Ireland plan to change international selection policy?

[Tommygilf]

http://www.totalrl.com/finn-furious-as-ireland-plan-to-axe-heritage-players/

Liam finn rightly peeved off imo.

For me personally, the best "irish" team needs to be playing regularly against top opposition televised and ideally in Ireland a lot. Whilst i don't disagree with the idea of bringing domestic amateur irish players into the set up, it is the professionals who will provide the back bone of the national team for a considerable time. Its also ridiculous imo that Ireland after the 2017 WC have a national team genuinely capable of dominating the Euros and challenging England aren't using this team to advance their profile.

[Copa]

If they did that in Scotland you’d just have to register as a player and you’d be in.

Maybe it’s a good thing if Ireland does play against countries closer to their level such as Serbia, Russia etc.

[B rad]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

http://www.totalrl.com/finn-furious-as-ireland-plan-to-axe-heritage-players/

Liam finn rightly peeved off imo.

For me personally, the best "irish" team needs to be playing regularly against top opposition televised and ideally in Ireland a lot. Whilst i don't disagree with the idea of bringing domestic amateur irish players into the set up, it is the professionals who will provide the back bone of the national team for a considerable time. Its also ridiculous imo that Ireland after the 2017 WC have a national team genuinely capable of dominating the Euros and challenging England aren't using this team to advance their profile.

Everything you said. 

They need a full squad of Irish born professionals before they can do something like this. An Irish only club might be a good start that can one day build into Super League. 

[East Coast Tiger]

I’m pretty sure the people running RL in Ireland are within their rights to decide who represents them. They’ve had ring-in teams playing at international level since 2000 or earlier and it doesn’t seem to have done much for the game there. Plus we have this ridiculous situation in which there are currently two Ireland teams: a domestic one and a “full” one. One can make World Cup quarter finals, the other couldn’t beat a bush footy team. At least this would be consistent. It would be brave to choose a path that would mean no World Cup or certainly no winning at the World Cup.

[Big Picture]

24 minutes ago, B rad said:

Everything you said. 

They need a full squad of Irish born professionals before they can do something like this. An Irish only club might be a good start that can one day build into Super League. 

Just like Toronto though, an Irish club would need experienced pros to compete in the pro game.

[Lowdesert]

1 minute ago, East Coast Tiger said:

I’m pretty sure the people running RL in Ireland are within their rights to decide who represents them. They’ve had ring-in teams playing at international level since 2000 or earlier and it doesn’t seem to have done much for the game there. Plus we have this ridiculous situation in which there are currently two Ireland teams: a domestic one and a “full” one. One can make World Cup quarter finals, the other couldn’t beat a bush footy team. At least this would be consistent. It would be brave to choose a path that would mean no World Cup or certainly no winning at the World Cup.

Yep.  I also think Finns comments regarding the safety of lesser players really comes into it, in this instance.

[Yakkers]

It's far too soon for this. A national team that is competitive in both the European Championships and a World Cup that might get a bit more coverage there with it taking place next door and every game being available free to air (BBC is accessible in the Republic as well), is going to go further towards piquing an interest in RL of some small section of the Irish public, than a bunch of amateurs getting blown off the park.

As others have touched on, an Irish club in League 1, initially with a foreign squad in order to be competitive, but with a youth setup to develop the best local talent going forward, would be a huge boost, but as ever, it's finding the money to make it happen.

[deluded pom?]

I don't see how this forces Finn into international retirement. As the incumbent captain he'll be the first pro on the team sheet. I'm not convinced by the player welfare argument either. We're quite happy to send amateurs up against pros in the Challenge Cup without a second thought but in the international arena it's not right! Double standards. Is there any evidence that an amateur player has been injured purely because the opposition were full time professionals?

[Tre Cool]

I genuinely don't see the point in having an Ireland or Scotland team playing pro level internationals.  It's achieved nothing in the last 10+ years except hinder opportunities for the likes of France, Serbia and Wales to compete at the top level.  Until they actually have a remotely meaningful amateur presence in the country there should be no national team.

[Spidey]

13 minutes ago, Tre Cool said:

I genuinely don't see the point in having an Ireland or Scotland team playing pro level internationals.  It's achieved nothing in the last 10+ years except hinder opportunities for the likes of France, Serbia and Wales to compete at the top level.  Until they actually have a remotely meaningful amateur presence in the country there should be no national team.

France & Wales have hindered themselves by not being very good 

[Tre Cool]

1 minute ago, Spidey said:

France & Wales have hindered themselves by not being very good 

I agree to an extent but they've also hindered themselves by having players from their own actual real life competitions playing against teams packed with SL and NRL players representing a country that has developed almost zero pro players.

[Oliver Clothesoff]

Is it responsible to throw in “homegrown” players against bigger (in terms of experience and professionalism) opposition? 

[Spidey]

I think we need to leave it up to individual nations to work out what’s best for them, if this is Ireland’s long term strategy fair play to them.

I don’t think it’s a one rule suits all. After all there’s never criticism aimed at Samoa or Tonga for not fielding “home grown” players

[Tre Cool]

17 minutes ago, Spidey said:

I think we need to leave it up to individual nations to work out what’s best for them, if this is Ireland’s long term strategy fair play to them.

I don’t think it’s a one rule suits all. After all there’s never criticism aimed at Samoa or Tonga for not fielding “home grown” players

I don't think anyone should be forced to pick home grown players, if you have a domestic presence pick as many heritage players as you want.  But it seems detrimental to the game to me to have international teams in important comps that have no domestic presence at all and show no signs of growth (and in fact the reverse in the case of Ireland and Scotland).

