having our pacific players back would be awesome

[unrated]

Might be trivial, but i am not 100% sure i understand what you mean here. Just so i grasp your pov correctly: you are against, say, Beast playing for the Springboks then?

I love beast, he is a Sharkie.

But unfortunatly yes, the rules i propose would have made him ineligble to ever play for South Africa. It pains me to say this becuase i love him. But i need to avoid hypocrisy.

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Why would I not want this? What are the pitfalls in your opinion?


I can elaborate on why I want this... If we leave clubs and franchises as the sector for the professional side of rugby to mix and match players as they please, and hiring foreigners in coaching and playing roles then great I have no problem with this.



When the European teams buy the players from my team, its sad but that's life and we move on with the youngsters.



Regarding Internationals:

If the International rules become too lax then we risk the International game becoming a glorified International club competition. The wealthiest nations will be luring foreigners to their International teams based on their superior economic packages that they can offer as well as the lure of life in a first world country which is comparatively safe by International standards with a high quality of life. The migration is inevitable. If the rules allow these emigrants to somehow play for their adopted nation then the landscape of International rugby changes.



I would find much more satisfaction in International games if it remains or becomes even stricter towards only allowing those born in your country regardless of the grandparent rule.



This would result in:

• Countries would be truly measured based on what they produce within that country (from genetics, to style of life leading to personality, to the education system and then finally to the end product. International rugby players making up the identity of a national team based on the multiple factors leading to their existence as a professional rugby player
• Countries then are forced to invest in their grassroots programs
• they are forced (if they want to be successful that is) to introduce the sport to all the schools around the country to foster those all-important player numbers
• Smaller but richer countries like Ireland, might not have the population to compete with 59 million South Africans but they can afford way better facilities and theoretically be leading the cutting edge in sports science. In this way they like NZ negate their small population.
• A country such as South Africa got the playing numbers but we often lack facilities to nurture these players
• England should straight up be dominating this sport, they got the population and the money, same with France
• NZ has a small but very active rugby population and got some money to back that up
• How popular the sport is in that country will translate into tv money, and this funnels through to the union.

By making the rules on international selection very very strict (Only if you were born here do you get to play for the team representing the nation) it gives IMO International rugby its soul. Don't you think that its exciting when the result of all these cumulative factors that happened over hundreds of years reflects in a national team?



NZ is trying to be super liberal and saying they want to help the Pacific Island nations grow, but they want to amend the rules so that they can have the first choice on all these players (Most PI players would jump at the opportunity to play in NZ) and then when they don't want to use them anymore they are allowed to play for their original island again. Theoretically, it can make the PI nations stronger but they are still going to lure their players in their peak to play for NZ rather and that's not ideal. It seems to me that NZ is throwing them a bone.



If rugby was to ever grow in Africa, and nations such as Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Congo, Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique starts producing good players then I can tell you now we are the best setup to poach these players and make them play for our National team because we are the most developed nation from a rugby perspective by a long shot when looking at Africa. Anyone remotely good in the school scene or club scene will get snapped up by our schools- clubs- Universities and Franchises. We would have much more players with a similar story to Tendai Mtawarira from Zimbabwe. This would not be helpful towards the growth of Rugby Union. It would make South Africa stronger, but that's not the point.

It's too strict.

Two Irish centurions would have ended up playing for Israel and the USA. Jamie Heaslip being the first, born there when his father was deployed there and Ronan O'Gara who left San Diego with his Irish parent at 6 months old...
Jordi Murphy would have ended up playing for Spain, I doubt he even speaks Spanish.

In reality this rule would have needlessly stopped the above three players as well as guys like David Pocock, Sam Underhill, Stephen Moore, Simon Shaw etc... just wouldn't have played international rugby.

 

[BPM]

It's extreme and impractical.

In the case of any kids from military families, their parent(s) is abroad in the service of their country so it would be very harsh to them say the child is ineligible for this reason. From what I know of Heaslip's case, he was born to a military family (two Irish parents) where his father serving overseas and then grew up in Ireland. To have excluded him in that scenario is plain ridiculous. The guy is more Irish than plenty of people born in Dublin.

