Kerr-Barlow exposes monster of eligibility

The intent behind the decision to change rugby’s eligibility laws late last year was noble.

It was driven by back of the envelope arithmetic which said that if players who had represented one nation were able to stand down for three years and represent another for which they were qualified either through where they were born or where a parent or grandparent was born, then Fiji, Samoa and Tonga would all have immediate access to a handful of players off-limits due to having committed their eligibility elsewhere.

It made sense. There are Fijian, Samoan and Tongan rugby nomads all over the world — men capped by the likes of New Zealand, Australia, even England, Ireland and Wales, no longer wanted by the countries who captured their eligibility.

These are international rugby’s lost souls — players trapped in a netherworld where they can’t erase their past.

World Rugby’s council, however, could at least give them a new future by voting for a return to an eligibility framework where players can again represent two nations in a career.

And that’s how the vote was sold: as one which would transform the Island nations — open up more of their talent pool and enable them to, potentially overnight, become better sides. The change also aligned with World Rugby’s directive that the World Cup should feature as many of the game’s best players as possible.

But as well intended as this ground-shifting vote was, the major nations who voted for it are now being impacted by the law of unintended consequences.

Former All Black Tawera KerrBarlow has said, now that he has served a three-year stand down, that he would jump into a Wallabies jersey in a heartbeat if coach Dave Rennie was willing to offer him one.

This is not a random declaration but one borne by the strong ties KerrBarlow has to Australia. He was born there, grew up in Darwin until his mid-teens when he shifted to board at Hamilton Boys’ High School.

His heart is tugged in two directions, his life split across two countries.

So while it may indeed feel not quite right to those in New Zealand who feel his allegiance should exclusively be to the All Blacks given he won 29 caps between 2012 and 2017, this is the monster that was made by changing the eligibility laws.

Kerr-Barlow will not be the first former All Black who wants to reinvent himself.

This is the choice the world game has made and while those who voted for the eligibility change will argue that they did so for all the right reasons, there’s a deeper truth to this which is that they voted to appease their guilt and because changing the law was the softer and easier option.

The lost souls of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are not trapped by the decisions they made earlier in their career to represent another nation, but by a system that preserves an imbalance of power by making it almost impossible for dual-qualified players to say no to the All Blacks and Wallabies.

The Island nations still have no home in any mainstream top-tier international competition. They still don’t have any certainty of who they will play in any year and as a result, they continue to operate on the brink of insolvency.

There is no real choice for young dual-qualified Fijians, Samoans and Tongans because the system is so heavily weighted against them. They can become rich beyond their dreams playing for the All Blacks, but may even have to fork out for their own hotel should they play for Samoa. One route is paved with gold, the other is a sort of gravel path to nowhere.

And that’s the problem that needs to be fixed.

That’s the long-term solution to the game finally having new contenders at the top table and a more plausible claim to being a global sport.

If playing for Fiji, Samoa or Tonga didn’t come with massive financial and opportunity sacrifice, dualqualified players wouldn’t always opt to first play for New Zealand or Australia.

But 27 years into professionalism and nothing has changed in that regard so the talent pours out of the South Pacific into New Zealand and Australia, and indeed to England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and France.

These nations, rather than push for Fiji, Samoa and Tonga to be included in the competitions that matter, voted yes for eligibility change so they could say the problem is fixed.

Maybe now that the consequences of how this cheap fix is going to directly impact the nations who voted for it are being realised, it will spark an appetite for more meaningful solutions to be sought to end the plight of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

These three nations need the game to give them a hand up, not a handout, and perhaps the sight of KerrBarlow running around for the Wallabies at the Rugby World Cup in France next year would help hammer home that message.