Rich nations plunder poor for ‘national’ rugby teams

It is an absolute disgrace that the Pacific Island nations and other countries are being robbed of their rugby talent by the lure of the top rugby-playing nations. New Zealand has been doing this for years, and so have Australia and England.

Last week the first try-scorer for France was a Fijian. There are South Africans playing for Ireland and Japan and other countries. In the past the England team was almost a third foreign-born.

I have no problem with players from any country playing in any other country for club or regional teams; after all, it is a professional sport and players should be able to choose where to play based on the contracts they can get and their own personal preferences.

Where this is a problem for me is when these same players then “qualify” for the country where they are playing their professional rugby to represent that country at national level.

This makes the larger, wealthier unions stronger and weakens the smaller nations, which are robbed of their talented players.

Rugby will not survive and grow by polarising the strength of national rugby teams so that the World Cup becomes a procession of foregone results.

There is no way a Fiji or a Tonga or a Samoa will win the World Cup, because they are playing richer unions that have stolen all their best players. In allowing this predatory poaching of players, world rugby is aiding and abetting its own demise and killing the national pride that should come from a natural-born player playing for his country of birth rather than, in some cases, against it.

In some cases, there are brothers playing against each other, one for the poaching country and one for his country of birth (example: the Samoan-born Williams brothers, one playing for Samoa and the other starring for New Zealand).

This issue is a disgrace and needs to be addressed.

Kevin Buijs, Singapore