My views on eligibility are fairly strict. I don't like the grandparent rule and I don't like residency qualification. IMO, you should only be able to represent a country if you have at least one parent from there AND have spent a significant period of your life there. Brad Shields has two English parents, but I never felt completely comfortable with him playing for England on the basis that he is a product of NZ rugby and would always have preferred to have been an All Black. I'm OK with residency when a player has spent the majority of their life in the new country and isn't a product of another rugby system. Cokanasiga is a prime example of this having spent virtually all of his life in the UK.

However, as per the initial example with Heaslip, if Cokanasiga had elected to play for Fiji on the basis that he was born there and had two Fijian parents, I would have had no problem with this.

If the rule was as extreme as unrated is suggesting, we could have had Mako Vunipola playing for NZ and Billy Vunipola for Australia despite having two Tongan parents. It makes no practical sense. And BTW, I recognise that it doesn't make complete sense that they play for England, but it is undeniable that both are products of British rugby (including their time in Wales).

 

[mania]

i dont understand getting rid of the grandparent rule. that provides a player with a better reason to play for that country than qualifying thru residency
the grandparent rule actually means that you are of that race.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

how a lot of this sounds to me

"NZ poaches players from the PI's"

should we make the rules more strict so that NZ couldn't and those players would have to play for the PI teams?

"No, the we wouldn't have had lots of our players because they were born in other countries"

 

[mania]

how a lot of this sounds to me

"NZ poaches players from the PI's"

should we make the rules more strict so that NZ couldn't and those players would have to play for the PI teams?

"No, the we wouldn't have had lots of our players because they were born in other countries"

thats what the argument is being made out to be but thats not what i intended. Im fine with brothers plying their trade for other countries. a bros gotta eat and i'm of the opinion that family is first and foremost. you cant eat loyalty.
but when that country no longer needs that player then why cant they play for their real country that they have ties too?
i DO NOT want the brothers to lose all these tier1 contracts they get, that is food on their tables. but once that teir1 nation doesnt want them anymore why cant they play for their country that they have a bonafide relationship too?

 

[Kiwiwomble]

thats what the argument is being made out to be but thats not what i intended. Im fine with brothers plying their trade for other countries. a bros gotta eat and i'm of the opinion that family is first and foremost. you cant eat loyalty.
but when that country no longer needs that player then why cant they play for their real country that they have ties too?
i DO NOT want the brothers to lose all these tier1 contracts they get, that is food on their tables. but once that teir1 nation doesnt want them anymore why cant they play for their country that they have a bonafide relationship too?

i wasn't talking about you, if you look back i have actually been in favour of your original premise, i was referring to the more recent discussion about more strict rules

 

[mania]

i wasn't talking about you, if you look back i have actually been in favour of your original premise, i was referring to the more recent discussion about more strict rules

yeah its disappointing that those detractors answer is to restrict and disable . which is why i said earlier that these people have forgotten what its like to be a player. players just wanna get out there and play and then you have these detractors making decisions who just seem to like stopping players from playing.
it baffles me what these detractors get out of all this by stopping awesome players from playing. seems a bit selfish and self serving and totally not in the spirit of the game.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

yeah its disappointing that those detractors answer is to restrict and disable . which is why i said earlier that these people have forgotten what its like to be a player. players just wanna get out there and play and then you have these detractors making decisions who just seem to like stopping players from playing.
it baffles me what these detractors get out of all this by stopping awesome players from playing. seems a bit selfish and self serving and totally not in the spirit of the game.

...so you're just going to leave the "dislike" there....;o)

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

i DO NOT want the brothers to lose all these tier1 contracts they get, that is food on their tables.

I think this is what it boils down to right now. Not playing international rugby means a huge financial hit no matter who you are, it takes your stock down far more than not playing international soccer and until that changes we can't get too strict in my opinion.