NZRU upset with Irish Provinces

LeeroyJones

With Afoa and Payne all set for Ulster, Berquist for Leinster and potentially Cory Jane heading for our shores this November aswell, the NZRU have hit out against the Irish Provinces pricing out their players, particularly with us having similar qualms with the French.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/rugby/news/article.cfm?c_id=80&objectid=10719957

thomond2006

Oh bohoo. Tough breaks for NZRU but that's life. They lost a heap of players after the last World Cup and still produced the best side in the world without Somerville, Hayman, Oliver, Jack, Collins, Holah, Kelleher, Evans, McAlister, Mauger, Gear, Howlett etc. They'll do the same after 2011.

durkadurka

Seanie fitz reckons mc caw isn't leaving nz anyhow. Reckons that he loves his south island life and is getting plenty of money from nz ru.

TheJims

:eek:
"that ambition has filtered to their provinces, where Ulster, Munster and Leinster all made the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup this year, with the latter two progressing to the semis."

Say nothing!

durkadurka

Numerous errors in it but so what.

They didn't mention us robbing clint newland! Too busy laughing

Teferi

I've never seen a New Zealand article that is complimentary of Irish rugby. This is more of the same. Some of it is awfully condescending.

...and showed, in defeating England in this year's Six Nations, they still have the capacity to knock over the best teams in the world.

C'mon like...We are one of the best teams in the world.

Kiwi_knock

NZ will be able to recover whatever the amount of players they lose. I would be far more worried if I was involved with the Australian Rugby Union, they could lose a number of top players without any decent replacements coming through.

CatFromHue

Teferi wrote: »

I've never seen a New Zealand article that is complimentary of Irish rugby.

we've never beaten them and the last time we went down there they put over 60 on us. then the maori beat us a few days later.

why should they respect us?

its an awful article fairly typical of the written press over there to be honest.

they're not called one eyed kiwis for nothing!

bamboozle

after seeing one of the top world referees Alan Lewis failing to be selected for the world cup (even though George Clancy made it) i have to wonder how much the fact that Lewis 'upset' NZRFU with his display is the tri-nations last summer had to do with this decision.

Not to mention the arrogance over the BOD spear tackle or in this season's autumn internationals them having St. Kevin Mealamu's ban reduced i've zero time or sympathy for the NZRFU they've far too much power in world rugby.

mikedragon32

bamboozle wrote: »

after seeing one of the top world referees Alan Lewis failing to be selected for the world cup (even though George Clancy made it) i have to wonder how much the fact that Lewis 'upset' NZRFU with his display is the tri-nations last summer had to do with this decision.

Not to mention the arrogance over the BOD spear tackle or in this season's autumn internationals them having St. Kevin Mealamu's ban reduced i've zero time or sympathy for the NZRFU they've far too much power in world rugby.

Power but no cash, apparently.

A bit like a shi1te Bond villain.

Rigor Mortis

I'm sure some of the All Black's smaller island neighbours could point out the hypocracy in them complaining about poaching.

molloyjh

What I don't understand from that article is that the IRFU and NZRFU were both talking about that big nasty French league robbing all around them. In the last few years how many players have we lost to French clubs?

LeeroyJones

molloyjh wrote: »

What I don't understand from that article is that the IRFU and NZRFU were both talking about that big nasty French league robbing all around them. In the last few years how many players have we lost to French clubs?

Fair enough point but the potential risk is there. We've been lucky (OK you make your own luck!) that in the time French clubs have really gotten aggressive with their spending the Irish Provinces have simutaneously been doing quite well in Europe. 3 Heineken Cups in 5 years suggests that Ireland is a good spot to ply your trade and the prizemoney awarded for this success means the IRFU can afford to hold onto the top players.

I would imagine that had Irish provinces not pushed on in the last decade we would be seeing more and more players moving to France.

JustinDee

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I'm sure some of the All Black's smaller island neighbours could point out the hypocracy in them complaining about poaching.

While the latest sook from Steve Tew is stupid, who exactly have NZ poached?
I can think of ONE player: Sivivatu.

