What are people buying?

[RMD]

Someone wake me up when they've finished.

[goat major]

Donated by the lovely Mr EB. I take back everything I’ve ever said about him and everything I am going to say in future about him. He’s a jolly splendid chap

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Donald - a very good point: Australia and New Zealand are countries populated overwhelmingly by people who, at some point in their family tree, were British and Irish ex-pats, so some sort of residency rules have to apply. The embryonic Ireland cricket team of the 1990s contained more Aussies than all the other nationalities - including Irish - put together, but hey! it got them up and running; the England rugby team in that decade contained several "not-quite-good-enough" Kiwis (shame that Johan Lomu wasn't one of them!). Japanese rugby has evolved largely because of non-Japanese folk qualifying for them.

A friend of mine did once joke that a future rugby world cup will be played for by 13 teams of ex-pat New Zealanders and Saffers, two teams from South Africa and France with no white players, and an All Blacks side composed entirely of South Sea Islanders (who will probably win it).

[Essex Boy]

You are very welcome.

E

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Related is the story of a rather prominent & elite private school (read "public" for you English types), that regularly cleans up the school boy Rugby comps here. The story goes they offer scholarships to all manner of huge islanders, ignoring their actual ages so they field teams of U17 players in their late 20s.

There is, or at least was, an U-15 Cricket World Cup, the final of which was usually between a very good England XI (none of whom would ever be heard of again) and a team from either India or Pakistan, of equally dubious size and age, who all had full beards, but no birth certificates, who would inevitably win the competition. I'm not sure if it was ever sorted out.

[FreddBloggs]

, ausyralia do it and new zealand have always done it.

You're probably talking about islanders - Fijians, Tongans, Samoans?

Really, it's an economic thing. These guys (& their families) move to NZ & OZ for opportunities their wonderful but isolated homes don't offer. Rugby is one of them. I don't see it as any deliberate twisting of the rules but of genuine immigrants who are, not surprisingly, good at the game & want to play at the highest levels. Both Antipodean nations are essentially migrant-countries & national porting teams are stuffed with people born elsewhere....as are the countries in general.

Sport provides opportunities for those not so well educated & whose culture doesn't necessarily value 'book-learning'. Our indigenous boys & girls are often the same.

Charlie Cameron (ET will know whom I'm talking about) was a lovely boy who pretty well hated school but luckily found his niche in professional sport.

donald

It was more the years when you came through in the Samoan (or fijian) team, then New Zealand picked you. I certainly objected to the New Zealand thug England had as their previous captain.

[goat major]

Isn’t there a separate rugwank thread somewhere?

[RMD]

Isn’t there a separate rugwank thread somewhere?

Eh?! Wassat??!! Sorry, I'd nodded off. Have they stopped yet?

Anyway, the Prussian grenadiers arrived from Colonel Bill's and the 24 figures include f*$£!ng grenadier standard bearers!!!

So two unusable figures that I'll have to replace with usable ones from Eureka, which eats into the discount somewhat!

[goat major]

Are they a total waste or convertable somehow ?

[Paul]

Isn’t there a separate rugwank thread somewhere?

Isn't it called something like "South Africa are best and anyone who says differently can shove their biltong up their Boer?"