Foreign affairs

With Ruan Pienaar on his way, Sportsmail looks at the 15 best value overseas signings by the Irish provinces

THE gold rush isn’t over despite Ruan Pienaar’s disappearance into the Belfast night, the South African’s services no longer wanted following an exemplary seven-year stint that goes into history as excellent bang for hefty Ulster buck — estimated to be an outlay in excess of €2million.

IRFU boss David Nucifora — an Australian — will tell you how mining quality southern hemisphere talent is still imperative for Irish rugby. ‘Foreign players will always be welcome,’ he says. ‘They add value in a number of different ways. Supporters like to see the foreigners ply their trade here. There will always be a spot for them.’

Just not as many spots as there used to be, however. A total of four non-Irish qualified players and one project player who can qualify under the three-year residency rule remains the quota, but the provincial purse strings have undoubtedly tightened on Nucifora’s watch.

With the emphasis never heavier on succession planning for every position in Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt’s national team, the heyday of impulse foreign buys is certainly over, every overseas signing now subject to long and hard scrutiny before any deals are struck and contracts are signed.

Not wasting the limited resources the provinces have is crucial in an overheated market, where the increasingly lucrative salaries on offer in England and France leave the Irish playing the lifestyle card in the hope of attracting marquee — and not so marquee — signatures, while a number of talented Irish players leave for new challenges overseas.

Recruitment remains a precarious business, though, the travails of Munster’s Mark Chisholm and Ulster’s Marcel Coetzee, to name but two foreigners currently on Irish rosters, illustrative of how there is never a guarantee imports will deliver.

Historically, the list of flops is considerable but for every Tom Bowman, Steve Sykes and a lengthy cast of others, there are players whose presence in Ireland was — or still is — invaluable to the health and fortunes of the four provinces.

Here, Sportsmail chooses its 15 best value-for-moneysignings, a gallery of household and not so household names whose influence is to be cherished, their wages ultimately very well earned.