The rugby union eligibility question ?

[otago]

Interesting question this, who should be eligible for countries around the world.
Now this is a bit of a joke, this bloke made the NZ under 21 team but is no where near all black standard so has decided to play for the USA in the world cup.
http://tvnz.co.nz/rugby-world-cup/highlander-s-dream-alive-thanks-usa-4300533
Now since he has played for NZ he should not be playing for any other country.
Same as England, some Kiwi turns up, finds a Brit grandparent and a week later is in the England squad.

Time to get real tough about who plays for which country ? should it be can only play for the country of birth ?

That Kiwi is keeping an American player out of the team, if the USA had any chance of winning it might be different.
Had to laugh, he learnt better rugby skills in the USA ?, I have a few doubts about that.

Should NZ get mean and start playing the Maori all blacks as the Cook Island national team ?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Agreed . It's pretty lame . Rugby Union unlike RL is very strong internationally and shouldn't need to bend the rules like RL ( Brett Webb , an Australian Aborigine played for the NZ League side ) to ensure competitiveness .

Country of birth is too strict though . Grandparents of another nation is OK , but I think there should be a residency requirement and a " sit out " period if you have played for another nation .

So will NZ choke in the quarters or semis this year ? I'm gonna have a couple of bucks on Argentina and Australia .

 

[azzaman333]

If he's nowhere near All Black standards, why care?

 

[otago]

If he's nowhere near All Black standards, why care?

For NZ it does not matter, but it is bloody harsh on some American who plays all his rugby in the USA and trains his guts out only to have some bloke who had all the advantages take his place.

 

[otago]

Agreed . It's pretty lame . Rugby Union unlike RL is very strong internationally and shouldn't need to bend the rules like RL ( Brett Webb , an Australian Aborigine played for the NZ League side ) to ensure competitiveness .

Country of birth is too strict though . Grandparents of another nation is OK , but I think there should be a residency requirement and a " sit out " period if you have played for another nation .

So will NZ choke in the quarters or semis this year ? I'm gonna have a couple of bucks on Argentina and Australia .

My view dump the grandfather clause, too easy to fake.
The age of twenty one is old enough to choose your country, want to change countries fine, but you do not get to change until you have your new citizenship which takes three years on average.
Now if England want to muck about by trying to grab kiwis they could find themselves playing New Zealand players known as Tonga, Samoa,The Cooks at the 2015 world cup as well as the ABs

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

My view dump the grandfather clause, too easy to fake.

Nathan Fien

 

[azzaman333]

For NZ it does not matter, but it is bloody harsh on some American who plays all his rugby in the USA and trains his guts out only to have some bloke who had all the advantages take his place.

Life ain't fair.

 

[flamin]

Agreed . It's pretty lame . Rugby Union unlike RL is very strong internationally and shouldn't need to bend the rules like RL ( Brett Webb , an Australian Aborigine played for the NZ League side ) to ensure competitiveness .

Country of birth is too strict though . Grandparents of another nation is OK , but I think there should be a residency requirement and a " sit out " period if you have played for another nation .

So will NZ choke in the quarters or semis this year ? I'm gonna have a couple of bucks on Argentina and Australia .

Brent Webb qualified under the residency rule, which is widely used in sport. In fact, RL has the same rules as most international sports. The main issue is allowing players to switch countries if they don't think they'll be selected for a top tier nation.

 

[otago]

Brent Webb qualified under the residency rule, which is widely used in sport. In fact, RL has the same rules as most international sports. The main issue is allowing players to switch countries if they don't think they'll be selected for a top tier nation.

No issue, they can move to the country they want to represent and wait to become a citizen.
To make the point, how many of the Lebanon team at the rugby league cup arrived using Lebanese passports, any ?

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

No issue, they can move to the country they want to represent and wait to become a citizen.
To make the point, how many of the Lebanon team at the rugby league cup arrived using Lebanese passports, any ?

You are correct , however I don't have a problem with RL being lax with eligibility . International RL is weak , and it is worth propping up international sides to 1. Improve competitiveness , 2. Give foreign sides the chance to play with and learn from better players .

Union on the other hand doesn't need to do this ( they just prop their, game up with League players ) , and compromises its showpiece tournament by doing so .

 

[flamin]

No issue, they can move to the country they want to represent and wait to become a citizen.
To make the point, how many of the Lebanon team at the rugby league cup arrived using Lebanese passports, any ?

Yes you're right residency is no issue, I do however have an issue with players being allowed to hop from one country to another when they feel like it, which has been RL's problem for sometime, but hopefully we will soon see the end of it.

Lebanon didn't qualify for the last RLWC. I believe your talking about the 2000 WC, where most of the team were born in Australia. On the back of that however Lebanon now how has a flourishing RL scene and has actually taken the game to other countries in the Mideast. With a fully home grown team they only missed out on qualifying for 08 by one game against Samoa. Having said that I wouldn't have allowed them to participate in 2000, though I guess it shows that the results where worth it in the end.

 

[Rik Meleet]

(..)Country of birth is too strict though . Grandparents of another nation is OK , but I think there should be a residency requirement and a " sit out " period if you have played for another nation .(..)

Why mix politics with sport and try to re-invent the wheel at the same time?

Nationality is linked to representing the country so if you have the nationality of a country you can play for it. I.O.W. ff you have a passport of a nation then you are eligible to represent that country.

