One thing that has struck me this year watching Super Rugby is the growing number of Pacific Island players now plying their trade within Australian sides.
Without getting into deep analysis of immigration trends and the like, what we are seeing in Australian rugby seems akin to what was witnessed within New Zealand rugby in the early to mid 1990s, where the proportion of Pacific Island players in top sides started to become far skewed from the true representation of the Pacific Island population in New Zealand.
The reason for this is simple, Pacific Islanders are born to play rugby.
The game of rugby as we see it today – fast, physical and explosive – owes so much to what Pacific Island players have brought to the game.
All Black rugby is littered with great Samoan, Tongan and Fijian players. Olo Brown, Va’aiga Tuigamala, Frank Bunce, Jonah Lomu, Jerome Kaino, Tana Umaga, Ma’a Nonu and Michael Jones are some of the greatest players to pull on the black jersey.
Australia, with the likes of Willie Ofahengaue and Toutai Kefu, have also been blessed with supremely talented Pacific Island players in the past. The number has however spiked greatly in recent years, with Israel Folau just one of a number of Pacific Island heritage players in the Wallaby squad.
What is most interesting is the huge increase in the number of Pacific Island players within Six Nations sides. For so long, the English media banged a boring drum about the All Blacks pilfering Pacific Island talent. Well in recent years that drumming seems to be drastically quietening.
England of course have the Vunipola brothers, Manu Tuilagi and most recently Semesa Rokoduguni, who played in the Test at the end of last year against the All Blacks. It wasn’t so long ago that England had the giant Lesley Vainikolo running down the wing for them either.
Wales have the talented Taulupe Faletau, but it is France where we are seeing the Pacific Island influence at its greatest. Noa Nakaitaci, Uini Atonio, Romain Taofifenua and Jocelino Suta were all part of the French squad in this year’s Six Nations. And there will be more, a quick glance through team sheets in the French Top 14 shows the tournament littered with players of Pacific Island heritage. In the most recent round of matches, five of Montpellier’s starting side were of Pacific background.
With the advent of professionalism, the number of players with Pacific Island blood lining up for national sides throughout Europe will naturally increase as players have careers in countries such as France and England, settle and have sons who then go on to represent their new nations. In fact we have started to see this already.
Of course there are negatives to the global spread of Pacific Island talent, the main one being that the national sides of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji would be so much stronger if they could choose from all the talent at their disposal.
All we can do is embrace what this group of small islands in the middle of the Pacific has given the game of rugby. By population they may be small, but by impact they have been the greatest of any by far.
hakwa
Guest
hehehehehe
Paul Latu
Guest
In France you forgot Fofana and Vahavahaamahina and they re not Tongan but from Uvea Is ,still like Tahiti, a French colony.Tonga colonised the Uvea Is,long before the French Navy arrived in 19th century,Those 2 players are currently in the French lineup but there will be more in the future because Uvean hold a French passport like Polynesian in Auckland.
piru
Guest
Edward that's quite a different situation. The kids are already in NZ playing rugby at school and choose to stay. It's not like the US college recruit where they go to a village and tell the kids 'Come to X and get girls, money, fame blah blah'. That would be pilfering
PI-lfered
Guest
I actually agree with Squirrel - a lot of the islanders do come to NZ and Australia for a better life and in the process play rugby. Sometimes they even go on to representing their new country of residence. But the ones that don't are usually warned not to play for their Pacific Island Unions but if they do they risk the support of the Aus/NZ Unions when it comes to renegotiating contracts. The result is that it leaves the lesser PI unions with weakened teams and huge scorelines.
JimmyB
Guest
England don't select players who aren't playing their club rugby in England eg Armitage. Someone's birthplace appears a rather outdated and irrelevant way of deciding who they should play for.
JimmyB
Guest
Thanks for that. Not exactly a huge long list, but I'd agree that there's a few too many ringers ending up playing for Ireland and more recently Scotland. It might well have something to do with both having Kiwi coaches. Quite shocking indeed.
Breeze101
Roar Rookie
World Rugby like FIFA work really hard in investing time & money to build structures to grow their sport especially World Rugby, but if the NFL were to move in & take on World Rugby head on in the Pacific than that's a major threat. Maybe than World Rugby would counter the NFL with a Super Rugby franchise each to Fiji, Tonga & Samoa who knows but I highly doubt the NFL have any plans in the Pacific. As for the Nrl in the Pacific well they can keep dreaming World Rugby would destroy them as they already have.
Edward Pye
Roar Guru
Well actually Piru, they are...through the high school system. I'm not saying that the NZRU is targeting PI players specifically, but once PI players have been brought into the NZ system through high school scholarships, they generally want to stay in NZ and that leads to a lot of allegiance switching.