Never mind where a player is born. NZ is to the Pac Islands what the UK was to Ireland during the 40s & 50s and 70s & 80s. Families moved there to settle.
Even with looking it up, which players in any of the NZ squads from each RWC year were not brought up in New Zealand from a young age?
I'm not even a New Zealander but if you name a name, I can tell you.

Also: How many Kiwis play for the likes of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga?

PhatPiggins

JustinDee wrote: »

While the latest sook from Steve Tew is stupid, who exactly have NZ poached?
I can think of ONE player: Sivivatu.

Never mind where a player is born. NZ is to the Pac Islands what the UK was to Ireland during the 40s & 50s and 70s & 80s. Families moved there to settle.
Even with looking it up, which players in any of the NZ squads from each RWC year were not brought up in New Zealand from a young age?
I'm not even a New Zealander but if you name a name, I can tell you.

Also: How many Kiwis play for the likes of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga?

Can we please not have this conversation again. You're completely right in what you say and only one player in the AB squad was born outside NZ but every 2/3 months some numpty comes along and accuses NZ of poaching and we have a 3 page deabte on correcting him/her.

pajunior

molloyjh wrote: »

What I don't understand from that article is that the IRFU and NZRFU were both talking about that big nasty French league robbing all around them. In the last few years how many players have we lost to French clubs?

I have no problem with Irish clubs poaching players from NZ. It's there fault for not getting the most out of the brand that is the AB's.

I do have a problem with the IRFU complaining about French clubs poaching players. 1 because it's an open market and 2 because we haven't lost any players to France.

durkadurka

What the French clubs are doing is driving up the wages. We have had to stump up more than before to keep the likes of sexton heaslip etc.

Clearly the welsh And scots are not able to do that, I presume because their regions are not as good as our provinces.

LuckyLloyd

Teferi wrote: »

I've never seen a New Zealand article that is complimentary of Irish rugby. This is more of the same. Some of it is awfully condescending.



C'mon like...We are one of the best teams in the world.

Because we've never beaten them. You got to earn respect, and we haven't in this case.

jolley123

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Because we've never beaten them. You got to earn respect, and we haven't in this case.

Italy have never beaten us but we still treat them with respect and are very complimentary of their pack and their recent strides..., but I get what you are saying. SA and NZ simply don't respect teams like Ireland and Wales. I remember watching a speech that Gatland gave to the Lions that summed it up pretty well.

pajunior

jolley123 wrote: »

Italy have never beaten us but we still treat them with respect and are very complimentary of their pack and their recent strides..., but I get what you are saying. SA and NZ simply don't respect teams like Ireland and Wales. I remember watching a speech that Gatland gave to the Lions that summed it up pretty well.

Italy have beaten us, three times in fact in the 90's. Therefore by the logic going in this thread they deserve much more respect from us then we do from NZ.

Monty Burnz

pajunior wrote: »

Italy have beaten us, three times in fact in the 90's. Therefore by the logic going in this thread they deserve much more respect from us then we do from NZ.

I remember it well. I think it was the third of those defeats (in Dublin :eek:) that I thought was the lowest point in our rugby history.

JustinDee

pajunior wrote: »

I do have a problem with the IRFU complaining about French clubs poaching players. 1 because it's an open market and 2 because we haven't lost any players to France.

Poaching isn't the issue (there's no poaching involved if a player is at end of or out of contract anyway).
The issue is the driving up of salary levels by the private owners of the top French teams. By "French teams", I mean that figuratively of course though given the amount of non-French qualified players on many of their teamsheets. Toulon is a joke, for example. An entirely new meaning to the term 'International Rugby'.

LeeroyJones

I've no stats in front of me so I am open to correction, but it seems like that there are more and more Southern hemisphere players coming over in their 20s. Europe doesn't seem to be a place to cash-in towards the end of a career, rather a place to make big bucks during the peak of a career.

I wonder if it will ever come to the point where a promising SH player in his late teens/early twenties will say 'screw international rugby, I'm going north for the money now!'

JustinDee

LeeroyJones wrote: »

I wonder if it will ever come to the point where a promising SH player in his late teens/early twenties will say 'screw international rugby, I'm going north for the money now!'

