The Silver Fern

Tiresome.

There are three Irish squad players qualified on residency. Prior to qualifying on residency, but playing in Ireland, there was nothing to stop their home unions picking them. There have been plenty of players with Irish provinces picked to play for their home unions and capped for the first time after signing in Ireland. If NZ wanted Aki, JGP or Lowe to play for them, all they needed to do was call them up. To the best of my knowledge that never happened because of your own internal rules about playing players outside of New Zealand. South Africa in contrast had two second rows in the second half playing for Munster.

In the New Zealand squad, two players fall into the same category.

@antipodean said in NH club rugby:

For me, Hartley's unlucky. His arm was originally swinging well below the line of SOB's shoulders. Looking at the commentary online, he's being judged by history here.

Which is only right and proper.

He had shown himself to be a consistent thug in his rugby career to date, so when viewing any of his actions that is the only prism to use. The idea that he was swinging his arm to do anything less than cause maximum damage is laughable; that's just the type of rugby player he is.

@junior said in RWC Week 3: Springboks v Ireland:

@chimoaus said in RWC Week 3: Springboks v Ireland:

It is very odd choice not to have a kicker behind a forward orientated game plan. It’s obvious to all these right games are won with the boot.

Which makes it a relatively easy fix - I would be feeling very motivated right now if I was in the Boks squad.

Really?

You squeeze the Irish lineout to the point of malfunction, you get plenty of territory, you avoid any back injuries so your 7-1 split works, you get your bomb squad on, and you slow down Irish ball massively.

You still lose.

And in doing so, butcher the confidence of your chosen out half.

South Africa are coached like a kids team, they have a coach who doesn't even trust them to choose whether to kick for the corner or posts and is Eddie Jones like in his need for attention with 'innovations'. The lack of a kicking option and the lack of a back up hooker was a choice not something imposed randomly or the result of injury.

They might turn it after this or they might implode. Sometimes when your too smart, you don't know where to put your feet.

@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.

Hartley will get a ban sometime around Easter, thereby ruling him out.

It will be interesting to see how Gatland shoehorns a load of Welsh players into the team. I look forward to that PR job.

An interesting question for him to ponder, is will his reputation be better enhanced by (the best case scenario) losing competitively in this or by resurrecting Wales from what will be a crap 6N this year into a 2018 Grand Slam.

Also, @semper with regard to passport/citizenship whilst I agree with your intent i can see thst open to abuse where rules are bent. Add it as a criterria to the criteria set by WR but not as the single qualifying standard.

3 years adult residency and a passport;
Birth;
Parent born in the country and holding a passport;
Grandparent born in the country and holding a passport.

UK countries use the same principles as in soccer.

Your bullishness to linking national armies to test nationality is pretty novel. By extending that logic shouldn't we be using the strictest test when it comes to what qualifies as a country in International Rugby? No national anthem, no national flag - no international rugby team. if you don't have the confidence to become your own sovereign nation then you shouldn't have a rugby team, surely?

Someone else brought up the point that we are proposing a higher standard to play rugby for a country than to fight for that country. It's not a point that I care for, hence my comments which you appear to have entirely misread but well done on some further Ireland bashing. In relation to your general point, it would reduce the number of serious rugby playing nations by a third.