Super Rugby salary cap could lead mid-tier stars to quit for Japan riches - Gregor Paul

There has been a steady flow of announcements this year about elite New Zealand talent heading to overseas clubs after Super Rugby finishes.

This is, seemingly, business as usual, because New Zealand – with just 190 full-time professional contracts to offer – is an export market.

Super Rugby, probably more than most established professional competitions, experiences a comparatively high turnover of personnel.

The system needs movement to open spaces for the emerging generation and talent typically ebbs and flows without raising any concerns.

But those who are running Super Rugby clubs and the private entities that have invested are starting to feel that the number of players leaving this year is higher than anticipated.

The measurement here is not necessarily going to be quantitative. The total number of departures may not be numerically higher than the 37 players who left the competition at the end of last year.

It’s the qualitative lens through which the problem can be seen, because what New Zealand is going to lose is a concerningly high volume of players its clubs don’t want to go.

Too many players whose experience and ability meet at the apex of each are heading offshore – men who haven’t cracked the international game, but who serve as the glue to hold Super Rugby sides together.

Even allowing for the fact that pre-World Cup years historically see a bump in departures as good players take offshore offers knowing that next year, clubs around the world will exclusively be going after great players, the numbers leaving still feel high.

The two hardest-hit franchises are the Blues and Hurricanes – with the former having already announced that Dalton Papali’i, Hoskins Sotutu and AJ Lam are off, while the Hurricanes know they are losing Isaia Walker-Leawere, Fehi Fineanganofo and Pouri Rakete-Stones.

These are just the deals that have been announced, though, and both teams are braced for more losses.

They are feeling the double whammy of high-volume, high-quality departures, while the other three foundation Super Rugby sides are affected by just the latter.

The Chiefs are saying goodbye to Etenai Nanai-Seturo, while the Crusaders are losing Braydon Ennor and Dallas McLeod.

These are the sorts of players that give Super Rugby its edge. They are seasoned professionals who drive up training standards and play to a high level every week.

Championship teams are built on the likes of Ennor, Papali’i and Lam more than they are the likes of Beauden Barrett, Will Jordan and Damian McKenzie.

This mid-tier of talent is not subject to All Blacks-required rest-and-rotation policies, they don’t start Super Rugby late, and they are not afforded sabbaticals.

The Hurricanes are playing as well as they are partly because the world-class Cam Roigard and Jordie Barrett are in peak form, but more because they have a squad loaded with experience.

They have a pool of solid operators who have 50-60 Super Rugby caps – players such as Walker, Devon Flanders, Brayden Lose, Xavier Numia, Bailyn Sullivan and Josh Moorby – who give their match-day 23 a depth of quality that other teams can’t match.

And the crux of the issue behind the heavy offshore traffic flow is that Super Rugby’s high-value players are not New Zealand Rugby’s (NZR) high-value players – but the latter has control of all the money and decision-making about contracts.

NZR is primarily focused on building successful teams in black, and its contracting structure and pay scales reflect that.

NZR runs a well-oiled process of retaining the players it feels the All Blacks will need, but the unacknowledged consequence of its success is the impact this has on Super Rugby.

Enough to go around

The age-old argument is that there is a limited pool of money and once the elite talent has been paid, there simply isn’t enough to keep all the next tier of players.

And in the wake of Moana Pasifika’s financial plight, such arguments about the compromised state of the game’s economic health are reinforced.

But the more accurate assessment – certainly it’s what the Super Rugby teams believe – is that New Zealand doesn’t necessarily have a wealth problem (although everyone would like to have more money), but a distribution of wealth problem.

Super Rugby sides each have a nominal $4.5 million salary cap to contract 38 players, and the maximum they can pay any individual is $195,000. It’s nominal because NZR pays the wages of every Super Rugby player.

NZR has the budget to top up the salaries of around 30-40 players – but it decides who gets additional cash, and it’s always based on who it perceives brings the most value to the All Blacks.

The structure has led to massive pay inequity, with leading All Blacks earning around $1m a year, while solid Super Rugby players are being paid anything from $130,000 to $190,000.

There are loyalty payments ($5000 to $50,000 per year, depending on how long someone has played in Super Rugby) that sit outside the salary cap, and NPC contracts to factor in – which range from $21,000 to $55,000.

And under the just-agreed collective agreement, there is a $750,000 fund available to top up payments of key Super Rugby talent.

All up, high-value Super Rugby players can take home a total pay package of between $180,000 and $350,000, but there remains a big gap between what they earn in comparison with their All Blacks peers.

And in the context of the global market, New Zealand’s cohort of mid-tier talent is relatively easy to lure offshore, because Japanese (and some European) clubs are believed to be offering them anything from $400,000 to $800,000.

To some extent it’s true that the exodus is driven by the economic imbalance within global markets, and that New Zealand, with a deep talent pool but comparatively shallow pockets, is not going to be able to compete at scale with aggressive Japanese clubs that can to offer a seasoned Super Rugby campaigner almost double his salary.

But the clubs do feel that if they had more autonomy over their finances – greater ability to retain players important to their aspirations – then they could stem the exodus to some extent.

They also feel that being able to keep seasoned professionals in the competition for longer fits with the high-performance goal of strengthening the All Blacks.

A tougher, more rigorous Super Rugby featuring more experienced players is going to better prepare those picked to represent the national team.

Ultimately, the teams believe that if the money flow is altered, the departing traffic flow could be too.