When you've got it flaunt it. New Zealand, Covid-free and trucking along very nicely thank you, are in the happy position of not only being able to stage a top class domestic competition this summer, they can also fill their stadia with paying fans to ease the cash flow situation.
The NZRU understandably intend to take full advantage which is why on August 29 they are hoping for a capacity 48,000 at Eden Park for a revival of the North v South fixture that used to be the showpiece occasion to their domestic season for many decades.
The game has been played only twice since 1986. Once in 1995 to get players match fit ahead of the World Cup in South Africa and then a one- off in 2012 down in Dunedin when it helped raise funds for the beleaguered Otago Union who were encountering financial problems… largely on account of building the innovative indoor Forsyth Barr Stadium!
Given the strong rivalry between the North Island and South Island they were often no holds barred encounters and there is every indication this could be a full-on affair rather than an NBA all-star type encounter. New Zealand rugby doesn't really do exhibition games.
Being rugby, of course, an argument/debate has already kicked off. The old tradition is that you qualified for your team by virtue of where you were born and/or played your high school rugby, ie where you were brought up and learned the game and where your cultural roots lay.
That was sometimes extended to which university you then attended and furthered your rugby career, but now the reality of professional rugby sees players moving between the islands from an early age.
Newly-appointed All Blacks coach Ian Foster says he wants the teams selected purely by where somebody now plays, ie if you play for the Blues, Chiefs or Hurricanes you are North Island while for the South it is the Crusaders and Highlanders that will make the side up. Some want that further refined to where you first played professionally.
If this view prevails we could see proud southerners Damian Mackenzie and Anton Lienert-Brown represent the North on account of playing for Waikato, while the New Plymouth-born Barrett brothers will be split up. Beauden moved to the Blues this season and will play for the North while Scott is down at the Crusaders and will line up for the South. Jordie played professionally for the Crusaders before he joined the Hurricanes so perhaps he is eligible for both?
“Everyone in 2020 should treat it as a special one-off,” says Foster. “I'd love to be able to say it's going to be in there every year but the reality is once the global season gets finalised, and whatever the new normal looks like, we know there's not going to be an abundance of time to put a whole lot of different things in.
“This year is a unique chance for us to celebrate an old game with a bit of bite to it around an opportunity for All Blacks and we'll then sit back and see. Once you put playoffs back for Super Rugby and add in all the Test matches we normally have there's a very small window.”
The match is no stranger to controversy, indeed it played a significant if indirect part in the genesis of the All Blacks. Back in 1902 and 1903, the South comfortably won the fixture and, fielding an understrength team, drew the 1904 game.
So when they travelled to Wellington for the 1905 match, which served as a final trial for the inaugural tour of Britain and France, they were very confident. Sixteen of New Zealand's 27-strong tour party – mainly southern islanders – had already been pre-selected for the trip to Europe.
There they met a North side skippered by Dave Gallaher, who had come out of retirement, and the North duly thrashed the South 28-0. Gallaher was appointed tour captain to the dismay of some of the southern contingent who staged a mutiny on the boat to Britain. Gallaher could only quell this insubordination by facing the mutineers down and demanding an open vote among the squad which he narrowly won.
Having got his mandate he then beasted the entire squad at training for the month that remained of the voyage with the result that they arrived in Britain very fit as well as angry. The rest is history.
