Scotsman.
Standerâs reason for moving was he was told he was too small to ever be an international in SA, so he moved with the intention of playing for Ireland instead. Probably heâd be close enough to playing for them at this stage. Payne would be nowhere near playing for NZ in most peopleâs view.
And yep the double standards are ridiculous. If anything, the rugby lads have lived in Ireland for three years which shows a lot more commitment than some foreign lad with an Irish granny. Cc @dodgy_keeper
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I thought Payne was from South Africa to be honest, nowhere near All Black class, especially competing against the islanders.
To be honest Iâm with Luke Fitzgerald and Kimmage on this, I donât think it should be allowed but lads here take these things personally,
No
its definitely Scotchman
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Connolly was a jock .
a jock
a jack
what is it with you and these inane expressions?
Deal with it .
GGA : 
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So what youâre saying is munster rugby got soul?
I would have thought youâd have a bit of time for James Connolly. 
Stander was told he was too small (by the current Boks coach as it happens) and to forget about his international chances. So he bailed out. There is lot of anger in SA about it (now). He would be their best player on current form
Payne was a bit unlucky he was always a class act but was up against the likes of muliani, Israel Dagg and Ben Smith was coming down the tracks. He was 25 odd when he left not many backs get capped for all blacks after that age.
Wouldnât bother me in the slightest if they got rid of it either tbh. But as long as other countries are doing it there is no reason we shouldnât. Iâm not sure what project player Luke thinks ever kept him out, payne maybe, but if he was good enough and fit enough he would have played. Simple as.
The biggest downside of getting rid of the rule is that itâs a good recruitng tool for the provinces. Sign a fella for 3 years on assumption he will make itâŚresign after 24 months when he is close to qualifying and committedâŚand then you will have him for 5 years in total whether he gets capped or not. Most of current projects wonât be next or near a starting slot
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Is that not the crux of the complaint though? That these project players are taking the spots of natives who would otherwise be starting, and preventing them from gaining experience and improving. If the Irish lads were good enough there wouldnât be project players getting starts/squad berths.
It is indeed. Iâm just not sure it holds up to that much scrutiny really. There are some cases where it is true but by and large the project players were brought in to fill a gap at provincial level and where there might not have been depth required at international level.
In general there will only be one project player per position across all 4 provinces so for e.g. at scrum half Leinster were allowed sign a project player this season. But IRFU refused to renew Pieenar contract at Ulster then so that they would have to use irish qualified players in the position. The leinster project (Gibson-park) is 2nd choice at Leinster and is unlikely to be first choice barring injury.
Similar with Aki at connacht he is the only project centre. He is probably international standard but could anyone say he is after damaging any Connacht player international chances? Heâs probably improved plenty of their chances but raising standard so much.
The likes of Strauss maybe cost Sean Cronin some caps alright. But easily argued Cronin wasnât international class at the time. If Strauss was just about good enough to be capped then cronin needed to be better than him to jump the queue. He clearly wasnât at the time and he had plenty game time to prove it over the years. Heâs improved hugely the last while and Strauss isnât next or near the international squad.
Hard to pinpoint anywhere in the system that a project is regulalrly taking the place at provincial level of a player who might be international standard. The IRFU isnât massively concerned if they are keeping journeymen club players with no international prospects on bench.
At Munster Bleyendal has no competition to speak of & Kleyn keeping out players all far worse than he is at 2nd row (and heâs well off international class himself).
The biggest loser in the entire show will be Peter o Mahony who will struggle to get into the 6n match day squads as it is with stander ahead of him. Thatâs probably the one example that really undermines the situation. Donât think anyone expected Stander to be as good as he is though. And Munster badly needed him when he was signedâŚthe internatonal carrot probably compensation for the much less money he getting here rather than France
This âSportâ promoting drug taking
Barba is a ridiculous surname.
He has a tattoo with âEBCâ on it
It stands for Epic Bender Crew
Welcome to Rogbee Union
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The fuck?
Toulon are some crew picking up the league cast offs
Big, fat, heifer Irish rugby football women team members on the Six One news there. A separate report on them for the second day in a row on the sport news. The mainstream mediaâs ever increasing attempts to portray womenâs rugby football as relevant is fucking ridiculous.
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