Buying a dog does not make you Irish
FOR A sport that accommodates physical suffering with relish, rugby can be prey to remarkable sensitivity.
No player takes offence quicker than a rugby one. No coach seeks to control coverage of their team with the neurotic intent of a rugby one.
The sport is professional and its best players earn substantial and sometimes extravagant salaries. Yet it remains a small and often sentimental environment.
There are not many more than 100 professional rugby players in Ireland, for instance, and this contributes to close relationships with professionals on this side of the divide. That inevitably leads to some drifting from the role of reporter to that of partisan.
This is one explanation for reactions to an interview given by Jared Payne in recent days. The Ulster player responded to criticism of his inclusion in the Lions squad on the grounds that he qualified for Ireland through contentious residency regulations, by declaring he feels ‘converted’ since arriving in Belfast.
Payne is entitled to explain his circumstances, but there has been an astonishing defence of him launched in some articles, with the temper of the pieces more suited to a mother standing up for her child. The argument runs that because Payne mentioned he is planning on settling here, that his fiancée is Irish and that they have a dog, then how dare anyone question him. It is analysis more suited to a messageboard or the comments’ section, those places where fans can let their passions run free.
Taking issue with the selection of residency graduates Payne and CJ Stander or Ben Te’o (who has an English mother but played all his rugby in New Zealand and Australia until 2014) does not constitute ad hominem attacks.
At issue is not the extent of their commitment to their new countries, and it has long been the belief here that discussion of the residency rule is simplified by making it a question of a particular player’s circumstances.
There is nothing fruitful to be gained by asking if it means as much to Payne to represent Ireland as it does to Garry Ringrose, even if we believe we know the answer.
Sensible, fair regulations cannot rely on nebulous criteria like passion.
Neither, though, can they be defended on the grounds that a player happened to meet his wife and bought a puppy in a particular place. It is a consequence of the odd sensitivities that obtain in rugby, though, that an objection to picking players like Payne and Stander for the Lions can trigger outbursts that seem more naturally suited to the Liveline switchboard.
The Lions itself has a standing in the game that rests to a great extent on sentiment. The schedule that sees Warren Gatland and his squad leave the day after the Pro12 and Premiership finals and play their first match within days of arriving in New Zealand is indicative of its anachronistic status in a sport now driven by the schedules of rich professional leagues in England and France.
There is simply no room in the contemporary calendar for it, but it survives, and not only because it is a powerful money-maker. While it is that, it remains, too, a potent connection to the amateur days of long, lively tours.
Nobody defends it as passionately as the media, with players dutifully following their lead and that of the old-timers ready to reminisce at the first sight of a microphone.
When the current but sensitive topic of player eligibility mingles with the Lions tour, it magnifies the issue but also introduces unnecessary emotion.
The moral underpinnings of an argument that says Ringrose is more deserving of a Lions jersey than Payne appear sound, but the general case that the regulations under which Payne qualified to play for Ireland were sorely in need of tightening is more persuasive.
The new rules – extending the period in which a player must be resident in a country before playing for it from three to five years – are to be welcomed, even if the two-and-a-half-year delay in implementing them is indefensible.
Picking on Payne, Stander or anyone else brings no enlightenment to this debate, but nor does defending them because they care about their new homes.
The principle, not the person, is the issue. Passion is still a crucial player in rugby and so there is outrage at the suggestion a Lions jersey can’t mean as much to someone born and reared into adulthood in New Zealand’s system.
But when the action finally starts, Payne will be just one more red jersey trying to cope as the best team in the world rips the Lions asunder.
Outbursts defending Payne were more suited to Liveline