CM11 wrote: ↑Mon May 16, 2022 7:52 pm
JMK
I know what you're saying but I disagree that you can just go 'are they eligible or not' and say all things are equal (or irrelevant) if they are. By your logic Rhys Ruddock is a poach. And plenty of, normally English educated, UK players who don't play for the nation they went to school in are too. Where you start to get into more clear poaching using your definition is when you go to the SH. But I would still argue that it's not for you or me to know how much affinity any person has with the country of their parents or grandparents. I do agree with you though when you say that a residency poach can care more about their adopted nation than a blood 'poach'. Keith Gleeson is an example of a player who retired, went back to Aus and was never heard from again while I sometimes forget Andy Ward wasn't Irish by birth.
Well, if your personal line is "anyone who grew up in an entirely different country and was developed by another country's rugby system all the way through to professional level, who's either a) been here long enough to qualify on residency (Herring [note: Oh, apparently this is a grandfather thing - which makes it even stranger that Laney is not okay but he is!]) or b) has a blood relation (Hansen) is all absolutely great and not a poach" in your mind -
which is perfectly fine and logical - then all you're actually saying is "anyone who is eligible to play is not a poach". There is nothing wrong with that - not technically, not legally, not morally. But it does make it a bit pointless to start splitting hairs about people like Brendan Laney or whoever.
I don't get the Rhys Ruddock thing btw - he's come through the Irish system as much as the Welsh one, and has a pretty close connection to Ireland, so why would he be considered a poach? I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. I think it's fairly clear with Hansen and co we're not talking about kids who were at school somewhere else, but fully developed professional players.
To be clear about my own position, my irritation at England's "poaching" tends to be on a case by case basis, and is often most strongly influenced by the reasons behind the poaching. For example, a number of half-arsed players with super rugby experience got promoted by Eddie Jones. I don't believe Brad Shields had any particular ties to England, despite an English parent, and I certainly don't think it matters that Willi Heinz qualified through a grandmother rather than a mother - the pull was the chance to play top level international rugby and earn a packet, not some misty-eyed bollocks about representing a country that is clearly not #1 in their affections. And what bothered me about both was that they leapfrogged better players and hurt England's development because of Eddie's desire to shoehorn them
because of their "real" roots, i.e. NZ rugby and Super Rugby. The specifics of how they qualify are irrelevant to me.
I would expect every team to pick players based on a) all the options available to them and b) what benefits the country the most. In some cases that means not picking overseas players; in others it means scouring the globe for anyone with a grandparent with the right nationality. I have no objection to any of this, and when it comes to my objections for England, it's because I think it's a mistake. But I also don't think it's good to pretend it's not just "using the laws as written" and that there's actually varying levels of morality around it all (there aren't in the vast majority of cases)
In summary, while I accept that some blood 'poaches' are no better, it's still far more likely that a player either born in the country or with some direct connection via a parent has a real connection to their new nation so it's not fair to lump them in with residency poaches without being sure of that affinity. I also don't think it's fair to say they're poaches just because they were educated in a certain nation. Players don't have the autonomy to move until they're adults.
To be even more clear here: I never said they were poaches. I simply explained the logical steps you had to take to object to both Hansen and Herring being included on a list with someone like Stander or Lowe. With respect to players who are born in another country, raised in another country, and developed as a professional in another country, the concept of "poach" we're talking about here has nothing to do with their autonomy to move or how much they like their Mum's stories about home - it's purely a comment on everything that has shaped that person, particularly in a rugby sense, and the effort and investment that has been put into that person by their host country. We're not talking Jamie Heaslip or Marcus Smith or even Manu Tuilagi or Taulupe Faletau here.
You could (and indeed, some do) easily argue that residency players are far less problematic simply because they've done their time and in many cases have settled in the country, so could and maybe should be considered far more "local" than the blow-in with the right passport. We're absolutely fine with that outside of a sporting context, so it seems a little off to me when people get arsey about it in the poaching discussion and view residency picks as the ultimate mercenaries. But as I said, everyone draws the line somewhere. My contention is drawing a line anywhere that isn't the World Rugby eligibility criteria is ultimately spurious and a waste of everyone's time and effort
unless there is genuine harm being done to another country or a group of players as a result of exploiting some loophole.
Besides that, I think more people should stop biting on the poaching accusations and make peace with the eligbility rules, which includes an honest appraisal of how they view their own players vs other nations.
