NIQs qualifying through residency to play for Ireland. Thoughts?

Rugby Analyst, Neil Francis - Rugby needs its very own Home Rule

The international game has become a joke with players featuring for countries they have no links with, so it's time that the IRB and IRFU clamped down on it.

Something was bugging me after Munster's Heino demolition of Toulon last Saturday. Mick O'Driscoll was awarded man of the match. The award was well merited as Munster's second row did indeed have a very big game. What irked me about the whole thing was what his opposite number was doing while O'Driscoll was striding around the park like a colossus. Indeed, what was Donncha O'Callaghan, a Lions test lock and Ireland's starting second row for the last seven years, doing while his partner was having a stormer? Who was O'Driscoll's opposite number in Thomond? I ask this because his name was not called once during the game. I had to look it up – K Chesney. Well that explains it, Kenny Chesney the country and western star from Knoxville married to Renee Zellweger for four months, probably looking to sing his new hit at the half-time show – "The Boys of Fall" (well I suppose Don Henley had already done "The Boys of Summer"). Kenny was probably hanging around the corridors in Thomond. Mourad Boudjellal, Toulon's trigger-happy cash splasher, liked the cut of his jib and suddenly he starts at second row for Toulon.

"Sorry... Kris Chesney you say... He is actually a second row... bought from Saracens last season... Not a country and western singer... you're certain... couldn't hit water if he fell out of the Queen Mary... okay."

Folks, Toulon's lack of heart for the battle and determination to win that match could end up in one of Kenny's doleful ballads. I have seen more grit on a plate of mushy peas. Philippe Saint-André made 11 changes to his side that played Munster. He picked his strongest side for yesterday's match in Paris against Stade Francais. Clearly his priority is the Top 14. Connacht would have presented a far more difficult proposition. Although they were never tested, the occasion did rouse them and one could never hope to call it a full-scale revival. The win, the winning feeling and most importantly the winning template has returned. I wouldn't get carried away just yet but it is only in hindsight that we can see how awful they were against a moderate and uncomplex side of London Irish's calibre.

The Ospreys beat Munster home and away last season and turned up to Thomond a few weeks ago to play silly buggers. I have never seen such an ambitious side play with such a lack of ambition. They did nothing. They did not play rugby on purpose. I think from a long way out the Ospreys have targeted the Munster game in Thomond and played in such a neutral gear so as to give Munster nothing. They will turn up to play, compete and win – something Toulon did not bother their collective swiss to do. Unfortunately for Ospreys, Toulon's compliance has kick-started Munster's season.

Back to Kris Chesney's old club Saracens, who are not a very good side at all. When they come to Dublin in January, if it is a dry day they will get filleted with a bonus point to boot. Leinster will have to be cognisant of the fact that they will get caught out one of these days trying to defend their way to victory. That 6-5 win over Harlequins at the Stoop was the start of it and they seem to enjoy the electro-cardiographic excitement and rather than close out with a bit of margin they choose to play a game where they sail too close to the wind for their close-out – a touch of Michael Hutchence about them – don't get caught lads.

If Van Drickenburgen had been playing against Sarries, Leinster with a little more focus could have bonus-pointed that one. Sarries threw themselves about gamely in the collisions but were unable to sustain their wits in the second half as the pace told. Normally they can cut loose against Leeds Carnegie, Newcastle and Exeter when three-quarters of the game is up and holes appear. Leinster squeezed just a little tighter and Sarries resolve becomes a little more fraught. If you need reminding of how we compare quality – the English media trump up Sarries players like Alex Goode or Brad Barritt who played last Saturday and are both in the English Saxons squad. The truth is that if Saracens had Andrew Conway and Brendan Macken, our academy players, in at full-back and centre respectively against Leinster, they would have won because they possess the cutting edge that the Saracens three-quarters singularly lacked. Hard to keep Leinster bubbling up: Wembley one week, the Sportsground the next . The only common denominator was that a greyhound track bordered both stadia. Alas Lucky Dan in trap three no longer gets to ****e on the pitch at Wembley.

Belatedly, we get to the point of the article. One of the things that surprised me this week was that 45,000 people turned up to watch a rugby match in Wembley in London. Huge population, great city, people do turn up, but why would you go and watch eight South Africans play for an average London club? The fabric and culture of the club would have to change fundamentally for Englishmen to shout "come on Schalk, come on Burger, come on De Kock ...."

Whatever about the supporters, I don't know how the RFU can countenance subventing Sarries to the tune of nearly £4m to have a little rugby enclave of Saffers who are not, and never will be, England qualified.