It already has done.
For example, Scott Staniforth was one of the most talented backs in the Wallaby setup during the late 90s. Didn't want to hang around and compete for a place with Roff, Tune, Tuqiri and Sailor, so he shot through to the UK.

If NZ don't win the RWC this year, the game in that country will be dealt a blow regarding the national team as players bolt for wealthier career moves, be that in NRL or ERC teams.
Added pressure on them this Sept/Oct.

Monty Burnz

You can easily see a situation arising where the Super 15 ends up in big trouble in a few years if the top players don't hang around there. It wouldn't be good for the SH national teams either.

sock puppet

JustinDee wrote: »

It already has done.
For example, Scott Staniforth was one of the most talented backs in the Wallaby setup during the late 90s. Didn't want to hang around and compete for a place with Roff, Tune, Tuqiri and Sailor, so he shot through to the UK.

If NZ don't win the RWC this year, the game in that country will be dealt a blow regarding the national team as players bolt for wealthier career moves, be that in NRL or ERC teams.
Added pressure on them this Sept/Oct.

Don't know about the NRL. The flow has only been one way in recent years. And even if they do lose playing for the ABs makes players more valuable imo. I'd bet that if they all moved up here Sivivatu and Rokocoko would earn significantly more money than Poki and Maitland. Even McAlister is still sought after despite being mostly crap since the last world cup.

Think more players like Payne might start moving though. He probably feels with Kahui and Freuen there he'll only ever be a fringe AB player.

Piliger

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I'm sure some of the All Black's smaller island neighbours could point out the hypocracy in them complaining about poaching.

Indeed !! New Zealand have profited enormously from 'pillaging' players from the Pacific islands for decades.

It is astonishing hypocrisy for them to knock Ireland or France for the same thing...

Piliger

Teferi wrote: »

I've never seen a New Zealand article that is complimentary of Irish rugby. This is more of the same. Some of it is awfully condescending.
C'mon like...We are one of the best teams in the world.

Well ... let's face - we can't expect must respect after that game in New Zealand last summer ..
It was the most humiliating and shameful performance by any Irish sporting team in the history of Irish sports.
I really don't blame the people of NZ from having little more than scorn for us.

Monty Burnz

Piliger wrote: »

Well ... let's face - we can't expect must respect after that game in New Zealand last summer ..
It was the most humiliating and shameful performance by any Irish sporting team in the history of Irish sports.
I really don't blame the people of NZ from having little more than scorn for us.

Was that the game where we scored 4 (?) tries against the mighty ABs playing in NZ with 14 and sometimes 13 men against 15? Yeah, shameful alright.

I take it that you are too young to remember Irish rugby the in 90s. Or Irish soccer in the Staunton era.

JustinDee

Piliger wrote: »

Indeed !! New Zealand have profited enormously from 'pillaging' players from the Pacific islands for decades.

It is astonishing hypocrisy for them to knock Ireland or France for the same thing...

Examples?

Kiwi_knock

Realistically if a NZ player moves north for a year or two he is giving up ever playing for the All Blacks again. The rate in which NZ produce players means that by the time they return they are forgotten about.

It is a smart move by the fringe AB players to move north, greater earning power and less burnout due to international games.

CatFromHue

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Was that the game where we scored 4 (?) tries against the mighty ABs playing in NZ with 14 and sometimes 13 men against 15? Yeah, shameful alright.

I take it that you are too young to remember Irish rugby the in 90s. Or Irish soccer in the Staunton era.

that game was a reminder of what it used to be like. possible worse though!

we didnt put up a fight til the game was over as a contest.

they should have put a hundred on us but relaxed and took their foot of the pedal

little173

I dont see it as a huge problem for NZRFU really, only Carl Hayman would get into the AB's World Cup squad and there are 250 NZ playing top level rugby in Europe now. They are a bit miffed about Payne as they see him as a decent prospect but they churn out quality rugby players like there is no tomorrow so it really is not going to hurt them. The AB jersey is still a special thing and they will now allow their big guys to earn money in Europe for 2 years between World Cups which is a wise move.

