ZEBO PAYS PRICE
Munster star axed as Aki set for debut
IT WAS just after two o’clock yesterday afternoon when the IRFU delivered their “Simon Zebo axed by Ireland” bombshell via an email that ignored this volcanic topic.
Instead, the press release opened with mention of how Aviva Stadium ticket sales for the November series are going very well (one game sold-out, the other two nearly the same way).
It then meandered into further sales pitch territory, mentioning how Eben Etzebeth should skipper a likely full-strength Boks in the November 11 opener, how Fiji arrive a week later as Pacific Nations champions with flair players, and how Mario Ledesma, a former hooker under Joe Schmidt at Clermont, will be part of the Pumas’ backroom staff when they visit on November 25.
Only then was there a brief contribution from Schmidt himself. ‘In what we anticipate will be an incredibly physical Guinness Series plenty will be demanded of the squad. We have retained a core of experienced players but have also included a number of promising players that we hope will acquit themselves well.’
There was nothing else. No highlighting that there are four new caps included, the usual headline gambit in these squad announcements. And no reference either to the elephant in the room, the dramatic exile of Zebo just three days after the Corkman revealed he will play in France next season.
Zebo’s immediate Test scene expulsion will jolt the Irish rugby public. The general expectation was that Munster’s flair artist would at least continue to represent Ireland through to the end of the 2017 Six Nations and would only then be excluded due to the IRFU’s understandable preference to only select players attached to Irish-based clubs.
But no, the IRFU decided to immediately kick Zebo to touch even though he is still on the Munster payroll, Schmidt sending out a sharp message that there is a heavy price to pay for signing with a club overseas.
Adding fuel to the controversy is the awkwardness of seeing Zebo, a born and bred Irishman with 35 caps, left out at the same time as Bundee Aki is included, the New Zealander only recently becoming eligible to represent Ireland after living here for 36 consecutive months.
The optics don’t look great when presented as “Irish man who signs overseas out, Irishbased foreigner in” even though these particular two players aren’t directly vying for the same position in the back line.
Conor Murray acknowledged this conundrum yesterday: the exile of Irish players who go overseas and the courting of foreigners who can become Irish-eligible through residency.
The scrum-half didn’t know when speaking at a lunchtime sponsorship event that Zebo had been axed by Ireland. That word only came through around an hour later.
But he was still willing to discuss the tricky topic, accepting that it must look odd to supporters how Irish-reared talents wouldn’t be able to play for Ireland if based abroad, yet project players, such as Aki, could.
‘It’s a strange way to look at it, definitely,’ he said. ‘That is the way international rugby is at the moment. I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong. ‘The lads who move away probably feel hard done by and it probably affects them more, or they would be a little bit more annoyed when they see someone like that, say Zeebs, leaves and he doesn’t get picked and a 15 comes in, becomes a resident and plays for Ireland, that can be hard for Zeebs to maybe take it. ‘He’s watching that game and he says, “That could be my cap, my whatever number cap but I can’t get it now”. But it’s just the way it is. It’s a bit of a weird issue to be honest.’ In the meantime, with Schmidt keeping his powder dry until next Tuesday’s appearance at the Rugby Writers of Ireland annual awards in Dublin, Zebo’s axing from a 38-strong squad will be the bank holiday weekend talk of the country.