I feel in a good position to comment on the latest New Zealand rugby import to play for one of the Home Nations. The next addition is Ricky Flutey, due to play for England against the Pacific Islanders this weekend.
I think it is sad that of all the players available, the size of the playing population, and the amount of money in the game, that it is not possible for England to develop its own talent. As well as taking the easy option and clubs employing foreign talent, the national set up laps them up when they have lived in England long enough, and are willing to say how proud they are to wear the red rose.
Possibly more importantly, I think it says alot about the talent and how it is being developed in England, and presumably in Wales and Scotland. I have seen Flutey play on many occasions for the Hurricanes in the Super 12, and Wellington in the provincial competition, and I am sure that he was never in the frame to play for the All Blacks. He was a talented player who never fulfilled his early potential, and to my untrained, though not ignorant eyes, was never good enough to make it. But now he has-but in a white shirt.
Now it may be he is late developer, which does happen, but less so to backs than forwards I would say. It may be a change in environment as freed him from the pressure of playing in the glass bowl of NZ, and so has bloomed, or maybe the coaching is better at London Irish and Wasps than in Welllington. That is possible, and I am no fan of Colin Cooper, the Hurrianes coach.
But is seems to me more a demonsration of the problems of English rugby, than its superiority. If he plays against the All Blacks, I do not think they will be quaking.
I do hope this means the “All Blacks steal all the Pacific talent” bullshit will quietly go away with platefuls of humble pie.
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The passage of time in Wellington and elsewhere