The real issue is the French clubs and the distortion of the market which is not sustainable and will only be addressed when a sugar daddy pulls the plug on a big club and it goes into freefall.

skregs

JustinDee wrote: »

Examples?

Frank Bunce. An actual NZer, he played for Samoa in the world cup, until the ABs decided he was good enough to play for them and poached him.

They tried to steal Caucau

Sivuvatu went to college in NZ, therefore making him eligable to play for NZ?



On the other hand, you do have Tuigamala, who played for New Zealand and later went on to play for Samoa

jacothelad

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I remember it well. I think it was the third of those defeats (in Dublin :eek:) that I thought was the lowest point in our rugby history.

I agree but wasn't that the game in which Italy were penalised 33 times. They simply ignored the laws of the game but still played well enough and scored two or three breakaway tries. Burke kicked 8 penalties for Ireland i think.

Team 15 FB Conor O'Shea 14 W James Topping 13 C Jonathan Bell 12 C Mark McCall 11 W Dominic Crotty 10 FH Paul Burke 9 SH Stephen McIvor 1 P Nick Popplewell 2 H Keith Wood (c) 3 P Paul Wallace 4 L Gabriel Fulcher 5 L Jeremy Davidson 6 F David Corkery 7 F Eric Miller 8 N8 Anthony Foley Replacements 16 R Denis McBride 17 R Paddy Johns

JustinDee

skregs wrote: »

Frank Bunce. An actual NZer, he played for Samoa in the world cup, until the ABs decided he was good enough to play for them and poached him

A New Zealander who played for Samoa and switches back to New Zealand is a poach???
Before 2000, players were still able to switch around the international circuit like Strauss and Noriega did.

skregs wrote: »

They tried to steal Caucau

So did France.

skregs wrote: »

Sivuvatu went to college in NZ, therefore making him eligable to play for NZ?

Sivivatu I already mentioned as being the only All Black I can recall as being brought to NZ as a non-qualified player in order to qualify.

skregs wrote: »

On the other hand, you do have Tuigamala, who played for New Zealand and later went on to play for Samoa

Most of the Tongan and Samoan players from past RWCs are Kiwis who qualify to play for those countries.

skregs

I personally don't buy into the whole NZ stealing players thing, but you can see that they do make grabs for players that show potential.

Like how we sit here talking about Strauss or Mafi becoming Irish qualified

GerM

jacothelad wrote: »

Team 15 FB Conor O'Shea 14 W James Topping 13 C Jonathan Bell 12 C Mark McCall 11 W Dominic Crotty 10 FH Paul Burke 9 SH Stephen McIvor 1 P Nick Popplewell 2 H Keith Wood (c) 3 P Paul Wallace 4 L Gabriel Fulcher 5 L Jeremy Davidson 6 F David Corkery 7 F Eric Miller 8 N8 Anthony Foley Replacements 16 R Denis McBride 17 R Paddy Johns

*facepalm*

How the hell did we lose with that pack?!

Monty Burnz

GerM wrote: »

*facepalm*

How the hell did we lose with that pack?!

Yeah, I was going to say that that's actually a decent line-up. God be with the days when we could field a front row composed entirely of B&I Lions. Actually, all of the pack were Lions tourists, except for Foley (who was a damned good player), Fulcher and Corkery (who retired very early due to injury).

Piliger

skregs wrote: »

Frank Bunce. An actual NZer, he played for Samoa in the world cup, until the ABs decided he was good enough to play for them and poached him.

They tried to steal Caucau

Sivuvatu went to college in NZ, therefore making him eligable to play for NZ?

On the other hand, you do have Tuigamala, who played for New Zealand and later went on to play for Samoa

And that is ONLY players who PLAYED FOR New Zealand. The issue is not about poaching players from NZ to play for Ireland, but just play in Ireland.

Looking through the team listings for any of the top five teams in NZ will elicit a long list of players from the Pacific Islands who now live in and play for NZ teams.

Piliger

JustinDee wrote: »

Examples?

Look through the team listings for any of the top five teams in NZ and it will elicit a long list of players from the Pacific Islands who now live in and play for NZ teams.

