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| *SportsComet>>>Rugby |
Are the British International teams suffering from too many foreign players in the league? |
Don't get me wrong, it is great to see them, but aren't our young players being pushed aside in favour of gate receipts that big names from the southern hemisphere draw? Easy answer - YES! I agree that is great to see some of these guys and I understand why the clubs over here want them, likewise I understand why the players want to come to the UK and play - 拢拢拢拢拢拢拢拢! With the massive amount of fixtures we have in the UK compared to anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere we need larger squads and top level replacements to stay competitive in all the different competitions. Plus you then need cover for when the Six Nations is running. We have a very poor structure to our competitions with too many overlaps and just way too many fixtures in general, for the players that is. I like what Sale have said about the internationals and having to earn their spots back if the young lads are justifying their places! Good on 'em! Source(s): http://www.guinnesspremiership.com/254_1... Look at football, the so called game has reached the point where some of the top teams can not fill any international positions. the arrival of masses of foreign players always water down the local game and stop the young from gaining places. Thus we in England now probably only have sufficient players to fill one team and no choice at that. There may possibly be a lot in what you say, in that for some, gate receipts are more important than the 'game'. There is in my opinion far to much pandering to business in sport these days. What we have is 'corporate entertainment' and not 'mob entertainment'. Somehow the whole point of the 'game' has got lost. As for foreign players in British International teams, I was always of the belief that in order to play for say Wales, a player had to have been born there, of whatever race. On the soccer front for example, we had the Vinny Jones [Welsh Cockney] who could not play for England because he had not been born there. At the same time, we had players of Windies descent who could play for England because they had been born there. I suppose these rules of place of birth still apply. The major difficulty, as I see it, in any sport, is that not enough attention is being paid to 'local sport'. In cricket for example, the village game in England is dying for lack of funding. We cannot expect village teams to survive purely on the goodwill of some landowner, who may in the past have been quite happy to set land aside for that purpose, but who now, seeing an opportunity for profit has sold that land for other purposes. On the subject of the cricket. I have been listening to John Major talking about it on the radio. He has been talking about the lack of support at village level and the difficulties this causes for the game. The same basic rule of thumb must therefore apply to the rugby. My own nation of Wales has suffered much in respect of the game, because once the pits were closed the funding for the game simply dried up. I think quite a lot of money then would have been easily available from the many miners with a great deal of money to burn, more than is the case today. There seems to be endless monies to buy in players from abroad but hardly any or none to support the 'local' game down on the village green. We've got to do something about that, but what? sri - spel checker bust! I think it is us in the southern hemisphere that is suffering because now young players like mcalister and hayman are going and in mcalisters case coming back for the next world cup. If any thing they will teach the young players in the northern hemisphere a different way of playing the game and also it makes it more of a spectacle so more people watch and more kids then want to play.Because there is a limit on the amount of international passport players (players with pacific island passports don't count eg filo tiatia of the ospreys) in a team then this should mean if a player is good enough then he will get a spot in another team. it's certainly a problem with the English teams. If you look at the best forwards in the GP, most of them are Argentinian or French, which is why England are struggling to replace their retired players. Even if an English player is playing well for a team in the lower leagues, they are usualy signed by the big clubs as replacements, which is even worse for the international team. In Wales, every region has smaller teams under it, which are used to develop the youngsters before moving to the big clubs. A similar thing happens in Ireland, where they also have Connacht as a development region to bridge the gap between the semi-proffessional teams and the regions. This will never happen in England, as it's the clubs with all the money. All that their backers care about is their own club being successful with whatever players they can get. They aren't going to want to help the RFU, if it means their clubs are less successful and it reduces their crowds and sponsorship. |
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