That is exactly right Rancid.
At what point should a player that moved to another country as a kid be expected to play for the country of his Birth or Parents/Grandparents birth?
People saying Lote or Civ have been poached are dreaming they emigrated to Oz they had not played the game before moving to Oz.

Poached in the sense England are recruiting players that have little or no association with the game at any reasonable level from England but are recruited for their skills built elsewhere.
Reed
Heighington
Chase
Maurie Fasavalu
Widdop.
Poaching or enticing players to play for another country other than the one they reside in permanently and have played all of their grade League in or call home is far less prominent in Oz than it is in England or NZ.

Tuqiri was 15 months old when he moved here, not sure why his wiki page still says 15 years old.

I guess based on this often posted argument.
Ashley Cole
Glen Johnson
Joleon Lescott
Theo Walcott
Ashley Young
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Jermain Defoe
Danny Welbeck

Have all been poached by the current England Football team as they have third generation attachments to another nation.

The players that Australia have selected are Aussies similar to one third of the NZ team that beat them at the last World Cup.
Get over it, they have moved and made a life in Australia before they ever considered what Rugby League was.

Not disagreeing per se but Fasavalu hadn't played RL until he moved to England.. that seemed to be an argument on here


And Widdop grew up playing RL here and was in a pro teams scholarship before moving to Aus, I wouldn't say he was completely developed in Aus.
Heighington, Chase and Fasavalu are the contentious ones however dress it up how you like, only Chase is contentious compared to the poaching that has been going on for years by you boys. Reed is English and Heighington is dual nationality, both have never played for another country, certainly not questionable by anyones rules.

Back on topic it almost seems like discrimination! The islanders definately need to pick up more fixtures and more funding opportunities starting with this year! England should go on tour with a series against NZ to finish!

They dont all have third generation attachments to another nation, thats just some strange assumption you have made because they are all black or mixed race. Strangely you didnt look at the most obvious example in Owen Hargreaves but he is white.

Nobody has suggested any of these players should be forced to play for one nation or the other, they should have a choice. At the moment that decision is firmly weighted to one side and not the other.

If Akuila Uate wants to play for Australia then that is fine, if he feels more Australian than Fijian nobody has an issue with that. The complaint that people have is that Uate's choice isnt Fiji or Australia, its Fiji and 2nd tier, irregular international games, or Australia, tier one regular internationals, SoO, and £50k a season.

Uate shouldnt be missing out on SoO and financial reward because he wants to represent Fiji. He can be Fijian and NSW, in the same way he can be NSW and Country.

Maybe Dico,
Widdop was a junior at a small Club, the Storm have made him what he is.
Reed was a Tradie playing as a hobby an groomed through the Broncos feeder clubs.
My point was, when as Oz pinched a player that was already of a decent standard?p
The answer is never.
Why should a player like Hayne be expected to play for Fiji?
I was born outside of Oz I could not imagine playing for any other Country than Oz regardless of where my Parents or Grandparents were from.

Maybe Hayne might want to.

I do not really follow football, I just listed some players that are current English squad players that are not Anglo Saxon and have roots from another country, like Hayne or Simms.

Is Hargreaves in the current England squad?
I thought he was a Canadian that maybe qualified for Germany on residency but was called up by England as a player better than they could develop through their junior system? (but his Dad was from the old Dart)



A bit like Heighinton or Chase.

A player should decide who he represents and thats final (as you suggested) I just get fed up with the concept that SOO is some black hole dragging players from other nations in to build an Australian squad.
If that was the case why does Benji Marshall an Australian Schoolboy not get sucked into the SOO vortex?

Most Australian get a bit defensive when a concept like SOO is built from nothing with plenty of detractors in the early days and is developed into a fantastic series that is the benchmark for the game in Oz, then every bugger says it should be open to other Nationalities and its too big and destroys the International game etc etc.
Maybe if some "BIG" teams were more competitive at Test level SOO would not be seen as the best v the best?

Then that is his choice, he should decide and stick with it.

I think we are getting in to very strange territory. I would hope we have moved on from Anglo-saxon = English. Im, white, from England, couldnt tell you whether my heritage is Angle, Saxon, Jute, Dane, Norman, German or Celt. I do know im no more or less English than Ashley Cole.
Pretty much correct, but except Hargreaves is English.

Marshall could have been. But he declared his allegiance very early and had only been in Aus 4 years before playing for NZ. Its not some vortex dragging players away from other nations, its $50k and 3 big events a year which entices players to play for Australia as opposed to other nations.

I dont see SoO as the best of the best, maybe in Australia it is seen like that, but outside the few over here who have hardons for anything NRL, its not seen here the same. New Zealand would probably beat both squads 7/8 times out of ten.

And maybe more sides would be competitive at test level if all the best players werent switching allegiance to one nation to play SoO.

Hargreaves?
He was born in Canada yes?

My point is not every person that is from Island heritage is still Tongan, Samoan or Fijian. They are Australians.
Maybe players should be told to pick a Nation and stick with it?, several English players have been Welsh, Irish and Scottish over the years? what's Brough nowadays?

The $50k is not a fact its a prediction, many have complained even recently about the level of pay for SOO.

Which big players have switched to Australia in recent times to play SOO that have not been residents in Oz since they were schoolboys?

You have know idea.

You quote NZ? they have won some really big finals, the only games they have won in around 20 Tests against Oz.
What about England or GB? what have they won? you should not quote other teams results vicariously because you have nothing to offer.

The fact is QLD would beat NZ 9 out of 10 and NSW would not be far behind that.

