@MajorRage said in RWC Week 3: Springboks v Ireland:
@semper nothing to stop their home unions picking them? You sure about that? Very different to what I remember, but I didn’t take huge interest so I could well be wrong.
You are wrong.
If the All Blacks wanted to call up a player with the Irish provinces, there was nothing to stop them. The provinces wouldn't have tried to stop them and the players would hardly have said no. The issue is your own internal system of rules and essentially telling anyone who leaves the NZ system that they are thereafter dead to you.
Look at the case of Jean Kleyn was picked for the South African World Cup squad or Ben Healy for the Scottish one. Both playing with Irish provinces on standard Irish provincial contracts and choosing to play for other countries.
Get used to the tiresome. We dealt with the same crap, a lot from from Irish (and still do, see itv commentary or Samoa / Tonga games), yet I don’t remember us offering contracts to established players at professional level with zero allegiance to NZ.
As I understand it, there were three players in the RWC NZ squad qualifiying by way of residency as adults.
Shannon Frizzel who moved to NZ to play rugby after playing for Tongan at the U20 Rugby World Cup and Taukei'aho & Narawa who both came to New Zeland on rugby scholarships aged 17.
Not sure what allegiance they had to New Zealand before they arrived to play rugby was, but maybe it's more ethical to attract lots of teenagers over on rugby scholarships with the big dream rather than doing the same with adults.
Anyway, I'd get rid of the residency qualification in the morning if I had my way. Its open to abuse, obviously not in the case of NZ where what is done is ethical and fair, but by other nefarious countries like Ireland.
Ireland gave / gives us colossal shit. And are now the worst of the lot. Great team, amazing …. But “Ireland” for me.
Ireland gave you collasal shit. Yes, I imagine we did. And that hurt a lot, but hey, ye won stuff so I doubt ye cared.
I find this debate tiresome because nobody ever recognises their own sides failings. I don't like it, but what can I do? And I'll still cheer on Ireland. What annoys me is giving out about Ireland and pretending that residency rules aren't exploited by others. The only people with pure hands in this are the Argentinians, and only they can actually give other shit about residency rules abuse.