psychic duck
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Ospreys winger Hanno Dirksen has committed himself to Wales when he qualifies at the end of the season, despite being qualified for two other nations. Dirksen was born in South Africa, and his uncle Corra was an international Springbok in the 1960's and his dad also played for South African age group sides, Hanno himself played for the Blue Bulls under 12's and 13's. He then emigrated to the USA with his family as a 15 year old, and was fast tracked into the USA rugby set up and also represented his state Tennessee at athletics, he played for USA under 17's and 18's before being called up to the senior USA squad aged just 17. Dirksen played in two friendly matches for the USA including one against Munster after impressing the then USA coach Scott Johnson, Dirksen at that time was seen as a fly half or inside centre but has since moved to the wing position. Those matches have not locked his nationality to the USA as they were friendlies thus he will still be eligible for Wales.
When Scott Johnson joined the Ospreys, he brought Dirksen with him and into the Ospreys academy, he spent most of his first two years playing for Swansea and impressed and scored 18 tries in as many matches in his first season and was named young player of the year. He gradually got a bit more game time during the international periods last season and started five matches again impressing.
This season he has scored 4 tries for the Ospreys in 7 matches and has been mentioned as a player with great potential and appears to have jumped the queue of young wingers at the Ospreys which include Wales international Tom Prydie, Kristian Phillips who was also called up to the squad once and Eli Walker.
Dirksen qualifies for Wales in the summer and has stated in interviews that he has chosen to play for Wales, and he could have a chance to get the winger jersey being vacated by Shane Williams in the future. But if he does play for Wales the USA will be p*ssed off as they contributed money to his development before he joined the Ospreys and he received the USRFF advanced player grant in 2008, previous recipients of the grant include current Eagles Kevin Swiryn, Shawn Pittman and Scott LaValla.
Here is an article by an North American rugby expert written in 2009
The first is the case of Hanno Dirksen, a South-African born player who played high school rugby in the USA. Dirksen was touted as an Eagle in the making and at 17 played for the USA Selects. Then he went to school in England, and helped his school win a national championship.
But now Dirksen is being courted by former USA coach Scott Johnson, who signed him to the Ospreys Academy and hopes he will, in three years, qualify for Wales. A sneaky move by Johnson, to be sure, and it's worth pointing out that Dirksen had never lived in Wales until this offer came through.
In the end it's Dirksen's choice who he plays for, while it's up to Johnson to look himself in the mirror. In the USA we have to use this story as a chance to start asking questions about whether a player is worth money and resources if he's just going to bolt somewhere else (a la James Paterson or Alex Corbisiero).
click here to see full article
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