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Why France is right to be concerned about rugby imports

Roar Guru
9th January, 2018
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Roar Guru
9th January, 2018
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1519 Reads

French rugby president Bernard Laporte has chosen his former national assistant Jacques Brunel as the new national coach despite his dismal record with Italy, and a fascinating article in Monday’s Australian entitled: ‘France appoints new coach and takes a stance on foreign occupation of top 14 clubs‘, shed some light on why.

It’s interesting that France has had fewer coaches this century (four) than Australia, South Africa, England, Scotland and Wales, which have each had six apiece.

The reason behind the sacking of former coach Guy Noves is the win-loss record of the French national side being in freefall. Under Noves Les Blues have won just seven of their last 21 tests.

It wasn’t much better under legendary former national winger and captain Philippe Saint-André, who coached the team to just a 44 per cent win record. At the turn of the century Les Blues were winning more than six of every 10 tests.

The penny, or the franc, has finally dropped for the French, who at last seem to understand that the overwhelming influx of overseas players is now critically affecting the performance of the national team.

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The flip side is the loss that the Springboks especially and the Wallabies to a lesser extent have suffered in their national teams, with so many players who are capable of either playing in the top 23 or competing to keep others honest going overseas and leaving a massive void in their home countries.

Not only are South Africa and Australia deprived of quality players competing for the national team, but this loss directly affects their national competitions as well.

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I’ve been following rugby for 50 years, and while I grew up loving the expansive style of French backline play, which seemed to produce tricky, elusive backs at will, it was also apparent that they produced plenty of technically proficient, huge, brooding, snarling props and massive, raw-boned second rowers.

Today so many of the top 14 clubs are apparently awash with Argentine and Georgian props, leaving only a small and diminishing pool in quality to compete for national Les Bleus selection.

But this problem exists more or less in every position.

Four clubs in the top 14 have lists of 42 to 43 players comprising more than 50 per cent foreigners, and there are apparently 257 foreign players amongst the 596 top 14 club players. That’s very close to almost half. Indeed one club, Oyonnax, could field an entire match day squad of foreigners, as could probably a few other clubs.

Laporte intends to reduce the number of foreigners from match day squads down to just five. The billionaire club owners are feverishly haggling for seven.

Laporte has apparently cleverly changed the rules. Now not only are clubs fined for not toeing the line regarding the import rule but they also lose competition points as well, which affects their bottom line much more deeply.

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It will be interesting to see if England bothers to follow suit. At present the England national team is riding the crest of the wave, so the motivation is not as strong at present for them to change. But in the not so distant past the influx of foreigners into Premiership Rugby has also hurt the development of the Red Roses.

In an ideal world the movement of players from one country to another would be controlled for the benefit of everyone’s long-term interests. Those clamouring about ‘restraint of trade’ can go to the naughty corner.

Unlike football, rugby has a finite pool of talent worldwide. If it’s not managed, a few countries will become very strong while the rest will become weak, lose interest and pursue other sports. Perhaps it’s better to be a smallish fish in a large pond than end up as a big fish in a small pond.

If the ostentatiously named World Rugby can find the gumption to protect everyone’s interests rather than pander to the few, then a country like Australia could get back anywhere from upwards of 50 overseas players, which would help enormously in developing an eight-team national competition.

With more quality players in each of these teams, it would then be more attractive to TV and other media interests to become involved.

We can only dream and hope.

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