All Blacks great urges World Rugby to ‘regulate’ European powerhouses

Former All Blacks fly-half Andrew Mehrtens feels the implementation of a global season will be vital for New Zealand going forward.

His comments come in the wake of Beauden Barrett’s decision to sign a new deal with New Zealand Rugby.

Barrett has decided to return to New Zealand and re-commit to the All Blacks after his stint in Japan next year, despite the lure of overseas money, which has seen the likes of Richie Mo’unga and Aaron Smith depart long-term.

National team captain Sam Cane, who has taken a sabbatical in Japan, recently opened a debate on the governing body’s overseas policy and questioned whether it should be reviewed.

Rejected

Chief executive Mark Robinson has since rejected those calls and insists that they will keep their current eligibility laws in place.

Mehrtens ultimately believes that if they are to prevent a player drain in the future then World Rugby needs to properly organise a global calendar, which he hopes would keep the European clubs in check.

“The ideal situation for New Zealand is for World Rugby to get in and structure this global season. That’s a really tough ask because they’re up against the private owners of clubs over there in Europe paying the bulk of salaries to players,” he told The Platform.

“They want their pound of flesh. World Rugby coming in and creating a global season is not as easy as it sounds but, once that does happen and once there’s a little bit more control around salary caps and things like that, we don’t have to compete financially.

“If we end up competing financially at the moment with France or England, we lose. As soon as there’s a point we don’t have to compete financially, and there’s a little more regulation over players and transferability, and sharing the proceeds globally, we won’t be behind the eight ball as much.

“When that happens is absolutely another matter.”

Mehrtens is comfortable with the All Blacks’ current situation, with their talented young players generally not heading overseas at the earliest opportunity, but that could change going forward.

Super Rugby issues

The 50-year-old insists that they need to sort out Super Rugby and get to a point where future and current internationals are playing for franchises outside of New Zealand.

“We don’t feel weak when we lose players at the moment, despite the fact that Barrett and Mo’unga are going over to play in Japan,” he added.

“There will come a time where we’ll feel, ‘okay, if there’s too much of an exodus, we do actually feel weak,’ but at the moment I don’t feel we do.

“Ultimately, we do need to look at considering players that are playing in our competition on our side of the world.

“I’ve been saying for a few years that I would love to see players from New Zealand playing in Super Rugby, but for other teams, whether it be in Australia, Singapore, Japan or whatever, and still being eligible for the All Blacks.

“It also takes a significant whack off the New Zealand Rugby payroll, but we’re not quite at that point yet because the competition isn’t strong enough outside of New Zealand.”

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