International eligibility: Cleaning up the mess

After looking back at international eligibility issues that made frequent appearances in rugby headlines around the world, and putting poaching under the microscope by identifying the negative side effects of the practice, it’s time to clean up the international eligibility mess.

I will put forward recommendations that aim to directly solve the problem, eg. making specific alterations to the IRB’s international eligibility criteria.

I’d also like to make a number of suggestions for other areas of the game that could have a positive impact on international eligibility.

Firstly, the following would be my criteria for international eligibility in rugby union.

The place of birth criteria (keep as is): The most simple and basic piece of criteria. No matter what journey you take in life, you have every right to represent wherever it starts. It’s a connection that is never broken.

The residency criteria: This is the one rule I have spent more time thinking about than any other but one things for sure, it needs to be more than three years of living in a country before you can represent them. Three years is way too short for mine and isn’t long enough to build a substantial connection to a country.

Furthermore, it’s the easiest law to abuse as we’re seeing with the cases of Pacific Islanders heading off to Europe to then turn their back on their homeland.

I propose eight years of residency in a country before qualifying to play for that country. As I said I’ve toyed with this one for a while and could be convinced to go as low as six if a good reason comes with it. At 8 years, a 14 year old boy has to wait until he is 22 before representing his adopted country.

That’s long enough to develop that connection and a 14 year old would be spending a considerable amount of time in a development system to become the rugby player they are. It also gives them the potential to have a lengthy international career with their adopted homeland.

A move at 18 means that they would qualify for their new country when they turn 26. At 18, much of a player’s development is behind them and much of the credit for the player they are should go to the system they have come through. To make a change in allegiances at such a late stage of one’s development should mean that they have to forgo a considerable chunk of their international career.

This would hopefully encourage players to stay true to their homeland in order to play test rugby for a much longer period of time and be involved in as many World Cups as possible.

The heritage criteria: I would tighten the heritage criteria from one grandparent to one parent. I don’t believe one grandparent born in a country is a considerable enough affiliation to justify representing a country. It’s another easy rule to abuse as the Mike Harris and Sean Maitland cases suggest.

On the Maitland case, here’s a guy who has represented his country at under 19 and under 20 level and has clearly been trying his guts out to get an All Black cap and play at the international level.

At 24 he’s decided to go to plan B and pursue an international career by heading to Glasgow to put himself under Andy Robinson’s nose. I’m sure he’ll be getting a call up to next year’s Six Nations and for mine that cheapens the jersey of a proud and historic rugby nation.

One can also assume that the SRU was in some way involved in this move and if that were the case then it pushes dirt in the face of some solid outside backs like the Lamont brothers, Max Evans, Nikki Walker, Stuart Hogg and not to mention Dutchmen Tim.

As well as shaking the credibility of the SRU and the international game, this move also has a negative impact on the game in New Zealand and in particular Canterbury. Maitland was obviously a strong performer for the Crusaders and a valued team member. At 24, he was still well and truly in his prime and ideally New Zealand and the Crusaders would have loved to have him around for some years to come. As a professional athlete you can’t blame Maitland for chasing the pounds on offer, but the international carrot is something that never should have been dangled in front of him.

As I touched on in my second article in this series, there are a lot of good stories that come from players exercising their rights to represent a nation through the heritage rule. In particular, New Zealand born players going on to represent one of the island nations through a parent/grandparent. I used Lome Fa’atau playing for Samoa as an example of this.

Moving ahead with this tighter criterion, we will still see many ‘feel good’ stories like this happening but it will only be those who have a parent born in their adopted country. Too much good is done with this rule by stamping out many of the farcical eligibility issues we see today and I would hope that the adjustments I would make to the residency rule would counter the affect this may have on the Pacific Islands and ensure their strength moving forward.

One choice and one choice only criteria: I suggest keeping the rule in this regard as is. That being, once you’ve represented a country then that’s it. No changing back.

I do see the positives of changing this rule (particularly for the Islands), but again it would affect the credibility of the international game which is what we’re trying to tidy up. The rules should be altered in other ways to boost the strength of countries that would benefit from changing this rule.

So the eligibility and heritage rules are what I would change to have a direct impact upon the current eligibility mess. But outside of the possible rule changes there are some other actions that can be taken that will also make a difference.

Clearly we have to make players want to represent their country of birth or development. What has helped Australia achieve this since professionalism is the creation of a structure where the ARU provides significant ‘top ups’ to the Super Rugby contracts of players likely to appear in the national squad. I think there’s merit in the idea of the IRB helping certain unions that don’t participate in either the Six Nations or Rugby Championship to increase what they offer to members of their national squad.

