Some recent reports suggest that New Zealand rugby stars Daniel Carter and Nick Evans are looking very likely to head overseas at the end of this year. Naturally this has inspired some calls for overseas-based players to be banned from All Blacks selection.

I don’t think this is the right approach for a couple of reasons. For starters, this already occurs naturally. By playing overseas at a level that isn’t up to the standard of the Super 14, players are very likely to lose their All Black quality without the need for any rules or restrictions.

Secondly - and this is more wishful thinking than anything else - it’d be nice if we could retain our elite athletes with incentives to stay instead of threatening them with bans. I don’t pretend to have any idea how to accomplish this… and apparently nor does the NZRU.