Naturalised players offer glimmer of hope
I REFER to the StarSport report “Malaysia suffer terrible defeat to favourites Hong Kong” (Sunday Star, May 6).
Malaysia’s emergence as the Asian Division One champion came at a propitious moment when Japan is hosting the Rugby World Cup 2019. Being host, Japan is automatically qualified to the Championship with the ripple effect that earned Malaysia the opportunity to participate in an ad hoc Asian Premier League with two Asian heavyweights as opponents, Hong Kong and South Korea.
The Premier league, which temporarily replaced the Tri Nations Rugby for this season, is to determine which second Asian team would progress to the next level in the Rugby World Cup qualifier.
Under normal circumstances, the Tri Nations Rugby – comprising Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea – is the top tier in the Asian Rugby Championships. The other Asian teams are grouped into different divisions based on their capabilities.
While a system of automatic promotion and relegation prevails in the respective divisions, the Division One champion, which happens to be Malaysia, has to make a challenge against the bottom team in the Tri Nations if it aspires to progress further. Given the existing yawning gap in standards between the Tri Nations and the Division One, it is a mammoth task to dislodge the wooden spoon from the elite group.
The recent Malaysian defeat by South Korea (31-10) and the 67-8 hammering by Hong Kong bear this out. And that too, Malaysia had fielded six hefty Fijians in the Korean encounter and six Fijians and a Samoan in the Hong Kong clash. Obviously, these foreigners, the naturalised players, provided the crucial physical power, weight and height in the pack. Is there any need to speculate what the score could have been without them?
But there is yet a glimmer of hope if Malaysia were to overcome its opponents with massive wins in the return leg in mid-May. Strategically, it should field all the naturalised players in the squad – reported to number 10 as three other Fijians were not available for the recent matches. Two were on the injured list while the third was away playing in another country. When it began the campaign, Malaysia started with three naturalised players.
Incidentally, Hong Kong has always been an expatriate team since the inception of the Asian Rugby Championships in 1968.
Of course, an all expatriate XV for Malaysia would be the better option. All it takes is another five naturalised players. Indeed, it shouldn’t be a tall order considering the large number of foreigners plying their rugby trade in the country.
After all, national pride and sovereignty have already been nonchalantly thrown out of the window in the blind and unrealistic quest for glory in Asian and World Rugby. Isn’t there a famous saying that “the end justifies the means”?
Lest the rugby fraternity be mistaken, the term “naturalisation” has nothing to do with Article 19 of the Federal Constitution. A foreigner becomes a naturalised player under World Rugby rules if he has a three-year residency status.
Fortunately, there has been a whiff of sanity sweeping across global sports that would help to burnish and restore the much abused national pride and sovereignty to its rightful place.
Both the Asian Games and Olympics have made it mandatory that nations field only citizens in their respective rugby tournaments. Would such initiatives gather further momentum?