All Blacks 2021
-
-
@kiwimurph that doesn't really strike me as anything new though? Squire, Fifita, and plenty of others (I can't remember the one who got the most grief) have got grief for it in the past. Read used to do it a fair bit before he got cake.
-
@bones said in All Blacks 2021:
@kiwimurph that doesn't really strike me as anything new though? Squire, Fifita, and plenty of others (I can't remember the one who got the most grief) have got grief for it in the past. Read used to do it a fair bit before he got cake.
With Read in his peak it was planned. With some others it was shirking.
-
-
-
@yeetyaah said in All Blacks 2021:
@sparky honestly be good for him to be in the environment. Probably won't play but might do him some good. Already seen people complaining about another Tongan poach on social media.
Would they be wrong?
Taukei'aho was first spotted while he toured New Zealand as captain of Tonga's under-15s team and in 2014 moved to St Paul's Collegiate in Hamilton on an internationals scholarship.
-
@voodoo one assumes Kefu asked him to play for them a few weeks back when assembling the side for Saturday, and you'd have to assume he said thanks but no thanks?
-
@taniwharugby maybe, who knows, does that change anything?
I'm just saying it doesn't look great from a pure rugby poaching perspective. Captains his national schoolboy side and we say "damn, you're pretty good, we'll have you"
Obvs there are all manner of co soderations, did we give him and his family a better life blah blah, I'm just saying from a pure rugby perspective, it's hardly to argue we poached him innit?
-
-
@voodoo oh I'm on the side of the fence that reckons Sivivatu, Reece, Tamanivalu, Fekitoa and all those who came here for high school should have played for their country of birth, but at the end of the day it is their choice.
I think the countries that cry the loudest about 'poaching' are the ones who sholdnt be in recent years anyway!
-
The way I see things is that both Tonga and NZ are benefiting from the current system. We 'poach' 1 or 2 talented players and develop them into ABs. We also develop a larger number of NZ-born Tongan players who go on to represent Tonga.
Both teams benefit from the other country, and I don't think we really need to feel guilty about this.
-
@kiwiwomble said in All Blacks 2021:
@bobily2 except if those players are holding off committing to Tonga because they're still hoping to play for the AB's
I'm not talking about a theoretical benefit, I'm saying that they are benefitted already, as shown by the number of Tongan test players who are NZ-born.
-
@bobily2 but isn't that the rumor? that the better tongan qualified players (nz born or otherwise) didn't want to commit because they want to hold off and have a shot at the AB's...hence all the talk of club players and tradies?
