Tonga lead the rugby union world

[BoyBrumby]

In ringers.

No fewer than 19 of their 31 man squad are foreign born.

Their pacific island neighbours Samoa aren't very far behind with 18 non natives in Japan for the tournament.

Given the vast majority of these are NZ-born (two entire XVs worth, in fact) it does rather give lie to the old but persistent northern hemisphere myth than the All Blacks scour the pacific islands for promising rugby players to poach.

Of tier one nations, our northern neighbours from chilly Jockoland lead the way with 14 nouveau scotian border jumpers.

I don't necessarily think it's wrong or right unions take advantage of the IRB's famously lax eligibility rules, but it is noteworthy the residence qualification is being extended to 5 years after this WC.

 

[Howe_zat]

These lists wind me up tbh, because there are about eight million reasons you'd play for a country that you weren't born in. Some of it is money, some of it is where you can get a gig, and some of it probably really is scouting. But a lot of it is heritage, following family, and the genuine adoption of another nation too. You don't have to look far on these boards to find some passionate supporters of a nation they weren't born in.

Collaborating every case into the same pot just to do some counting strikes me as the laziest possible way to talk about a really complex thing. And doesn't actually do anything to approach the nasty side of scouting for youth that the rich teams really do employ.

And deciding that you know a players' story by googling where they were born just seems... rude?

 

[StephenZA]

A far bigger crime is the number of world class players who should be playing for 'their' country (naturalised or not) who are unable to do so because of unfortunate rules both due to country selection policies as well as IRB policies, along with the north hemisphere clubs (particularly the french) attitude to allowing players to play for their country. Rugby needs an international season, but won't get it until monies have been sorted. No different from the issues in cricket really.