Keiran Williams brace helps Ospreys claim derby spoils against struggling Scarlets

He can do that better in the north than he can down south.

The only question for me is how long the NZRFU will keep the current rules around only selecting NZ-based players. It is going to happen, but it's just when.

Yep and you can sub in 'Aussie' for NZRFU and it means the same.The problem with bringing players like Mo'unga back now is that they have had a taste of life outside NZ and will not easily slip back into 'underpaid' status!

Thanks again for a well-argued post.

As it stands, Europe is effectively stripping NZ and Oz of much of their mid-tier talent.

Just as Banking and legal talent moves from the South to the North due to better wages and job opportunities, rugby is the same.

For someone like James Ramm and, unless he considers that he has a long Wallaby career in front of him (and thus income generated similar to what he could earn playing in Europe), it's a no-brainer.

The challenge for the Sth Unions is that their ability to match salaries for their mid-tier players is getting increasingly pressured.

Currently, the Press in NZ is stating that Sky TV is looking to drop a significant amount of money that it pays NZRF for the TV rights. And given that Rugby is no different to any other business, which is when you experience a loss of income, you look at what expenses you can cut - and obviously, the most significant cost to NZ rugby is player salaries - it's a no brainer that more players will depart overseas.

Given these business realities, I think NZRFU and RA will be dragged kicking and screaming to be forced to change selection policies to include more off-shore players (in Oz example) and introduce selecting players from off-shore(NZ example).

As an example of an inability or unwillingness to match wages, we have to look at the NZRFU's recent attempt to bring Richie Mo'unga back to NZ. This attempt appears to have failed because the NZRFU was unable or unwilling to match the wages he was receiving in Japan (2 million pa).

The only question for me is how long the NZRFU will keep the current rules around only selecting NZ-based players. It is going to happen, but it's just when.

How long will they and the NZ Public be prepared to lose games they should or could be winning - for instance, the two games vs Boks last year, where we led till the last 10/15 minutes but lost the game due to our bench being very poor and the Boks bench been strong?

Imagine if we had a bench with A Smith, B Rettalick, R Mo'unga, and S Frizzell (all of whom indicated they would be available for selection if the NZRFU selection rules changed). Would those tests have been lost? Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.

It is pretty clear how Robertson is attempting to get NZRFU to allow the selection of off-shore players, that he understands that if you want to have a winning team, you need to be able to select the best players, wherever they are based.

I actually disagree with this. First, while France have a complete dearth of highly experienced veterans, their median number of caps isn't that much lower than most other sides, and this year is higher than Wales, and possibly equal to England. To the extent though that France are an inexperienced side, that does appear to have hurt them though. Given their incredible depth, and the incredible talent of so many of their players, they actually haven't achieved as much in the Galthié era as they might have hoped. After the 2023 RWC Galthié himself seemed to recognise that this was a result of inexperience, and spoke about wanting to emulate south africa in building an experienced squad for 2027. So its not that France don't need to play by the same rules as other sides, but that they have had other priorities but are now transitioning towards a more standard model for squad building.

Certain zones of the field or situations clearly require a different team and player style approach as we all know, so its not as if subtleties in 10 playing style are absent anyway. The 9, 12 and 15 are a big part of this, so not just a Smith issue. Kick, pass, run decision making strengths amongst those 4 positions spreads the load and helps the team to be adaptable. Do the styles and capabilities of those players match?

Smith has the talent and the skills - do his team mates and the coaches?