on which it is awarded – having played 70 tests – is too prescriptive and rigid.
The reason he believes it will stop being effective is that Japanese clubs, where most senior players want to go for their one-season pay-day, are increasingly resistant to offering such short-term deals.
“The Japanese clubs are more interested in two or three years not one-year sabbatical deals,” says Sam Cane, who will next week return to Suntory on a three-year contract that will make him ineligible for the All Blacks.
“They will do it for the absolute superstars, but they would much rather have that longer contract so they can make a longer-term impact.”
This is why Robertson is pushing to amend the ‘sabbatical’ from one season to two, and for the high-performance unit to have the discretion to determine which players should be afforded the right to negotiate these contracts.
That would allow players to spend two club seasons in Japan and be eligible for the All Blacks during the period they are contracted to the offshore club.
It’s a proposal that if adopted, would likely enable Japan to continue to be an outlet for players to spend time while not being lost permanently to New Zealand, as it would give the clubs the longevity of commitment they are after – or at least an acceptable compromise -and the All Blacks access to key individuals.
Arguably, too, this system would give greater certainty to Super Rugby clubs around squad planning and marketing capability, as under the current system, they don’t always know in which season a player will invoke their sabbatical right and they don’t always have the guarantee they will be getting them back.
Using Ardie Savea as an example, he played for the Hurricanes in 2023, spent this year on sabbatical at Kobe, then extended his NZR contract through to 2027, and in the process, switched allegiance to Moana Pasifika, where he will play next year. He is likely to invoke another sabbatical clause in 2026 – he is an absolute superstar – and then go back to Moana in 2027.
A simplification of the system that says if a player signs a four-year deal with NZR, the Super Rugby club they choose to play for loses them for two years but gets them for two – guaranteed – has to be cleaner and easier to sell to fans.
The crunch point in all this is going to come if, and presumably when Mo’unga announces that he’s coming home next year.
But the net result of Mo’unga coming home could be that the All Blacks gain one first-five and lose two, as it will inevitably have an impact on the career-planning of both Beauden Barrett and McKenzie.
Barrett is contracted through to 2027, but has the capacity, due to his longevity and loyal service, to leave whenever he likes.
McKenzie is contracted until the end of next year and the unknown is whether either will be willing to stay in New Zealand until the next World Cup if they suspect that Mo’unga will take ownership of the No 10 jersey from next year.
Neither Barrett nor McKenzie would be petulant or precious to determine that playing a peripheral role in the All Blacks for the next three years is not a compelling enough proposition to keep them here.
But the All Blacks need at least one, if not both, to stay if they are to be a realistic proposition of winning the World Cup.
Robertson is thought to be running a tagline ‘four deep for a fourth win’, to illustrate his belief that he feels he needs four test quality players in each position if the All Blacks are to secure their fourth World Cup.
That’s particularly the case when it comes to No 10s, a position in which there is a notoriously high attrition rate, and one that has a huge influence on the ability of an international team to implement their desired gameplan.
The All Blacks absolutely need two, but ideally three, experienced, proven playmakers, something that is going to be hard to achieve if McKenzie and Barrett leave mid-cycle.
The problem could become disastrous if Stephen Perofeta reaches the end of his current contract in 2026 and decides to leave 12 months before the World Cup.
Fittingly, perhaps it was New Zealand’s vulnerability at No 10 that led to the creation of the sabbatical clause in 2008 when the first one was offered to keep Daniel Carter, and could it be that a worry around resources at first-five proves to be the catalyst to amend the rules again?
Could McKenzie be the first player offered a new two-year sabbatical to play in Japan in 2026 and 2027, but remain eligible for the All Blacks?
And would the NZR board be willing to make an exemption for Barrett and possibly Cane and say that because both have won more than 100 caps, they can remain eligible regardless of where they are playing between now and the World Cup?
Robertson’s argument to do so would inevitably be that he wouldn’t be compelled to select either of them but would like to have the option of carrying them in his wider squad for the experience and leadership qualities they bring and the confidence that comes from having players of their calibre able to cover injuries and drive standards.
If the new board remains a hard no on these issues, then it would be fascinating to hear how this aligns with the pursuit of a commercial strategy that only delivers the requisite revenue required to fund the entire game in New Zealand if the All Blacks can maintain their legacy as the world’s most successful team.
There are also significant financial gains to be made from winning the World Cup, as was shown after the back-to-back triumphs in 2011 and 2015 which paved the way for AIG to come on board and then re-sign as the front of jersey sponsor.
Ultimately, the best advice that the new NZR board is ever going to get comes from Perenara, who quite succinctly told the Herald in Japan: “I think New Zealand Rugby needs to make a decision on what is important to them and then make a decision on the eligibility rule and a threshold of players which aligns with that goal.”
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