Gary Lineker did a sports documentary called Can England win the next World Cup? The answer quite disarmingly, even for Lineker, was a resounding no. Of course they couldn't, their league is so full of foreigners that only somewhere in the region of 30 per cent of the Premier League is England qualified. It was amazing to see Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan win the Champions League with a team that not only included nobody from Milan, but nobody from Italy. How can Inter Milan – as Italians – take themselves seriously? The win can have no resonance for any Italian who supports that club.

The English Union and League governing bodies as well as their cricketing chums probably watched that documentary and probably said "Jeez the soccer boys are f**ked." England have beaten us once in seven years and they still haven't copped on why. But before we get all self-congratulatory in a Winston Wolf type of way let's just have a look around at ourselves.

One of the things that has to be looked at, and the regulatory bodies will have to make a call on this issue because it has become too lax, is the issue of residency and country qualification, to ask whether the player has or has not got any parental or grand-parental link to an adopted country.

Regular readers of this column will be aware of the high esteem I hold Richie Flutey (onomatopoeic) in. Flutey's situation is symptomatic of where the game is going wrong. He was born in New Zealand and has no connection with England at all – after playing only five games for Wellington he buggers off to the UK to play for London Irish. After two seasons he buggered off to Wasps. In the 2008-09 season he becomes qualified to play for England – Stephen Jones picks him in Martin Johnson's England squad and he gets to wear the rose. After qualifying to play for England while playing for an English team in England he buggers off to play for Brive, in France, has an unhappy time there and buggers off back to Wasps. In between all that I can barely keep my lunch down when he is selected to play for the British and Irish Lions in 2009, getting a test cap in the dead rubber.

I find the whole thing objectionable. It is, more importantly, unethical. Qualification by residency sticks in the craw, but the IRB must move to legislate. If mercenaries arrive on the shore and qualify to play for the host country, then they must stay and play within that country, otherwise forfeit the right forever to represent their adopted country – it turns the thing into a mockery. In my opinion, Flutey has no loyalty to England; he gets paid to play for them but he is not English. When he retires from playing rugby he will undoubtedly return to New Zealand and his mates will call him a silly bugger for playing for the Poms. This has to stop.

Takudzwa Ngwenya was born in Zimbabwe, heads off to the States, and gets his green card and then buggers off to France to Biarritz to play his club rugby. Completely incongruous. He is not American, but when his career finishes he might out of necessity return to the USA. Dan Parks and Nathan Hines, both Australian, qualify for Scotland while both are playing well south of where they should be playing.

I remember a while back one of the national dailies, giddy with anticipation, announcing that the 'talented' Cameron Jowitt would become Irish qualified that year. 'Talented'? A mix -up surely. Maybe he could tackle like Liberace and sing like Lawrence Taylor. 'Talented' – Madre de Dios! He buggered off to Australia and unbelievably is playing for the Warratahs. I just wonder how much better a player Kevin McLaughlin would have been if he had played all the games that Jowitt got instead.

We remember Denis Hickie as being for a while our top try scorer; he had exceptional speed, dash and possessed serious rugby intelligence. One of Ireland's greats. We forget that he was dropped for the extravagantly gifted Matt Mostyn (below) – a package tourist with boots. Wazza gave him six caps for which Ireland's foreign debt of Hail Marys would not give the Kiwi redemption. Hickie in a wheelchair and an eye-patch would have smoked the guy. He is back in Australia and he can tell his grandchildren about the time he played for a quaint little old country called Ireland – what larks.

I see that Robbie Diack and Richardt Strauss will go down the three-year qualification/residency route. It's just plain wrong. What is the point in having academies, lads? They are South African, not Irish, and if they get picked in the squad you are just not paying attention to what is going on in the UK. It has to stop.

I would go further and take a view that all interpros should be played only with Irish players. I don't think it would do too much damage to the gate or television. It would however allow you to take stock and assess the real quality of what is available to the national side. I'd prefer to see Brian O'Driscoll go toe-to-toe with Keith Earls than Lifeimi Mafi. I'd like to see how Tony Buckley fares against Cian Healy, not with Heinke van der Merwe.

If the last four to five years has showed us anything, it demonstrates that Irish-born, Irish-bred rugby players that come through the system are vastly superior to some of the imposters who find themselves on these shores.

When Nigel Wray gets bored and the South Africans go home, that club, to use their coach's phrase, is dead in the water.

http://www.tribune.ie/sport/rugby/article/2010/oct/24/rugby-analyst-neil-francis-rugby-needs-its-very-ow/