What 'provincial' actually means

This reminds me of the appointment of the winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, Simon Kuznets, in which he says: "There are four types of countries in the world: developed countries, underdeveloped countries, Japan and Argentina."

As most posters here can confirm to you Kearns has little credibility. He seems to suffer from oral diarrhea. I have not heard from anyone here in years call SR a pure provincial competition. NPC and Currie cups are more likely to be considered provincial competitions. With all the mess in AU, I am not sure which one is close to that. Maybe some Roarers can suggest an answer. But I have heard Kearns say stupid things before. And I am sure we will hear them in the future too.

I don’t think anyone thought of it as a pure provincial competition for years already. I must have missed that concern. This is why I didn’t get your point. I also don’t see how this goes to the Jaguares Pumas concern. That is purely an economic issue. There is (was?) no money in Argentina to sustain two teams. There is no money in Argentina for even a pure rugby stadium. The clubs have some fan support, being CASI the biggest one in URBA but even Velez is a soccer stadium. I presume that the old GEBA Jorge Newbury was the last pure rugby stadium in BA (at least). The nationality issue is a different story altogether.

If I may, I saw this point made during the original Kearns thread. Let's look at it: by saying that 30% of Australia's population was born overseas, the implicit comment is that gosh darn it, 30% of Australia's SR or Wallaby players could be foreign born. However, I'm a curious sort, and I proceed to look up the place of origin for Australia's foreign born population, and this is what I found: 1. England - 992,000 or 13.5% of the foreign born population; 2. Mainland China - 651,000 or 8.8% of the foreign born population; 3. India - 592,000 or 8% of the foreign born population; 4. New Zealand - 568,000 or 7.7% of the foreign born population; 5. Philippines - 278,000 or 3.8% of the foreign born population; 6. Vietnam - 256,000 or 3.5% of the foreign born population; 7. South Africa - 189,000 or 2.6% of the foreign born population; 8. Italy - 187,000 or 2.6% of the foreign born population; 9. Malaysia - 174,000 or 2.4% of the foreign born popuation; 10. Scotland - 135,000 or 1.8% of the foreign born population; 11. Sri Lanka - 134,500 or 1.8% of the foreign born population; 12. South Korea - 116,120 or 1.6% of the foreign born population; 13. Germany - 114,580 or 1.6% of the foreign born population; 14. Greece - 108,830 or 1.5% of the foreign born population; 15. United States - 108,610 or 1.5% of the foreign born population; 16.Hong Kong SAR - 100,620 or 1.4% of the foreign born population. (Some rounding up of the second decimal was done, and I stopped at 100,000 immigrants per country or place of origin). Now if there were any correlation between the number of foreign-born Australians and Rugby Union players, where are the SR or Wallaby players from China, India, the Philippines, Viet Nam, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, South Korea and Hong Kong? A back of the envelope calculation shows that about 31% of Australian immigrants are from those countries, so 8 to 10% of Australian players should be from those 8 countries or places of origin. Could you please point out if that is the case? My (limited) understanding is that while Australia is indeed a country of immigration, a very limited, perhaps miniscule number of foreign born Australian SR or Wallaby-level Rugby players are from these 8 countries or places of origin..... The logical conclusion is that yes, Australia is a country of immigration but there is a limited correlation between a material number of places of origin for foreign born Australians and foreign born Australian SR or Wallaby-level Rugby players..... Or Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc **** ***** For the record, I don't quite understand the obsession Argentinean Rugby Union fans have with place of origin. On some levels I get the point that Argentina is facing its SR and Test level rivals without imported players. However, as very adroitly pointed out by Carlos the Argie, if you had some burgeoning foreign-born super-star level players who grew up in Argentina, they'd be treated as part of the family. Yes, I'm splitting hairs a little, but people do move in this world, and it makes no sense to penalize a kid who may not have been born in your country, but who has grown there and is, for all extents and purposes, a national. (My home country of Panama has had a large influx of Venezuelans in the last 10-15 years. Realistically, most of the Venezuelans that get to Panama before they come of age are or will become - for all extents and purposes - Panamanians after a 10 to 15 year period, no matter whether they've become nationalized or not).

