The Kiwi conveyer belt keeps coming

WALES pick an Englishman who has never played for a Welsh club in a squad weakened by the omission of a bona fide Welshman because he plays in France.

Rhys Webb, whose position as Lions Test substitute for Conor Murray elevates him to a status as the second best scrum-half in Europe, is ineligible because he dared to leave Wales last summer with fewer than 60 caps.

Dan Biggar, his half-back partner at the Ospreys, also left Wales last summer for greener fields, in his case to Northampton’s at Franklin’s Gardens. Biggar can carry on with his international career as if nothing has happened because he has won 60 caps.

Jonah Holmes, on the other hand, is a very different case. Born in Stockport and raised in London, he has played for a number of English clubs, from Rosslyn Park, Wasps, Henley Hawks, London Scottish, London Welsh, Wasps again and Leicester Tigers, his current club.

He is now in the throes of making the metamorphosis from Tiger to Dragon on the strength of a Welsh grandparent. Blade Thomson, late of the Hurricanes and now of the Scarlets, has used the same ancestral link to walk straight into Scotland’s squad via his new employers in West Wales.

Thomson is the latest in a long line of Kiwis to find an alternative route into Test rugby on the other side of the world after failing to meet the demanding criteria necessary to become an All Black.

Each of the four home countries has been all the better for wrapping more than a few up in their national jersey without giving a thought to the consequent blurring of boundary lines.

The most recent converts include the England duo Brad Shields and Ben Te’o; Gareth Anscombe and Hadleigh Parkes to Wales; Sean Maitland, John Hardie, Simon Berghan and now Thomson to Scotland as well as Bundee Aki to Ireland. More are in the pipeline with Scarlets’ prospective Wales wing Johnny McNicholl serving the third and final year of his switch from New Zealand.