Foddiners and rugby - opinions?

anonymous_joe

I wanted to ask this a while ago, but I forgot. Anyway, the talk of Paul Doran-Jones reminded me of it again, and so I'll plough on.

What are your opinions on the numbers of rugby players plying their trade in different countries?

Do you think it's good for them?

For their countries?

For the host countries?

Does it 'cheapen' the game to highlight the mercenary element that's an inevitable part of any professional sport where people are, at the end of the day, pursuing a professional career, not a vocation?

Just to start out from an Irish perspective, I think Leinster's recent investment in Saffer props has had some positive effects on our scrum and the players coming out. Just look at Cian Healy for one thing. By extension, that's had a good effect on the future of propping in Ireland as a whole.

RugbyFanatic

It depends really. One or two token foreigners in the pack or backline I don't mind. The problem is when almost all your outside backs or front 5 are foreign.

murphym7

I suppose just look at the foreign boys in the Munster first choice backline:


Mafi
JDV
Doug
Warwick

Doesn't leave a lot of room for developing home grown talent at wing, centre or full back. Great for the sucess of the Munster team (apparently!) but very poor for the Irish side. I suppose if you look at this question its impossible not to discuss club versus country.

little173

Yeah I agree there, for Ireland, because of lack of playing numbers, too many foreigners will really kill the development of young players. Munster backs does worry me, Earls needs to be playing, so too Jones.

I would rather see a young Irish guy given a go rather than a average foreigner, is he makes mistakes along the waym so be it, better than too many years in the AIL. I think the Irfu generally get it right though but the quotas should be very strict.

Look at France now, its a complete joke, there are teams there with 2 or 3 french in them and they are suffering.

RugbyFanatic

murphym7 wrote: »

I suppose just look at the foreign boys in the Munster first choice backline:


Mafi
JDV
Doug
Warwick

Doesn't leave a lot of room for developing home grown talent at wing, centre or full back. Great for the sucess of the Munster team (apparently!) but very poor for the Irish side. I suppose if you look at this question its impossible not to discuss club versus country.

I really think signing JDV was over the top. Would of much preferred to see

10.O'Gara
11.Jones
12.Mafi
13.Earls
14.Howlett
15.Warwick

Which I still feel would be extremely competitive.

little173

RugbyFanatic wrote: »

I really think signing JDV was over the top. Would of much preferred to see

10.O'Gara
11.Jones
12.Mafi
13.Earls
14.Howlett
15.Warwick

Which I still feel would be extremely competitive.

Yes and because they have signed him, on big money, he needs to play. Not only that, but he is coming in off the back of very long season and looks jaded. Nacewa at Leinster is probably unescessary at this stage as well looking at the number of Leinster backs there are and others like Conway, Macken etc who could come in.

murphym7

Totally agree there lad's, no need for JDV or Nacewa. They are not filling key postitions that either team have a big gap.

OldJay

little173 wrote: »

Look at France now, its a complete joke, there are teams there with 2 or 3 french in them and they are suffering.

The French teams you refer to are privately owned. Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster are not clubs but branches of the governing union.

little173

Justind wrote: »

The French teams you refer to are privately owned. Connacht, Leinster, Munster and Ulster are not clubs but branches of the governing union.

I understand that!. I am not saying the IRFU would go that way but was commenting on the initial post with regards to foreigners and other leagues and the situation they find themselves in.

andrewdcs

Obv. Ireland and NZ at least protect their smaller player populations via central contracting. I think it works well, for club country and players but think that the quota system needs to be more specific, i.e say how many backs and forwards are allowed over a given 3 years, so teams with the money (Leinster Munster) don't get an advantage so much. i.e. can't buy themselves a superb tight 5 etc. This could be tailored every few years, if there's a shortage of props coming through, discourage buying too many elite props in to encourage prop "production" for instance.

Of the same coin I'm a big believer that a couple of super stars improve all the players around them, encouraging them, teaching them. (or probably more accurately peeing them off so much by keeping them out of the team that they work harder to succeed

I reckon Felix Jones is pretty peevd going to Munster to improve his playing chances / exposure. Should have gone abroad!

Almost totally OT, but I really like American sports "socialised" draft and cap system. Its Stalinist, but works.

Real FM

Look at the English Premiership - full of foreign players and their national team is fairly kack.

France could quickly end up going the same way - only a few weeks ago there was a thread about how the French team are looking to play Saffers.

A lot of people are saying it's all good because the IRFU centrally control the provinces transfers. Fact is they keep on loosening their grip on how strict they are about it. No doubt this is pressure from the provinces.

Could this be because Munster and Leinster have foriegn coaches who don't have a huge amount of concern for the Irish national team? Don't get me wrong - I think both of them are good coaches.

At a time when Ireland has had the most depth it's every had (Except for front row, granted) why do we have so many foreigners playing for our provinces? Simple. Lack of control.

OldJay

Real FM wrote: »

A lot of people are saying it's all good because the IRFU centrally control the provinces transfers. Fact is they keep on loosening their grip on how strict they are about it

How exactly is this grip being loosened? Compare the previous seasons's squads to the current squads. The provinces have always had a limited number of non-Irish qualified players amongst their ranks and these guys in the main part have been extremely beneficial in more ways than one.
Compared to certain Welsh or English squads for example, there is nothing to the degree that people here imply as 'worrying' and nothing to indicate any headway towards this degree.

Real FM wrote: »

At a time when Ireland has had the most depth it's every had (Except for front row, granted) why do we have so many foreigners playing for our provinces? Simple. Lack of control.

