Sir Graham Henry: All Blacks have the depth but ‘weak’ Super Rugby competition is the danger for ‘isolated’ New Zealand
Hurricanes taking on Blues in Super Rugby Pacific and new All Blacks head coach Dave Rennie.
Legendary All Blacks boss Sir Graham Henry insists that Dave Rennie has plenty of quality to work with but is worried what a “weak” Super Rugby means for the future of the game in New Zealand.
Despite the change in head coach, with Rennie replacing the sacked Scott Robertson, they do remain one of the best teams in the sport.
They reside in second place in the World Rugby rankings and defeated the number one Springboks at Eden Park last year.
However, the All Blacks are certainly not as dominant as they once were, a decline which began towards the end of Sir Steve Hansen’s reign.
Challenge for the 2027 World Cup
Rennie has been tasked with making them challengers for the Rugby World Cup in 2027, something Henry believes is possible, but his concern lies with what the sport will look like for New Zealand in a few years from now.
Interest in Super Rugby has waned, while the 79-year-old reckons that the quality has decreased from the halcyon days in the 2000s and early 2010s.
“I think we’ve got great depth. I’m amazed at the number of players Dave Rennie is going to select from. I’d say we’ve got more depth now than we’ve had for a long time,” he told the DSPN podcast with Martin Devlin.
“I don’t think the competition is sufficiently strong enough, that’s the concern. Can we step up from Super Rugby to Test match rugby?
“I think Super Rugby needs to be looked at very seriously to see how we can improve that because I don’t think it’s a foundation for producing a world-class international team.
“Hopefully I’m wrong on that because I think we’ve got depth, but I don’t like the competition. I think the competition is weak.”
World Rugby’s ‘isolation policy’
Since 2020, Super Rugby has been without the South African teams but Henry doesn’t think “that’s the issue”, instead looking at New Zealand’s “isolation” and putting some of the blame on World Rugby.
“I think there is an isolation policy by World Rugby for New Zealand Rugby,” he added.
“We’re isolated geographically anyway, and we’re getting isolated rugby-wise, so rugby played below international level we’ve got very little international exposure.
“We play Australia, who are reasonably weak to be fair, and so we’re not getting the competition that we require to be the best in the world.
“It may happen, hopefully it does, but that competition doesn’t give me confidence that we’re going to produce world-class players from that competition.”