Piliger

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Was that the game where we scored 4 (?) tries against the mighty ABs playing in NZ with 14 and sometimes 13 men against 15? Yeah, shameful alright.

I take it that you are too young to remember Irish rugby the in 90s. Or Irish soccer in the Staunton era.

I was watching Irish matches in Lansdowne road in the 60's ...
And your point about scoring 4 ties is a joke, with respect. NZ had wiped the floor and chewed us up and spat us out by then. It was a complete embarrassment and a million miles worse than anything Irish soccer has brought us.

Risteard

Piliger wrote: »

Look through the team listings for any of the top five teams in NZ and it will elicit a long list of players from the Pacific Islands who now live in and play for NZ teams.

When did they move there though? A lot of them, most of them in fact, moved over when kids with their families and grew up playing rugby in New Zealand. That's not poaching.

Monty Burnz

Piliger wrote: »

I was watching Irish matches in Lansdowne road in the 60's ...
And your point about scoring 4 ties is a joke, with respect. NZ had wiped the floor and chewed us up and spat us out by then. It was a complete embarrassment and a million miles worse than anything Irish soccer has brought us.

With respect, how many teams playing with 14 men have scored 4 tries against the ABs in a test? The fact that the game was over as a contest is irrelevant, the Irish players remaining on the field never quit and lost with some dignity.

And with respect, being hammered 5-2 by mighty Cyprus (:eek:!!!!!:eek:) in a competitive match was far worse than anything our rugby team has ever put us through.

handsomecake

i was going to throw my hat in the ring but justindee has it covered.thanks justin

Monty Burnz

handsomecake wrote: »

i was going to throw my hat in the ring but justindee has it covered.thanks justin

We poached you too? Any chance we could trade you for Dan Carter? :pac:

JustinDee

Piliger wrote: »

Look through the team listings for any of the top five teams in NZ and it will elicit a long list of players from the Pacific Islands who now live in and play for NZ teams.

Are you judging by the names and birthplace?? I asked for example players that have been allegedly 'poached' by NZ.
List some from any year and I can tell you where they're from.

handsomecake

JustinDee wrote: »

Are you judging by the names and birthplace?? I asked for example players that have been allegedly 'poached' by NZ.
List some from any year and I can tell you where they're from.

its hilarious isnt it, oh he is tanned, oh he has tattoos....................where did they poach him from .samoa,fiji, tonga.they must have robbed him from somewhere

they discussed this very issue on off the ball on newstalk this week and i was disgusted when keith wood(who otherwise i find very good) perpetuated this myth by saying new zealand were poachers.the podcast is on itunes if anyone fancies a listen.

they are no more poachers then we are for robbing heaslip from israel or o gara from the usa

Piliger

New Zealand premier teams are chock full of Pacific Islanders who were poached in their early teens from the Pacific island. Denying it is just silly. Google is an easy path to the reality. NZ have no business knocking ireland for bring a couple of their players here to earn proper money.

JustinDee

Irish, English, Welsh, French and Italian teams also have many Pac Island and Kiwi players. That's not the point. There are no pro competitions in the three main rugby playing Pacific Islands. They have to play somewhere and are NOT poached.
So one more time, name players that are poached by NZ for their own.

GerM

Piliger wrote: »

New Zealand premier teams are chock full of Pacific Islanders who were poached in their early teens from the Pacific island. Denying it is just silly. Google is an easy path to the reality. NZ have no business knocking ireland for bring a couple of their players here to earn proper money.

Name all these players please. Just at a glance at the Blues and Crusaders squads, I don't think there's one player between them that moved from the islands over the age of 12. Could be wrong as that's just at first glance. They're the top 2 teams in NZ. Couldn't be bothered going through the Chiefs, Highlanders and Canes squads right now. Vast majority of players in NZ were born there. Think there's about 3 or 4 players in the entire Crusaders and Blues squads that were born outside NZ. Saying they're chock full is just plain wrong. A player cannot play for an NZ S15 side unless they're eligible for the national side. NZ are not bringing players over in their teens on the chance that in 3 years they may be good enough to play for a Super 15 side. So, please, list away....