Loophole in Eligibility laws welcomed news for Pacific Island Nation

[Tautahi]

Also, you have to consider who has actually paid for these players to become good enough to play at international level. Remember, the ITM does not make the NZRU any money; its a dead loss on the books, but a good business will recognise when they have something that on paper, loses money, but that has a value greater than money. The NZRU are no fools. They know ITM Cup has a value that is a long way beyond just money; why do you think the ARU are trying to emulate it with the National Rugby Championship.

In paying for the ITM Cup financial shortfall, the NZRU has created the stage upon which players show off their skills. Why should they continue to pay for the raising and nurturing of new talent, only to have others take it away as it comes to maturity. Imagine how you would feel if you were a corn-farmer, and after a year of tending your crop carefully and with considerable expense, just as the corn ripened, someone came along and harvested 1/3 of your crop without paying for it!

Let's be realistic here first of all we have no means to compensate for all the players we pick, if we can not even pay our player wages (that's an issue within in itself) then
how would you expect us to compensate for every player. Then we come back to the argument that because NZRU spend millions developing these dual international players we have all right to them and their ours. Do you truly think a player thinks about that when he plays for another nation besides the ALL BLACKS. It's a livelihood and the option of going overseas earning big and playing international rugby is more suitable, especially for Island boys were everything is family orientated. No matter how many players join the "Exodus" NZRU will still produce top class players.

 

[smartcooky]

What, you mean like taxation! ... seriously though, your comparison is apt in the sense that there's an element of risk in both Rugby and corn farming in that both have to plan for/expect unforeseen loss - both are subject to market pressures, and experience loss, the corn farmer to weather conditions, and pests. Yes, the NZRU should try to protect what they have developed, but impeding players that might otherwise play for NZ seems unwise to me. It kind of makes the decision for those players, or, at the very least, encourages them to play their Rugby somewhere other than NZ.

I'll give you an idea of my thinking here.

In the military, when they want to send you away on a training course you, they will require you to sign what is called a "return of service". That is a contract (within your existing term contract) in which you guarantee that you will not leave the military for a period of time commensurate with the cost of sending you on that training course. For example, I was an RNZAF Avionics Tech for 20 years. When our P3B Orions were about to be refitted (to P3K standard), the RNZAF sent a few of us, including me to Moffett Naval Air Station on a training course, and to assess and inspect the installation in the US Navy's fleet of P3's, of the some of the Navigation hardware that was going to be part of our refit. The course would make us into valuable assets to the service, but only if they had enough time to get their money's worth out of us, so before being approved to go, we had to sign a three year return of service. The only way out was to buy our way out, i.e. pay back part of the cost.

IMO, something like that ought to happen in rugby. If your National Union has invested heavily in your training, they should damned well be entitled to expect a return on that investment. Rugby is a business now, and the NZRU, despite having the best team in the world, have a similar budget to that of an English club side. We cannot continue to act as talent supply to other countries at our expense.

 

[Shaggy]

I'll give you an idea of my thinking here.

In the military, when they want to send you away on a training course you, they will require you to sign what is called a "return of service". That is a contract (within your existing term contract) in which you guarantee that you will not leave the military for a period of time commensurate with the cost of sending you on that training course. For example, I was an RNZAF Avionics Tech for 20 years. When our P3B Orions were about to be refitted (to P3K standard), the RNZAF sent a few of us, including me to Moffett Naval Air Station on a training course, and to assess and inspect the installation in the US Navy's fleet of P3's, of the some of the Navigation hardware that was going to be part of our refit. The course would make us into valuable assets to the service, but only if they had enough time to get their money's worth out of us, so before being approved to go, we had to sign a three year return of service. The only way out was to buy our way out, i.e. pay back part of the cost.

IMO, something like that ought to happen in rugby. If your National Union has invested heavily in your training, they should damned well be entitled to expect a return on that investment. Rugby is a business now, and the NZRU, despite having the best team in the world, have a similar budget to that of an English club side. We cannot continue to act as talent supply to other countries at our expense.

Yes, that's similar to how the NZ public service use to give universary students a bursary in return for a guarantee of work after the students graduated. One year's study = one years work after graduation. This allowed the public sector to retain the individual, where they might over wise be getting paid more in the private sector. The graduate could also pay their way out of their contract, if they didn't want to fulfill their work obligation. It's not a bad idea with rugby, but I can see it getting a little messy if it's not centralized some how.

For example, a player comes threw the Auckland academies, age grades, coaching clinics, and uses there facilities etc, finds the way blocked to super rugby, and then signs with the Highlanders, what money changes hands (if any), who pays it, and who receives it.I

I can see some of the smaller unions getting shafted a bit, and it returning to the bad old days, when they lost there players to the bigger unions with more money