I think England would beat NSW more often than that, I really do. Queensland, maybe not but NSW man for man aren't as good as England imho and it shows in recent origin results. Don't forget Eng and NZ are playing the best of both teams combined

How is that a fact?

How is it fact Wellsy?

Because it felt like it to me last night, with a few JD's in me.
Apologies...

Wait, are we talking about League or Union?

Harmichael comes to mind!!

I assume you are talking about karmichael hunt, who emigrated to Australia with his family aged 11, took up rugby league with a local club and moved through the ranks to nrl, qld and Australia? How is that poaching?

Good point made about the 2 tier structure. I'm not sure if it would help or hinder the Tier 2 nations though, as their players could be seen as 'cast offs' from tier one nations.

I'd go along with it though. If say Brough, McIllorum, Chris Bridge et al don't get picked for England it would be good if they could then play for Ireland, Scotland or Wales to give those nations a boost, give those players some international game time and make the Tier 2 nation's games more appealing.

It works both ways in regards to SoO and such. Australia take their pick of all South Sea/Australasian talent, New Zealand pick those Australian/South Sea players who don't get picked for Australia and qualify for them. So it's swings and roundabouts really.

Australia picks players that are either born in Australia or have moved to the country for economic reasons and end up playing the dominant Sport in two of the big States.


Other Countries look for players that were born or live or have lived in Australia and have been developed in the NRL that have connections with their Nation so they can be selected for their Test Team.

It does not really matter in the end, I just get ed off with hypocrisy and people that live in Glass Houses.

yes.

Yes, some are.
But they will pick the big 3 nations, regardless of what a player may feel, or what he may think his heritage makes him, or whether he feels Fijian, Tongan, Samoan, Papuan, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh, he is going to choose to play for NZ or England for the opportunity to play in the top tier internationals and Australian for the chance to play in the top tier internationals and SoO

Its more than $0

Akuila Uate was Fijian when he lived in Fiji, his dad was Fijian when he played for Fiji, Akuila Uate was Fijian in 2008 when he played for Fiji. When SoO came calling, he for some reason became a born and bread, died in the wool, sheep shearing, tinny drinking, reincarnation of crocodile dundee apparently.

because mostly they are half d mid-season Anzac tests with a kiwi b team playing because of a lot of convenient injuries. In actual, competitive tests the Kiwis are.......competitive. If they are competitive with the best 17 players Australia can put out, they are likely better than a team with only half of the best players Australia can put out.

I am not going through it all.
Uate came to Australia as a 16 year old youngster and moved to the NSW Central coast and represented Australian Schoolboys in 2005 as any School kid can regardless of Nationality.
He represented Fiji at the last World Cup so did Jarryd Hayne and Ashton Sims Born in Australia and around 60 other Australian born players for other World Cup teams to bolster that Tournaments smaller teams and make them competitive to a point, they knew by doing that it would not affect their chances of being selected for Australia, or NZ or England in the future.

So the Kiwis have played 20 recent Test matches against Oz and could not give a toss about 17 of them or even pick a strong squad? they had a master plan to win the games that count and plan to lose some games on the way to the finals to pounce in the big games?

I wonder why Australia bothers playing Test matches at all if that is the way the Kiwis approach Test games based on your Kiwi theory and England are a walk in the park most games.
Makes a mockery of the game at Test level if you are correct.

England have selected Kiwis, Islanders and Scottish and Welsh players in the past under exactly the same circumstances or worse, England has taken players built and developed elsewhere unlike Australia.

Two Australian born players were in the Kiwis World Cup winning Team including their Captain.

Im not so quick to decide, on behalf of Uate, that he only decided to represent the country of his birth and where he spend his childhood purely ‘to make them competitive’ in the world cup. Im not so quick to decide on behalf of Akuila Uate that his being a born and bread Fijian is secondary to his economic migration to Australia. You are.

For some reason you cant see that given a straight choice some of those who have chosen to play for Australia via birth or residency ahead of their nations of birth or heritage, that all things being equal, some of them may have chosen to stick with their nations of heritage or birth.

I don’t know whether Akuila Uate would have stuck with Fiji if it meant he could play SoO and in top tier internationals. But I think that is what we should be finding out.



Maybe the Kiwis would like to pick a strong squad, but there seems to be an awful lot of convenient injuries to Kiwi players in mid-season tests. A lot of minor surgery seems to be arranged for that time of year.
THey probably wont in the near future. The Anzac test will probably be gone pretty soon.
And i have no problem with any of them choosing to do so. Whether they choose to play for England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand is fine with me. It is however wrong that a player would lose so much by choosing to play for Fiji over Australia.

Ok done Smokey.
I would have no issues if one day a player that learnt his craft in England turned around an said my parents are Australians I want to play for them. That is never going to happen though.

The NRL builds players from all nations many times through Government Grants and School Scholarships and if they play for Australia its theft of a player, if like Benji Marshall ex Oz Schoolboy its developing other Nations players I guess.

Im not saying anything like that at all, however much you seem to be wishing I was.

Im simply saying that if a player wants to play SoO and top tier internationals he shouldn’t be forced to choose Australia/England/NZ.

If Akuila Uate wants to play for Australia fine, good luck to him. But he should do that because he wants to play for Australia not because if he chooses Fiji he misses out on Origin and top tier internationals.

[url=http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league-news/kiwis-hit-out-at-origin-coaches-as-kasiano-nears-maroons-switch-20120617-20ida.html?$50,000 for your loyalty.[/url