German, I totally agree with you. I don't get to listen to Argie commentary in the USA, as it is almost always in English, but I read the local press and social media. I know how much they insist on this issue. AP9, in particular, has tried to change the eligibility rules at World Rugby. I think we have to assume that those that want to bend the rules, will. I also remember when the Pumas HAD to have an Argie coach and they forget that it was Alex Wyllie that took the reins in short, very short, notice in 1999 and for the first time got the Pumas to a QF. So, as Nobrain said jokingly in another post, you always state something and have a back up excuse in case it doesn't work out.

I also worry that this “unlike them we are 100% national” argument has been/will be used to find blame elsewhere whenever we lose. I’ve heard this from the ESP Scrum band of sycophants when we lost in Novemeber… and I worry it will be heard if we don’t win against FRA or ENG in Japan. It’s not exclusive to rugby, I’ve heard this a lot about last year’s French football national team as well.

Loved the concept of ius pragmaticus.

I am sorry Bozo! You are right. I had in the back of my mind that he left the ABs before the 2015 RWC, my apologies! He was born in Oz, but I don’t think he would see himself as Australian. Or that Quade would see himself as a Kiwi. Or Stephen Moore as a Saudi. Or Pocock as a Zimbabwean, even though he does still support activities in his birth country. I did not like Tutema’s piece. He mixes provincial rugby with nationality selection. SR started as provincial to commit fans, to get a base, to get a feeding system of players. But they are professional franchises. Players move from one “province” to another. Nonu, SBW, Jaime McKintosh, George Whitelock, QC, there are many players in the three countries moving across franchises. Auckland is a feeding system to the other Kiwi franchises! The nationality issue is a point of contention primarily for Argies, who use a combination of ius solis (most players), ius sanguinis (Cancelliere) or “ius pragmaticus” (Rolando Martin, born in the USA from non-Argie parents but played in Argentina) to their demographic convenience. Argentina does not have immigration from rugby playing countries or from countries with big men, so they (we?, buy I don’t claim this) are proud of having only Argie born players in their team. It is a demographic coincidence. Nothing more. Tutema should focus more on the extreme cases instead of claiming that Jerome Kaino is a foreigner in NZ, an American Samoan. During one of the 6N matches, England had at one time 6 forwards in the game who were not “saxons”, plus a few backs. I don’t even care if they were born in England or not, or arrived as kids. Let each country’s cynicism deal with this situation. But the extreme bending of the rules IS a problem.

It is somewhat interesting, bemusing and even amusing seeing the contrast between the Jaguares and the Sunwolves. The Jaguares are effectively the national team model while the Sunwolves the extreme franchise model with just two Japanese in the starting team this week? It’s almost the equivalent of a battle between two polar opposite political systems :)

Owen Franks was born in NZ, his brother Ben was not part of the NZ team in 2015. Poor old Ben Franks... comes on as a replacement in the 2015 RWC final and he's already forgotten!!! (Note to author of the article: Pauliasi Manu was born and raised in Auckland. Kerr- Barlow is a Maori born in Australia, NZ father. Kaino came to NZ as a toddler...) Writing an article to refute the idiotic rantings of Phil Whinger Kearns is not a productive use of anyone's time.

Time the Argies got another team then.

I can believe that there were some really nice words and gestures involved, yes. =)

In addition to that we have "ius pragmaticus".

Topo Rodriguez played for the Pumas, for the Wallabies and for Tahiti (yes, true, ask him). When he played for the Wallabies against Argentina he received special treatment and language from the Pumas players. Even from some who had been his friends.

There were at least 12 nonArgentine born players that played for Argentina in soccer. The most famous one was Renato Cesarini. All of them probably before we were born.

Higuaín is a double national, since Argentina recognises both jus solis and jus sanguis. We moreover have a very friendly (and short) path to citizenship. It makes sense from the perspective of quite empty countries which needed (and still need) more population. However, I think we are mixing nationality and elegibility in this discussion. FIFA rules are more stringent than rugby union: you cannot play for another national team if you have represented another in an official international match (starting for U17s, I think). There are other sports, like swimming and waterpolo (i.e. under FINA) which you can change your “passports” quite easily. I known a guy that has played for the Argentinean, Spanish and Italian national waterpolo teams. And I don’t blame him… he is a world class star and he deserves the chance to fight for a gold medal in an Olympics, something he would not be able to do by keeping representing Argentina.