Murray Mexted claims Super Rugby ‘too easy’ with some All Blacks ‘absolutely out of their depth’ against the Springboks
All Blacks performing the haka and New Zealand great Murray Mexted.
All Blacks great Murray Mexted has criticised the quality of Super Rugby, claiming that some of the players who went to South Africa were not up to Test standard.
New Zealand won the first five games of their tour, defeating all four franchises and triumphing in the opening international against the Springboks at Ellis Park, but then succumbed to three successive losses to Rassie Erasmus’ men.
They were competitive in all of those matches but ultimately the back-to-back world champions proved too strong for the All Blacks in the fundamentals, and Mexted felt it highlighted the jump up in quality from Super Rugby to the highest level.
‘The gap is too big’
“It appears to me that the difference between Super Rugby and Test match rugby against the Springboks in South Africa is significant,” he told the DSPN Rugby podcast with Martin Devlin.
“The level of Super Rugby has dropped considerably since the omission of the South African teams. It’s too easy, the level is too easy. There are people that stand out at Super Rugby level that are completely inconspicuous when it comes to the next level.
“Everybody learnt that. Dave Rennie learnt that. Dave Rennie’s got great judgement, but he learnt that too; there are different levels between Super Rugby [and Test rugby].
“We have to think very carefully about that in New Zealand and we can’t carry on at the level we are because the gap is too big.”
Super Rugby was once the standard-bearer in club rugby around the world but it has been a very different story over the past few years, particularly with South Africa exiting the competition in 2020.
Devlin suggested that they should maybe follow the Springboks example by allowing their best players to feature in the biggest leagues in Europe, but Mexted disagreed with that view. “I haven’t [changed my position] to be honest,” he said.
“You’ve got to keep the All Blacks close and playing in a really strong brand of rugby, otherwise there’s no grounds for selection. You can’t make any comparison between a guy playing in New Zealand or a guy playing in England or Japan or wherever he is.”
Sabbaticals and overseas policy
Mexted is a fan of the sabbatical, however, which is often written in top All Blacks’ contracts. It allows them to miss Super Rugby for a season and either sign a short-term contract abroad or take a break from rugby altogether.
Jordie Barrett and Rieko Ioane both agreed a six-month stay at Leinster in Ireland but most opt to head to Japan before heading back to New Zealand ahead of the All Blacks’ Test season.
“I’m an absolute believer in the sabbatical, that is a fantastic initiative. It gives an opportunity for some of our great players who have been in the All Black team for a long time to have an actual sabbatical in rugby terms,” the former New Zealand number eight said.
“They can improve their freshness, their fitness levels and play a lighter form of the game because it’s quite different playing club rugby in Japan to playing Test match rugby in Johannesburg.”
Instead of changing the overseas policy, Mexted believes that it is about improving the standard of rugby domestically in order to create a competition which is closer in standard to Test rugby. “I’m no different, we’ve got to keep the players close and we’ve got to get the players in a competition that’s as high as possible,” he said.
“Super Rugby isn’t that competition any longer and we have to look at the composition of those teams. There might only be half the number of teams in the Super Rugby competition that are good enough, the other half might not be good enough. At the moment, it’s clear when you compare Super Rugby to Test match rugby, it’s a big jump and some people can’t make it.
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“In New Zealand, we’ve got to look at our own game and say: ‘Do we want the All Black team to be ranked one or two in the world or not?’ If we do want to retain that, we have to make sure our domestic competition is extremely strong and there’s been a lack of emphasis on that and we need to concentrate big time on it now.”
The 73-year-old added: “Our trip to South Africa exposed that – the level that we’re playing isn’t good enough. You need a very astute selector to say: ‘That guy is doing it at Super Rugby level but I know he’s not going to do it when he plays the Springboks in South Africa’.
“That’s what I could see. You could see players that were absolutely out of their depth, that we weren’t good enough in certain areas. I hate saying that, I hate saying that the All Black team wasn’t good enough in certain areas.”
READ MORE: Dan Biggar: ‘I just can’t see how you can get a foothold against the Springboks’