Where? Where has this control been lost?

Size=everything

little173 wrote: »

Yes and because they have signed him, on big money, he needs to play. Not only that, but he is coming in off the back of very long season and looks jaded. Nacewa at Leinster is probably unescessary at this stage as well looking at the number of Leinster backs there are and others like Conway, Macken etc who could come in.

Even though hes been very good the Nacewa signing has annoyed me to no end. If it wasn't for him, firstly Dave Kearney would be getting more game time on the wing and its likely Conway would be making some 22s.
Another thing that annoys me is Berne covering 12! I would much prefer to see McFadden brought in there with Macken covering 13.

Size=everything

Justind wrote: »

Where? Where has this control been lost?

Whilst the reasons are completely understandable, allowing Munster to sign another NIQ player allbeit for a short period is really faltering on the rules set out. These are the rules, tough **** if something like this happens maybe it might encourage the team to develop more players to a higher degree in future if they know they can't simply sign more players than their allowance should an injury crisis hit. They even could of brought in someone like McGrath who I am sure Leinster would of allowed go for 3 months if it meant he would get some gametime in ML.

anonymous_joe

I'm not surprised that most people are against this, but I do think we might be overstating the negatives.

One of the first things that encouraged me to start this was seeing how one Cameron Jowitt of New Zealand had been signed by the Waratahs. (Is he the first ever player to go that direction in the Leinster Tahs thing? ><)

In his absence, McLaughlin has come in and done superbly.

On the other hand, last season saw the end of Felipe Contepomi's time in Ireland. He brought a different approach to rugby to Leinster, and I don't think it was a bad thing at all.

Say what you want about foreign players, but I'd rather Munsters youngsters get to learn from Wian Du Preez rather than Tony Buckley...

Real FM

Justind wrote: »

How exactly is this grip being loosened? Compare the previous seasons's squads to the current squads. The provinces have always had a limited number of non-Irish qualified players amongst their ranks and these guys in the main part have been extremely beneficial in more ways than one.
Compared to certain Welsh or English squads for example, there is nothing to the degree that people here imply as 'worrying' and nothing to indicate any headway towards this degree.

Yes I'm aware we've always had foreigners in our squads but this season has seen us more than our squad than any other season. I too pointed out English squads are much worse than Irish squads for this - I'm just saying I can see us going this way if we continue to increase the amount of foriegn players we have.

Yes they can be benificial in educating players but how is a player like Macken benefiting from playing academy rugby when he could be pushing for the matchday 22 ahead of Shaun Beirne.

anonymous_joe

Real FM wrote: »

Yes I'm aware we've always had foreigners in our squads but this season has seen us more than our squad than any other season. I too pointed out English squads are much worse than Irish squads for this - I'm just saying I can see us going this way if we continue to increase the amount of foriegn players we have.

Yes they can be benificial in educating players but how is a player like Macken benefiting from playing academy rugby when he could be pushing for the matchday 22 ahead of Shaun Beirne.

Beirne's more experienced, and his main role is to provide a solid experienced head when surrounded by youngsters. When the AI's end, the likelihood is that Kearney, Fitz, O'Driscoll and Heaslip will all be exhausted. As will a few others. So they'll probably be rested for a couple of games. Cheika's presumably working on the basis that replacing all of those guys with inexperienced youth would be a bit risky, so he's going to drop in one or two lads who've been around for a while and know how to win games.

little173

Size=everything wrote: »

Whilst the reasons are completely understandable, allowing Munster to sign another NIQ player allbeit for a short period is really faltering on the rules set out. These are the rules, tough **** if something like this happens maybe it might encourage the team to develop more players to a higher degree in future if they know they can't simply sign more players than their allowance should an injury crisis hit. They even could of brought in someone like McGrath who I am sure Leinster would of allowed go for 3 months if it meant he would get some gametime in ML.

Yeah I agree with this although the prop thing does make it slightly different in that it would be deemed dangerous to put a youngster in the front row, but the same was done when Munster signed Nick Williams.

Real FM

I agree that Cheika brought Beirne in for his experience. However,I don't see really see why when Leinster already has 2 of the most experienced centres in the world in it's squad.

anonymous_joe

Real FM wrote: »

I agree that Cheika brought Beirne in for his experience. However,I don't see really see why when Leinster already has 2 of the most experienced centres in the world in it's squad.

One of whom will also get rested a lot.

Size=everything

anonymous_joe wrote: »

One of whom will also get rested a lot.

Yeah but they have McFadden and Macken behind them. As for outhalf they have one of the most promising young talents in the country in McKinley and also I believe McFadden is able to cover outhalf? Even Nacewa can (I know, I know)

anonymous_joe

Size=everything wrote: »

Yeah but they have McFadden and Macken behind them. As for outhalf they have one of the most promising young talents in the country in McKinley and also I believe McFadden is able to cover outhalf? Even Nacewa can (I know, I know)

I still reckon that Nacewa was signed as the out-half to replace Contepomi but it just didn't work out.

I just think that when D'Arcy and O'Driscoll are being rested, Macken and McFadden (or vice versa) is a little too inexperienced.

Does anyone else remember last season's final game against the Dragons? It was on at the same time as the GP final, so I was watching both at the same time (i.e. half-assedly) and the Dragons fairly easily put our youth team down. The talent is there with most of those young guys, but you do need some experience in any team.

OldJay

Real FM wrote: »

I agree that Cheika brought Beirne in for his experience. However,I don't see really see why when Leinster already has 2 of the most experienced centres in the world in it's squad.

Because those centres are not available for the entire season.