Jarijari
Guest
Here's a breakdown of birthplaces from players at the 2011 World Cup Importers: 15: Samoa (all from New Zealand) 12: USA 11: Italy 10: Japan 9: Tonga 8: England 7: Australia, Scotland 5: Canada, Fiji, Namibia, Wales 4: Ireland, New Zealand 2: France, Russia 1: South Africa 0: Argentina, Georgia, Romania Exporters: 38: New Zealand 13: Australia, South Africa 6: Argentina, England 5: American Samoa, Samoa 4: Tonga 3: Fiji 2: Hong Kong, USA, Zimbabwe 1: Burkina Faso, Canada, Cote d’Ivoire, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Scotland, Uzbekistan 0: France, Georgia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Namibia, Romania, Russia, Wales www.rugby15.co.za/2011/09/rwc-2011-players-born-in-other-countries/ These figures also apply to 2011 Turning to where the World Cup players currently ply their trade, nearly a quarter of all the players, at 23%, play in various competitions in France. Main foreign contributors there are Georgia, with 23 of its squad in France, followed by Argentina (20), Fiji, Romania, Tonga and Fiji (9 each), Italy (7), and the United States (6). The next largest destination for players is England on 13%, then New Zealand on 9%, with Australia, Japan, South Africa and Wales on 6%. Only Australia, France and New Zealand have squads playing only in their own country. At the other extreme, the Pacific countries have very few playing at home, with Samoa and Tonga on 3% and Fiji on 23%, while Georgia is also on 23%.
Birdy
Guest
Ha; nice comeback Simon.
Tigranes
Guest
I suspect the New Zealand rugby union spoke to the police about stopping those raids...
Bamboo
Guest
Agreed on some fronts. I do not think the skill level would be an issue. In regards to the Melbourne example without going into too much detail, where the Rebels sit in regards to fan base at the moment is about realistic of rugby in Melbourne. A whole lot of hiss and roar out of them for the first few seasons but this was just an organisation spending way beyond their means constantly being propped up by a generous shareholder. They learnt the hard way that you can biff money into a sport, but you can't buy fans. Irrespective of what the current arrangement is a Super Rugby team representing the Pacific Islands could be operated at close to break even. If that is the case, what is the issue?
Simon_Sez
Roar Guru
No problem Birdy my brother is one of Australia's lesding immigration lawyers.. would you like his details?
Sylvester
Guest
More likely the dawn raids of the 70s and 80s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_raid
Lion Down Under
Guest
Well said NOS. According to the French government (sport in France being more bureaucratic, as are most things, than elsewhere) rugby in France is ranked 7th in popularity behind association football, tennis, equestrianism, judo, basketball and handball. The article was in French and related to licences (not sure exactly what they mean) but these are the figures: Football: 2,002,398 Tennis: 1,103,519 Equestrianism: 694,480 Judo: 634,927 Basketball: 536,891 Handball: 500,651 Rugby: 447,499 According to this rugby in France is 4.5 times smaller than football. Rugby had a very big jump in popularity in 2007 (growth of 26%) due to the RWC - by far the biggest yearly growth of any sport in France in the last 15 years - but it's nowhere near football.
Lion Down Under
Guest
Contrary to popular belief / received wisdom Gareth Anscombe has never played for Wales, he has never even been in a matchday 23. He has been in the 34-man wider Wales squad and, ridiculously, even has a joint WRU - Blues contract. But this is due to the weakness of the Welsh clubs during their fight with the WRU and the compromises made in the recent peace deals. He was basically bought as a Cardiff (Blues if you must) club player by Mark Hammett when he took over as coach but the WRU was needed to back the deal.
Tigranes
Guest
Sailosi A lot more islander boys are making it in the NFL now. The current heisman trophy winner is a young man of Samoan heritage. The money on offer in the NFL dwarfs anything in Union or league. Tonga and Samoa are poor island countries with young men with powerful physiques. If American football had anything like world rugby as opposed to the fragmented setup whereby NFL teams have no ties to the structure that develops players, then I reckon that rugby would be under serious threat.
Targa
Guest
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11432348
Targa
Guest
Wii just answered that for me. The home unions are poaching NZers in their 20s (these aren't PI kids who come over as preschoolers) to play international rugby either through the grandparent rule or 3 year stand down. Wii - I think you mean Michael Bent (prop) from Taranaki. Hugh Blake (Otago flanker playing for Scotland) is another example while Bundee Aki is currently playing in Ireland waiting for his 3 years to elapse http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11241159
taylorman
Guest
Bunce was a real Mangere boy applying his trade at Manukau Rovers rugby and was knocking everyone over from there for years during the 80's. Stanley was keeping him out of the top Auckland side. Loved his beer and partying like the rest of us. It wasn't till he got over to North Harbour in 91 and Stanley had retired that Bunce started coming into his own and taking the AB thing more seriously. With his connection there with Walter Little he never looked back, the two the best midfield pair till Nonu and Smith came along.