 

[MatthewWoody]

I believe it's simply too much, especially after the World Cup the Irish had. 
For example, fielding heritage players (who are, as I always repeat, part Irish and part English, part Italian and part Australian, ecc.) can only help. I have seen amateur RL players training with Teddy, Mini, ecc, and coming back stronger than before. 
You just have to find the...Balance between the necessity to be competitive (and to give the game a proper World Cup in terms of level of teams, atlethes, ecc.) and local development. 
E.g.: we fielded heritage players at the RLWC and still did very well with stages and games for domestic players and then beat Ukraine in the playoff for the Euros. 
Local development and heritage "teams" can go together, see Lebanon, ecc. 
I can understand the choice made by the Irish, btw, though it's seems too bold and not very useful imho. 
 

[Dave T]

If the likes of Ireland and the USA are going to make these decisions, then we need to reduce the number of teams in the World Cup. 

[Yakkers]

The difference with France is they can raise a homegrown side good enough to be competitive in major tournaments, and even if they wanted to go down the heritage route, I can't imagine there are too many French qualified heritage players playing at a higher level than their homegrown counterparts anyway.

Neither of the above is true of Ireland. Of course one day we hope it will be, and that will be the time to start insisting on homegrown players. To get to that point we need to increase the number of kids playing the gane in Ireland and to achieve that we need to first raise the level of interest and public profile of the sport there. A competitive Irish national team made up of heritage players will contribute more to that than a team of amateurs getting smashed for cricket scores.

[londonrlfan]

Fair play to them for making a brave decision like that. I don't see why it forces Finn into retirement if they're still picking 5 heritage players. The likes of Ireland and Scotland have got nowhere or haven't progressed in 20 years, despite all the advantages they've been given. Perhaps it's time others were given a chance instead. I can't imagine what a WC could do for the likes of Serbia, where the sport is actually growing. Is an Ireland team full of heritage players who will switch at the drop of a hat going to grow the sport there? No, as we have seen for years. Time RL started to do some development work. 

[kiwis 13 6]

Before moving to a 75% to 25% self imposed local player to heritage player cap. how about a 50/50 split? Say 9 Passport holders/Residents & 9 Heritage players in an 18 man team. Anything less than that and chances of qualifying for the the next world Cup would be slim.

[MatthewWoody]

40 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

Fair play to them for making a brave decision like that. I don't see why it forces Finn into retirement if they're still picking 5 heritage players. The likes of Ireland and Scotland have got nowhere or haven't progressed in 20 years, despite all the advantages they've been given. Perhaps it's time others were given a chance instead. I can't imagine what a WC could do for the likes of Serbia, where the sport is actually growing. Is an Ireland team full of heritage players who will switch at the drop of a hat going to grow the sport there? No, as we have seen for years. Time RL started to do some development work. 

But still, I am not sure domestic Serbia are more competitive than Ireland or Italy, just to say. 
Fielding heritage player for big test tournaments hasn't stopped countries from developing locally. At least, those who wanted to. 

[TheLegendOfTexEvans]

7 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

http://www.totalrl.com/finn-furious-as-ireland-plan-to-axe-heritage-players/

Liam finn rightly peeved off imo.

For me personally, the best "irish" team needs to be playing regularly against top opposition televised and ideally in Ireland a lot. Whilst i don't disagree with the idea of bringing domestic amateur irish players into the set up, it is the professionals who will provide the back bone of the national team for a considerable time. Its also ridiculous imo that Ireland after the 2017 WC have a national team genuinely capable of dominating the Euros and challenging England aren't using this team to advance their profile.

This is the same Liam Finn who refused to play with "Irish" Irish players.

Basically if you want anybody remotely Irish involved or covering it in the Irish media you need give some respect to the domestic league and the people involved.

 

[londonrlfan]

22 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

But still, I am not sure domestic Serbia are more competitive than Ireland or Italy, just to say. 
Fielding heritage player for big test tournaments hasn't stopped countries from developing locally. At least, those who wanted to. 

Yes but Ireland have appeared in four WCs now and that's done nothing to grow the sport there. I often find Irish people are some of the most scathing towards the RLWC too. Perhaps we need to accept that Ireland and Scotland have no interest in RL, rather than trying to pretend they do. That's nothing to be ashamed of, as some countries won't like it and some will. I get the feeling we only persist with them because they are big union countries, but it's not like the IRB are interested in PNG. We need to look into areas where there seems to be genuine interest, the Balkans, Ukraine, Czech Republic etc. 

[TheLegendOfTexEvans]

2 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

Yes but Ireland have appeared in four WCs now and that's done nothing to grow the sport there. I often find Irish people are some of the most scathing towards the RLWC too. Perhaps we need to accept that Ireland and Scotland have no interest in RL, rather than trying to pretend they do. That's nothing to be ashamed of, as some countries won't like it and some will. I get the feeling we only persist with them because they are big union countries, but it's not like the IRB are interested in PNG. We need to look into areas where there seems to be genuine interest, the Balkans, Ukraine, Czech Republic etc. 

They have no interest as they are not stakeholders.  We need to find a balance of domestic players and heritage players for these nations.

Plenty of union players who would play for Ireland if given the chance.

 

 

[MatthewWoody]

3 minutes ago, TheLegendOfTexEvans said:

They have no interest as they are not stakeholders.  We need to find a balance of domestic players and heritage players for these nations.

Plenty of union players who would play for Ireland if given the chance.

 

 

Yes, this. 

[londonrlfan]

10 minutes ago, TheLegendOfTexEvans said:

They have no interest as they are not stakeholders.  We need to find a balance of domestic players and heritage players for these nations.

Plenty of union players who would play for Ireland if given the chance.

 

 

The problem is the Irish domestic league just seems to be for union players to keep fit over the summer and the sport will never grow with that approach.