It will mean some guys with double passports can play for country A today and for country B tomorrow. And you'll see a large increase in strength in the Qatari alpine skiing and curling teams. But is that really a problem. James Paterson is legally not any less American than his teammates.

 

[otago]

Why mix politics with sport and try to re-invent the wheel at the same time?

Nationality is linked to representing the country so if you have the nationality of a country you can play for it. I.O.W. ff you have a passport of a nation then you are eligible to represent that country.

It will mean some guys with double passports can play for country A today and for country B tomorrow. And you'll see a large increase in strength in the Qatari alpine skiing and curling teams. But is that really a problem. James Paterson is legally not any less American than his teammates.

Nope, if the ABs had a lot of injurues and Paterson was fit he could not play for New Zealand, play senior rugby for one country that is it, one cannot then play for another country.
Or we would see the English team made up of fifteen ex all blacks who are playing club rugby in the UK.

 

[otago]

You are correct , however I don't have a problem with RL being lax with eligibility . International RL is weak , and it is worth propping up international sides to 1. Improve competitiveness , 2. Give foreign sides the chance to play with and learn from better players .

Union on the other hand doesn't need to do this ( they just prop their, game up with League players ) , and compromises its showpiece tournament by doing so .

League propping up union, care to name one league prop who has moved across and is playing high level union in the front row ?
No league prop would have the technique to survive.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

League propping up union, care to name one league prop who has moved across and is playing high level union in the front row ?
No league prop would have the technique to survive.

Agreed , but I'm no fan of high quality scrummaging .

I was just having fun . You can tell from prior posts that I enjoy high quality rugby , it's just not my preferred code

 

[Camikaze]

Cricket has the rule where you cannot go from one test-playing nation to another without some lengthy residency requirements, but you can move from an association nation to a test-playing nation (like Dirk Nannes or Eoin Morgan). I don't think it works in reverse, though. And that's fair enough. I'd think something similar applies (or should apply) to union, lest you get a world cup of ex-pats whose only links to the country they are representing are sporting.

 

[LDiCesare]

He never played for the all blacks, only for U21. It would be harsh to have someone with two nationalities be refused to play in one of his countries, where he may live as an adult, just because when he was 15 he was selected in the other.
The only rule is that a player who has played an official match with a national team cannot play for another team. Note that there have been many many all black players who were not new zealanders. It didn't do the country much harm. Italy certainly benefitted from the many argentinan players allowed to play for them: Would they have joined the 6 nations without the likes of Diego Dominguez? Without these players, rugby would still be mostly unknown in Italy while now they sometimes manage to get the front page of the Gazzetta.
It's further impossible to enforce a 'nationality' thing for rugby teams because some teams do not correspond to a nation. A man living in Edinburgh of a Welsh mother and English father is simply British, and if he leaves for Southampton or Belfast, he's still in the same country, using the same passport, but in a different nation from the RWC perspective.

 

[otago]

He never played for the all blacks, only for U21. It would be harsh to have someone with two nationalities be refused to play in one of his countries, where he may live as an adult, just because when he was 15 he was selected in the other.
The only rule is that a player who has played an official match with a national team cannot play for another team. Note that there have been many many all black players who were not new zealanders. It didn't do the country much harm. Italy certainly benefitted from the many argentinan players allowed to play for them: Would they have joined the 6 nations without the likes of Diego Dominguez? Without these players, rugby would still be mostly unknown in Italy while now they sometimes manage to get the front page of the Gazzetta.
It's further impossible to enforce a 'nationality' thing for rugby teams because some teams do not correspond to a nation. A man living in Edinburgh of a Welsh mother and English father is simply British, and if he leaves for Southampton or Belfast, he's still in the same country, using the same passport, but in a different nation from the RWC perspective.

Both the under 21s and Maori are national teams, Paterson was twenty when he played for the U21s so was an adult, he should not play for any other country at all.

He decided he was good enough to play for a NZ team, he should not get two bites at the cheery.

 

[LDiCesare]

The rules say that there's only one national team that count. There are rules against switching teams. You may not like them, but they exist, and they are not that stupid. In many places, under 21 you are not technically an adult, so there's no reason for penalising people when they might not have had a word on the topic.

 

[otago]

He never played for the all blacks, only for U21. It would be harsh to have someone with two nationalities be refused to play in one of his countries, where he may live as an adult, just because when he was 15 he was selected in the other.
The only rule is that a player who has played an official match with a national team cannot play for another team. Note that there have been many many all black players who were not new zealanders. It didn't do the country much harm. Italy certainly benefitted from the many argentinan players allowed to play for them: Would they have joined the 6 nations without the likes of Diego Dominguez? Without these players, rugby would still be mostly unknown in Italy while now they sometimes manage to get the front page of the Gazzetta.
It's further impossible to enforce a 'nationality' thing for rugby teams because some teams do not correspond to a nation. A man living in Edinburgh of a Welsh mother and English father is simply British, and if he leaves for Southampton or Belfast, he's still in the same country, using the same passport, but in a different nation from the RWC perspective.

Care to name the last all black who was not a NZ citizen when he was picked ?
Care to name a All Black who is not a citizen.
Do all of the so called home unions players all travel on British passports ?
Oh, and why should Britain have four teams at the world cup ?
Scotland would not beat any of our super fifiteen teams, they would be lucky to beat any of our NPC teams.
As for Wales, well just find a pretend grand parent when they need a player.