The recent appointments of Leon MacDonald and Tom Coventry to join Tana Umaga's coaching group have been widely considered positive steps for the franchise, but other issues remain, including the thorny one of retention and development of talent in the region.
Talent development isn't really a problem these days. But retention is. The Blues franchise encompasses a population of over 1.5 million people and has 38 regular contracts available (both full and development, and excluding short-term). That's the exact same number of squad places as the Highlanders and their population of 200,000. So of course there's going to be an overflow of talent. It's simple, and very basic, math. They cannot retain everyone on those numbers.
To provide an example -- and IIRC -- the Blues at one point had to pick one of Akira Ioane (23), Taleni Seu (24) and Mitch Kaprik (23) to compliment the already signed Blake Gibson (23). In the end they chose Ioane, and the other two went to the Chiefs. Indeed, I'm pretty sure Rennie even said they were always going to sign whichever two missed out, regardless of exactly who they were. So off they go to Hamilton and they perform well in Super Rugby. Just as the Auckland/Blues academy said they would. Seu in particular. Then along comes the media with their predictable inane prattle of "
oh meh gorsh, herez more guys frm Aukx who wst eva noticed by teh Bluz jeeez they are like so totes useles rite? lel". Bitch. They literally had no space on their roster despite wanting to retain all of them. Their only other option would've been to offer Seu and Kaprick development contracts. But why would they agree to that when they can just drive 90 mins down SH1 to the Tron and get full contracts there? Thus, even though they wanted to retain all of these players they had identified and developed, the limitations on squad size meant they couldn't.
That's not to say their development systems are perfect though. No system is. FFS the Crusaders academy is responsible for perhaps the single greatest talent ID balls up in rugby history by letting Retallick go, but that never comes up. Andrew Makalio would be the best example of a guy who was completely overlooked by Auckland/the Blues. But he came through at a time when the system was being transitioned from old to new, and was playing 1st XV for Onehunga High School. So was pretty much f*cked from the start on that basis alone.
If NZR really wanted to aid the Blues in player retention they'd expand the number of places available and/or the contract values for their development players. But this isn't the Crusaders, so hoarding away talent like that (cf. their four five eighths in one backline) isn't allowed. Instead the Blues will just have to continue gambling on 18-20 year old's, hope for the best and endure the inevitable media wankery that will slither forth whenever a former Auckland player goes well elsewhere, even though these players are likely in the minority.
I don't know diddly squat about governance though.
Does NZ rugby really need to import coaches?