With this I would revert back to a three tiered system. The top tier would consist of the 10 nations playing in the major tournaments of each hemisphere. The second tier would involve Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, USA, Canada, Japan, Uruguay, Namibia, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Georgia and Russia.

These 13 countries are among the strongest rugby nations that don’t have the luxury of playing in a well exposed annual tournament and reap the financial rewards that come with that. Therefore when these national squads do get together for their regional competitions and Test match windows, the IRB should come to the party to ensure that the players involved are financially rewarded in some way which will increase their incentive to play.

As countries like the USA, Japan, Canada and Russia begin to match it with their top tier rivals they will become integrated in or start their own major tournaments that generate substantial income for those unions. When this occurs they will be bumped up to the first tier and taken off the IRB’s support list.

It also provides incentive for countries like Chile, Brazil, South Korea, China, Kenya etc. to take their game to the next level in order to be accepted into the second tier where they’ll be involved in more regular and a higher standard of international rugby and their players will be provided with these payments.

Now I have no idea what the IRB could afford with an arrangement like this. It might be $1000 per player per game or up to 5 to 10 thousand. I’m sure someone will be able to shoot this idea down very quickly due to it not being financially viable. But I truly believe that investing in the teams that are just sitting outside of the 10 elite nations is money well spent. Limiting the cases of players switching allegiances and providing more incentives for players to strive towards achieving selection for their national team would be a great result for these teams.

In return the IRB will have another program in place that is moving towards the desirable situation of increasing the number of seriously competitive national teams which would be a great result for the international game. The amount given to players may only be symbolic (especially for those playing in Europe), but at least the IRB is seen as doing something to contribute to the strength of these tier two national teams.

Another way to ensure players ‘want’ to play for their homeland is by guaranteeing a smorgasbord of quality Test matches for them to be involved in annually. The five European countries that I’ve suggested for the second tier have the European Nations Cup to compete in.

I’d suggest the current Pacific Nations Cup between Japan, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga needs to be expanded to include the USA and Canada. My understanding is that this proposal is currently being looked at which is a great result for these developing nations. At full strength these six teams will provide tremendous competition for one and other and it ensures they’re each involved in a strong regional competition scheduled yearly that would be recognised as an accomplishment to win.

These second tier nations also need to play an increased role in the June and November test windows. Ideally at each window each of these second tier nations would get a home test against a tier one nation and an away test against a tier one nation as well as some games against other tier two opponents. Since their improved performances at the last two world cups, it’s been great to see some of these nations get the opportunity to be included in these windows more regularly. This trend needs to be maintained.

As well as the benefits it provides these developing nations, for a country like Australia it provides us with a great opportunity to take games to some of our boutique venues in communities that don’t often get to see the Wallabies play.

International games in places like Townsville, the Gold Coast, Newcastle, Wollongong, Adelaide and Canberra would do wonders for spreading the rugby gospel within our own borders which our five team professional domestic tier struggles with.

The final suggestion I would make to increase the opportunities for these tier two countries to be involved in more meaningful rugby is to create another major international tournament to run in between world cups. I’d make the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship biannual to run in even years while establishing hemisphere cups to run in odd years in between rugby world cups. The north could sustain a 16 team competition with 4 pools of 4 while the south would have 8 teams with 2 pools of 4.

These competitions would be a great tool in bringing these tier two nations out of the shadows more often than every four years. It would provide the rugby world with another significant tournament on the quad annual calendar for fans to embrace like they have with the world cup. Of course it wouldn’t become as big as the world cup but there’s no reason to suggest that the north and south hemisphere cups wouldn’t catch on and become another money earner for the IRB to generate funds to put back into the game.

As well as an increased presence on the international test rugby scene for these tier two countries, I’d like to mention a change I would make to our own domestic tier that could hopefully have an impact, particularly for the Pacific Island nations.

I would make some structural changes to professional rugby in Australia and New Zealand that would involve scrapping the existing Super Rugby format and create an ANZ Cup (netball league) style competition involving 8 teams from both countries.

I’ve put forward many reasons why I believe this would be beneficial for both unions on ‘Super Rugby Future’ type articles but in this article I will strictly discuss the impact such a league would have on international eligibility.

An important note with this idea is that it wouldn’t involve cutting ties with South Africa completely. As well as our own domestic season, part of the idea would involve a Heineken Cup type league including South African clubs with Japanese and Argentine clubs playing a minor role too.

