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'Winning is a habit': How the Wallabies ditching their eligibility laws hurts the team

Rob Valentini in the Wallabies huddle. Photo by SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images

Rugby Australia seems to have eased its restrictions on eligibility, allowing Eddie Jones to select more than three players from across the globe in the country’s quest for their third Rugby World Cup.

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The Giteau law is officially still in place with the intention of restricting selections to just three international-based players who were required to have 30 Wallabies caps or have given five years of service to Australian Rugby. But, there are currently three players in the squad playing their club rugby in Japan and two who play in France.

It’s speculated that when Jones took the helm of the Wallabies, a condition of his signing was ditching the Giteau law to allow the coach unrestricted access to all Australian players.

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Rugby Australia is yet to see any reward for that compromise, with the Wallabies having lost their opening two matches of 2023 against South Africa and Argentina.

“I think this is significant,” Former All Black Jeff Wilson told The Breakdown. “The fact that they’ve ditched their eligibility rules and said ‘these are the guys I want’.

“But I’m thinking the impact of them coming in, playing in a different competition, playing different styles of rugby, and the fact that a lot of the guys who have tasted success against New Zealand sides in Super Rugby, a lot of them aren’t there. And they’re guys in key positions.

Image courtesy of Sky Sport’s The Breakdown.
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“And this is the balance of their 23. The Brumbies have six, now they were their best-performing Super Rugby team. The Rebels, they were terrible, they didn’t even make the playoffs but they’ve got six Wallabies and you start going ‘well they’ve got individual talent’ well hold on, winning’s a habit. A lot of these guys, I don’t think they’ve tasted it.

“Now he’s trying to figure out how they want to play and I’m not sure they’ve got that quite right.”

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Wilson went on to further explain his thinking, pointing out the Reds’ win over the Chiefs and the Brumbies’ success as blueprints for beating New Zealand sides and evidence of the players who can execute those game plans.

The point was completely lost on Sir John Kirwin however, who said it was “rubbish” because “Australia have never worried about Super Rugby form”.

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The two established their difference of opinion was down to Wilson believing in the need for combinations to be forged beyond the international season, for instinctive chemistry to be found through club experience. Alternatively, Kirwin believed for Australia specifically, with their talent scattered across the globe they were best to pick the best players regardless of club combinations.

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Comments

4 Comments
W
Willie 729 days ago

RA will do anything to justify sacking Rennie, even if it means removing selection restrictions for Jones.

RA has about as much integrity as the Morrison government.

O
OJohn 729 days ago

Rugby Australia are great. Especially if they piss off kiwis ha hah

0
007 729 days ago

Is Sir John 'Kirwin' related to Sir John KirwAn? 🤣 #typo

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Soliloquin 1 hour ago
Competing interests and rotated squads: What the 'player welfare summer' is really telling us

I don’t know the financial story behind the changes that were implemented, but I guess clubs started to lose money, Mourad Boudjellal won it all with Toulon, got tired and wanted to invest in football , the French national team was at its lowest with the QF humiliation in 2015 and the FFR needed to transform the model where no French talent could thrive. Interestingly enough, the JIFF rule came in during the 2009/2010 season, so before the Toulon dynasty, but it was only 40% of the players that to be from trained in French academies. But the crops came a few years later, when they passed it at the current level of 70%.

Again, I’m not a huge fan of under 18 players being scouted and signed. I’d rather have French clubs create sub-academies in French territories like Wallis and Futuna, New Caledonia and other places that are culturally closer to RU and geographically closer to rugby lands. Mauvaka, Moefana, Taofifenua bros, Tolofua bros, Falatea - they all came to mainland after starting their rugby adventure back home.

They’re French, they come from economically struggling areas, and rugby can help locally, instead of lumping foreign talents.

And even though many national teams benefit from their players training and playing in France, there are cases where they could avoid trying to get them in the French national team (Tatafu).

In other cases, I feel less shame when the country doesn’t believe in the player like in Meafou’s case.

And there are players that never consider switching to the French national team like Niniashvili, Merckler or even Capuozzo, who is French and doesn’t really speak Italian.

We’ll see with Jacques Willis 🥲


But hey, it’s nothing new to Australia and NZ with PI!

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