New Zealand can't keep losing first fives like Harry Plummer

It is a shame that Harry Plummer is lost to France.

Nice for him, obviously, that the Blues and All Blacks first five-eighth is destined for Clermont Auvergne.

It’s just that New Zealand isn’t in a position to continue losing playmakers as accomplished as Plummer.

Beauden Barrett and Damian McKenzie won’t be around forever. In fact, you would assume this is the last Rugby World Cup cycle for both of them.

In the meantime, neither appears in any danger of losing their spots in the All Blacks’ best 23.

Maybe Plummer will be back, post the 2027 tournament. He’ll be 30 by then and a far more worldly player.

I’m not so much worried about him personally, as a landscape that already requires a franchise as successful at talent identification and development as the Crusaders, to have to go and sign a has-been like James O’Connor to play first five-eighth.

With no Richie Mo’unga or Fergus Burke, the cupboard in Christchurch is bare.

Barrett, particularly, and McKenzie are no strangers to sabbaticals in Japan. McKenzie has also been linked to a short-term deal in France.

Every time a player of that ilk laces their boots up elsewhere, the quality of our rugby in New Zealand suffers immeasurably.

I always go back to Ngani Laumape and his wasted first season at the Hurricanes.

He’d come from the New Zealand Warriors where, as the story told to me goes, he recognised that the star players were often the worst trainers.

It came as a shock to him, therefore, to discover the most professional players and hardest workers at the Hurricanes were their All Blacks.

And so he watched Barrett and TJ Perenara, Victor Vito and Dane Coles with awe. Even Brad Shields, who wasn’t a player of that stature but whose recovery work and preparation was also at an elite level.

Laumape eventually concluded that if he had any hope of succeeding in rugby, he had to adopt the same habits.

Never mind the drop in the quality of Super Rugby when our best players aren’t participating, the standards being set behind closed doors greatly diminish as well.

Plummer is typical of many players who come into the All Blacks.

Yes, there are always exceptions, as Wallace Sititi is showing, but a number of players, particularly those in playmaking roles, aren’t actually trusted to play. They have to receive an All Blacks education first.

I remember an All Blacks head coach complaining to me about the tutelage a certain player was getting at their franchise.

“Once we get him into our environment, we’ll sort all that out,’’ the coach said.

Think of all the work that’s being put into Plummer at the moment. His Blues teammate Stephen Perofeta would be similar.

They are good Super Rugby players, but not really ready to be risked by the All Blacks in a game of substance.

New Zealand, as I said, isn’t so blessed with playmakers that we can kiss goodbye to another one.

We’re not in a position to keep schooling teenagers in the ways of Super Rugby for five or six years, before the best ones go on to hold tackle bags at All Blacks training for a further season or two.

I don’t know how good Plummer actually is because the people who coach him every day don’t believe he’s ready to be a test footballer. This after 75 games at Super level.

Maybe he recognises he’s not ready either. Maybe he sees France as a finishing school.

Equally, Plummer might feel the All Blacks are a closed shop that he’s better to get out of.

The point is, it’s a sad day when a player that so much has been invested in – and who has spent so long on the national pathway to becoming an All Black – takes that experience and knowledge and applies it elsewhere.

I wish him all the best, but Super and All Blacks rugby will be poorer for his absence.