The number of games a player would play for their club would go from the current minimum of 16 to a minimum of 21 when combining the Trans-Tasman and Heineken Cup style leagues. I mention these numbers due to the fact that an increase in club fixtures may help deter Australian and New Zealand players heading off shore and possibly linking up with other unions.

I believe it’s important that the domestic scene receives a greater standing then it currently does to generate more funds to help keep those talented players that aren’t quite cracking Wallaby and All Black squads.

These guys still hold an important place in the game locally and we shouldn’t simply accept that decent players who aren’t playing international rugby should chase the bucks overseas. We should fight to hold onto them and hopefully there won’t be more cases like Maitland’s. The guy still had so much to offer Canterbury and at 24 who’s to say he would never have achieved that elusive All Blacks cap.

I know that people are going to suggest that three extra Australian teams will mean that Australia will go after even more New Zealand rugby talent, but this doesn’t have to be the case. Firstly, if this were to go hand in hand with the changes to the eligibility rules I’ve suggested above then it would seriously limit the opportunities to do this.

More opportunities to play professional rugby will hopefully encourage more schoolboy talent to stick with the sport instead of seeking out the greater opportunities that currently exist in the NRL. A greater pool of players and not funnelling off our talent should ensure some sufficient depth for the national team.

For existing talent, three extra teams means that there’s more opportunity for more local products to play rugby for a living. If the ARC taught us anything it’s that there is a significant amount of talented players that aren’t playing regular Super Rugby in this country. More spots will provide more opportunities and not force a lot of home-grown talent overseas.

This is obviously mirrored in New Zealand with three squads of non Super Rugby NPC talent getting their opportunity to fill these positions and make a fulltime living out of rugby without jumping on a jumbo. Sure it wouldn’t be up to the current Super Rugby standard, but the NPC is a perfect example of the entertainment value of a league that isn’t up to the Super Rugby level.

The depth issues in Australia are being blown out of proportion but I’ll concede that for eight competitive teams, we will need some help from foreign players. I’d suggest the league would adopt the following roster policy for all teams involved. Each team could have two marquee players from either South Africa or one of the six European heavyweights.

Outside of this teams can use unlimited players from all around the world. I don’t believe this would result in a flood of Pacific Island talent as a lot would still head for the bigger bucks in Europe and there just aren’t that many of them. But it would hopefully provide some more opportunities for Islander and Argentine players to be involved in professional rugby which will also be of great benefit to their national teams.

If the eight year residency rule were in place there would be no issues with eligibility and there would be no pressure for them to turn their back on their homeland. They would be in the country to play for their domestic club with no ulterior motives coming from the ARU or New Zealand rugby union. More potential places for Pacific Island talent would be a great result for the three pacific unions and tighter eligibility rules would ensure their players would remain available for selection.

Furthermore, three more teams would mean that the ARU would already have a healthy number of players with Australian eligibility playing professional rugby so there wouldn’t be a great need to find other players to qualify.

With tighter eligibility rules, there could also be a flow of players between Australia and New Zealand too. So if a kiwi went to and Australian franchise they could still be selected for the All Blacks and vice versa. If need be, the unions could enter a contract agreement where any player born and developed in one country wouldn’t be able to represent the other. Such a scenario would be a great benefit for the league.

Under such a league, I believe Australia would be able to field the equivalent of roughly 6 full squads. That’s a great number of players to ensure a strong pool of talent for national selection and obviously provides many more spots then what’s currently available. The equivalent of two more full squads would come from teams using marquee signings and talent from New Zealand, the Islands and Argentina with a sprinkling of players from other tier two nations who would all remain eligible for their homeland. This would also benefit New Zealand as there would be roughly be nine squads of rugby players (all available for All Black selection) involved in a fully professional Trans-Tasman league.

That concludes my review and subsequent recommendations for tidying up international eligibility. First and foremost the IRB’s rules need to be amended. Then the games organising body has a role to play in making international caps for these tier two countries more valuable by increasing the opportunities for these teams to play in more meaningful Test matches and rewarding their players with greater financial incentives.

Here in Australia and New Zealand we have the opportunity to make a difference through our domestic set up. Create a league that provides more opportunities for kiwis to stay in this corner of the world and for more Pacific Islanders to make a living out of rugby while not being pressured to switch allegiances.

This structure also takes the heat off Australian administrators to look beyond our own borders for talent that could potentially go on to play for the Wallabies by dropping the standard slightly to include more of our own players in professional rugby.