Are South Africa Missing out on players with huge potential ?

[Leonormous Boozer]

I along with many others would be totally against using the granny rule. Apart from playing for two country's the system is fine. Teams who rely on project players are generally ****e and are punished for not trusting their own. (Scotty's Scotland born XV is better than what they usually throw out) Sport and nationality are strange, you can be the staunchest of followers for a nation with what some people would find a very loose link.

In county football over here for example, where we associate with the county we are from very strongly, I support Dublin and Fermanagh with the latter shading it if the unlikely scenario of them meeting came about. I was born and bred in Dublin but along with my siblings I'm the only one in the family to have been born and bred here, my granny was from Fermanagh, my father always supported Fermanagh and he got me into the sport so now I do as well. Nationality is not purely a question of where you were born and where your parents were born, it's a lot more complicated for some people and can't be treated like citizenship when dealing with sport.

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

I along with many others would be totally against using the granny rule. Apart from playing for two country's the system is fine. Teams who rely on project players are generally ****e and are punished for not trusting their own. (Scotty's Scotland born XV is better than what they usually throw out) Sport and nationality are strange, you can be the staunchest of followers for a nation with what some people would find a very loose link.

In county football over here for example, where we associate with the county we are from very strongly, I support Dublin and Fermanagh with the latter shading it if the unlikely scenario of them meeting came about. I was born and bred in Dublin but along with my siblings I'm the only one in the family to have been born and bred here, my granny was from Fermanagh, my father always supported Fermanagh and he got me into the sport so now I do as well. Nationality is not purely a question of where you were born and where your parents were born, it's a lot more complicated for some people and can't be treated like citizenship when dealing with sport.

I'm with you on both accounts: sport and fan bases are complex and the granny rule is somewhat arbitrary especially considering in the current geo-social context; my best friend is South African but his father has German passport and he is close to getting one as well. He married a Portuguese girl he met studying French in Perpignan and they will expect their first child in Japan where both are employed. They have long term plans of settling in France though so it could be that their children will have some ridiculous options RWT where they would play their rugby not that I he is big rugby fan though- just an example.

On support in SA provincialism is alive and well mainly because for a long while during isolation the Curry Cup was the pinnacle of rugby for SA and not the test team. You'll still find some fans who can't fully accept the test team because of a lack of players from his province. This is slowly disappearing with the modern game where a player playing for only one team his entire carreer is becoming the exception and where the Curry Cup is slowly but surely becoming little more than a 'development' competition. What I am getting at is I see myself as a WP/Stormers supporter first and foremost and hold a CC or SR ***le over a RWC win for the Bokke. My dad is the same with the Bulls. We didn't really watch rugby when I was young and we moved from Pretoria to Cape Town when I was quite young and I represented WP in track and field so when our family started following rugby from 1995's RWC it was an odd divide in the TV room when the Bulls took on WP. All I'm getting at is one can't always easily account which team any person might support or associate with.

- - - Updated - - -

Reading back over that long, BS, non-consequential post of mine I feel I have to apologize for wasting any reader's time.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

I'm with you on both accounts: sport and fan bases are complex and the granny rule is somewhat arbitrary especially considering in the current geo-social context; my best friend is South African but his father has German passport and he is close to getting one as well. He married a Portuguese girl he met studying French in Perpignan and they will expect their first child in Japan where both are employed. They have long term plans of settling in France though so it could be that their children will have some ridiculous options RWT where they would play their rugby not that I he is big rugby fan though- just an example.

On support in SA provincialism is alive and well mainly because for a long while during isolation the Curry Cup was the pinnacle of rugby for SA and not the test team. You'll still find some fans who can't fully accept the test team because of a lack of players from his province. This is slowly disappearing with the modern game where a player playing for only one team his entire carreer is becoming the exception and where the Curry Cup is slowly but surely becoming little more than a 'development' competition. What I am getting at is I see myself as a WP/Stormers supporter first and foremost and hold a CC or SR ***le over a RWC win for the Bokke. My dad is the same with the Bulls. We didn't really watch rugby when I was young and we moved from Pretoria to Cape Town when I was quite young and I represented WP in track and field so when our family started following rugby from 1995's RWC it was an odd divide in the TV room when the Bulls took on WP. All I'm getting at is one can't always easily account which team any person might support or associate with.

- - - Updated - - -

Reading back over that long, BS, non-consequential post of mine I feel I have to apologize for wasting any reader's time.

Our posts were strange! They make perfect sense to us, others probably think we're rambling tossers!

 

[TRF_stormer2010]

Our posts were strange! They make perfect sense to us, others probably think we're rambling tossers!

There certainly were some rambling though LOL. The bigger problem with my own post was that there isn't a single coherent sentence.