“Is it relevant?”
That was the answer England rugby coach Martin Johnson snarled at a reporter who had the temerity to ask about the nationality of one Shontayne Hape, who has just been selected in the English squad to face Wales on February 6th.
YES MR. JOHNSON, IT BLOODY WELL IS!
Hape is not an Englishman, so he should not be playing for the English team.
Johnson has picked three New Zealanders in the English squad: Shontayne Hape, Dylan Hartley and Rikki Flutey. Unbelievably, Hape has already been capped by New Zealand, and has played 14 internationals for them, albeit in rugby league not union.
I have no objection to clubs importing foreign players — one Premier League soccer match a week or so ago did not have a single Englishman in either team — but a team representing a country must be peopled with natives of that country. Otherwise the contest is meaningless. You might as well be playing the Barbarians or the Harlem Globetrotters.
The England cricket team currently playing South Africa is fielding four South African-born players. OK, Andrew Strauss moved to England when he was six, but Pieterson and Trott are unashamed mercenaries.
This is a Northern Hemisphere disease, and it must be eradicated. Players who can’t make the grade as All Blacks or Springboks wash up on these shores and find an easy berth in the national squads, armed with a Welsh grandmother or Scottish cousin or Irish great grandfather or simply a taste for Guinness. Yes, Wales has been guilty of this as well — Brett Sinkinson comes to mind. Even the French have used South African players.
To my mind the worst incident was when the Australian Brian Smith moved to Ireland, having played 6 times for Australia before winning 9 caps for Ireland and ending up captaining them. Cynical, unpatriotic and exploitative.
Australia runs State of Origin competitions in rugby league, and it’s not open to visiting Welshmen looking for more dosh or new experiences.
Three weeks tomorrow I want to see Wales beat a team of the 15 best Englishmen the country can provide, not a hotch potch of Kiwis and the odd Hessian mercenary.
