Legendary All Black calls for ‘hybrid competition’ to make ‘missed a trick’ overseas Kiwis eligible for future Test selection and his criticism of ‘loose’ Jamison Gibson-Park
The All Blacks performing their haka versus England and, inset, Jamison Gibson-Park, the Kiwi who now players for Leinster and Ireland
Rugby World Cup winner John Kirwan has called for the creation of a new tournament that would allow New Zealand players to play for overseas clubs and still be eligible for All Black selection.
Unlike rival countries in the southern hemisphere, such as South Africa and Australia, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) currently doesn’t allow overseas-based players to be available for the All Blacks.
Test squad players must be attached to one of NZR’s five Super Rugby teams or else have a special pre-approved clause in their contract, such as the one allowing Ardie Savea to play for a Japanese club and still be Test-team eligible or the sabbatical arrangement that has facilitated Rieko Ioane’s short-term link-up with Irish side Leinster.
Kirwan has no issue with so many New Zealand players deciding to ply their trade overseas, as there isn’t enough money in the game locally to keep all their best home-grown stars.
“We can’t do it. It will kill our game…”
However, he would like to see a southern hemisphere tournament set up involving South African clubs, saying this could allow Kiwis to play for overseas clubs and still be eligible for the All Blacks.
Appearing on the latest episode of Rugby Rivals, ex-All Black Kirwan was quizzed by Victor Matfield, the ex-Springbok, on why it was okay for coaches like Tony Brown to return from overseas to coach the New Zealand Test side without having to serve a mandatory stint at a local Super Rugby club.
“They have signed to come back, they are the best available coaches, and they are coaches,” said Kirwan. “We are talking about a total of five coaches instead of 660 New Zealanders playing overseas. You have just got to watch any rugby game and any international now, it’s full of New Zealanders and South African players.
“We can’t do it. It will kill our game,” he said about the costs of trying to keep all Kiwi players within the New Zealand system. “We need a hybrid competition like a European Cup with the South African sides back in, and then we should pick players that are playing within that competition.
“So, if we have a player who goes and plays with the Bulls in South Africa and he is playing against New Zealand clubs, we should pick him. We have got to control our destiny a wee bit.
“At the moment, with players going to France and Japan and stuff, we’re not controlling our destiny. So that’s our problem. We can’t afford to keep our players; that’s the problem because we have got such a small economy.”
Kirwan agreed with Matfield that the current NZR situation, which is very different from how SA Rugby happily allows South Africans to play overseas and still be eligible for Test selection, isn’t ideal as several talents slip through the net.
“We miss a trick because we are too All Black focused,” he said. “We try and retain the All Blacks, and we don’t retain some of our best Super Rugby players that are on the fringe of the All Blacks and are maturing.
“I always smile when I see Jamison Gibson-Park because I coached him at the Blues. Was he the complete player? No. Was he a bit loose? He reminded me of a young surfy dude, actually. Yeah, he was loose. Did he train as hard as he should? Probably not. Did he turn up early enough? Probably not.
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“But he went to Ireland and matured, and he is the world’s best player and has been one of the world’s best half-backs for the last five or six years. So, some guys mature, but someone like Harry Plummer, it took him a couple of years to mature.
“He matured into playing Super Rugby, but they don’t get those top contracts. Like, he probably would have only been on NZ$150,000 or $160,000 in Super Rugby and he is offered sort of €350K from Clermont, so that’s part of our problem. We have got to start targeting some of these franchise guys and keep them because they do mature later.”
The soon-to-be 28-year-old Plummer has just finished his first season in France with Clermont at the Top 14’s top points scorer for 2025/26, signing off with the match-winning drop goal on Saturday that prevented Champions Cup champions Bordeaux from reaching the play-offs.
However, this rich form won’t bring Plummer into Dave Rennie’s All Black selection deliberations as playing for a French club makes him ineligible. “We are not going to pick him from overseas because we didn’t see him as a (local) contract guy, so that is why we couldn’t keep him,” continued Kirwan.
“What happens is they look at the All Black contacts and they go, ‘Who can we keep, who do we have to let go’, and Plummer is one of those. There is 20 players leaving Super Rugby this year. We don’t want to lose these players, but we don’t have enough money and that’s the problem.
“So someone like Plummer who probably should have been on an All Black contract because he is on the fringe and getting better, but they can’t afford to keep them because it’s just like okay we’d love to but we can’t.”
