Kiwi’s and Irish Rugby

40 Players will be ready to play on Saturday –

Ireland Squad, 15 Irish Born
New Zealand Squad, 15 NZ Born

There is such a huge amount of talent in Irish Rugby. A lot has been said recently about the fact that there are three New Zealand born players on the Irish team to play New Zealand this weekend. Why they can’t seem to pick Irish-born talent should be something that needs to be looked into.

Ireland and New Zealand both have five foreign-born players on their 20 man squads (Joey Carbery was born in New Zealand but moved back to Ireland as a child with his Irish-born parents and Finlay Christie moved to NZ from Scotland with parents as a child)

The New Zealand Squad

New Zealand 20 man squad, 5 foreign-born players

Sevu Reece – Fiji
Nepo Laulala – Samoa
Tyrel Lomax – Australia
Akira Ioane – Japan
Finlay Christie – Scotland. Moved to NZ with parents as a child.

The Ireland Squad

Ireland 20 man squad, 5 foreign born players, 3(4) Kiwis

Jamison Gibson Park – New Zealand
James Lowe – New Zealand
Bundee Aki – New Zealand
Rob Herring – South Africa
Joey Carbery – New Zealand. Moved back to Ireland as a child with his Irish parents.

Conclusion

I truly dislike the residency rule in rugby. I realize it’s a carrot and stick for good players. The idea being if you think you’re good enough to play for your country of birth but you get an offer to play in a foreign country you still have a chance to play International Rugby after 3 years (changing to 5 years for this rule keeps getting delayed).

I really think it does hurt to domestic player by not giving them a chance. Ending the residency rule will make an even playing field for every country with players just being picked for the domestic game. The Residency rule needs to go away

Total NZ players on Saturday, 19
Total Foreign-born players, 10 out of 40