Fitzpatrick joins Kiwi row

ALL BLACK legend Sean Fitzpatrick has defended the Irish provinces’ right to sign Kiwi talent in the face of stinging criticism from New Zealand rugby’s top official, but has questioned whether such a policy is in the best interests of the game here.

It was New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive Steve Tew who launched a blistering attack on the IRFU yesterday when bemoaning the loss of Crusaders fly-half Matt Berquist to Leinster and a catalogue of other potential south-north defections.

Ulster are said to have offered €1million to lure All Black prop John Afoa and Blues centre Jared Payne to Ravenhill. Another Test centre, Cory Jane, is being linked with a move to Belfast while Munster have been mentioned as a possible destination for Blues midfielder Benson Stanley.

“The disappointing thing is that if the numbers we are led to believe that have been put on the table by Ulster, and therefore the Irish Rugby Union, are accurate, it is a shame,” Tew told the New Zealand Herald.

“The Irish are certainly one union we have talked to previously about the way the French system corrupts the market. Now we find in our situation the Irish are out-pricing us. Our sense of it is that the international market is not as strong as it was.

“That’s why (Ulster’s recruitment) is a wee bit annoying. We have been talking with the Irish and when they were out here in June last year, it was, ‘woe is me because the French are buggering up Irish rugby’.”

Fitzpatrick, who lives in England and commentates on both northern and southern hemisphere rugby and was in Dublin yesterday to help promote the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, is well positioned to weigh up both sides of that argument.

“In terms of (New Zealand) competing on the world stage it is always going to be difficult because we can’t afford to pay the players what they get paid in Europe. There are a few recent signings who will probably be earning twice what they are in New Zealand. It is just what the market is demanding and if you want to pay that silly sort of money, whether it is benefiting Irish rugby I would beg to differ.”

He added: “What you have got to ask yourself, and what the IRFU have got to ask themselves, is, ‘is it good for our game?’ New Zealand have been quite strong in saying, ‘we are not going to let offshore players play (for the All Blacks)’.

“We have made big sacrifices in the past. Carl Hayman is the perfect example of them saying they are going to stick to their guns and we will take some pain initially but the long-term is more important.”

The recruitment of foreign players has always been, and will always be, a sticky subject and for the IRFU’s Player Advisory Group — which decides who can and who can’t be signed. For every Felipe Contepomi there seems to have been an Eddie Hekenui but there is an argument that players like the Argentinian out-half, Doug Howlett and Johann Muller have helped raise the bar for locally-trained youngsters.

Here, again, Fitzpatrick has a different take.

“I would have thought that you had enough experience and big-time players in Ireland yourself without having to bring in other players but, hey, we are in a business now where winning is important and sponsors want teams that are winning.”

It isn’t just players who are flooding Europe. Kiwi coaches are earning a crust at all levels of the game here too, one of them being Joe Schmidt, whose Leinster team Fitzpatrick tipped to win the Heineken Cup months ago.

Fitzpatrick has been impressed with Schmidt and suggested the former school headmaster could well have a big future ahead of him in his native country, even if he is unlikely to be in the frame to succeed Graham Henry after this year’s World Cup.

“I’m sure the NZRU will be looking at him pretty closely in terms of his development and whether there is a path back to New Zealand for him I don’t know,” said Fitzpatrick.