Quote: ArcticGorilla "If we can pick the Aussies, we might as well. Although I'm strongly against it.
I don't see why we can't make a blanket rule.
To qualify you either have to
It does make sense but even this would rule Jason Taumalolo, for example, out of playing for Tonga. The difficulty we have nowadays is that nationality can be a fluid concept and some people can identify with more than one country, or a country of their heritage more than the country of their birth. We can see, in the case of many of those Tongan players, that they identify themselves with their Tongan heritage, despite not having lived there, or been born there. I think the problem for a lot of people is when we start having heritage players like Blake Austin and Jackson Hastings where you know that they have never, before now, identified themselves as being British. Any year of their life before now, if you asked them "what" they were they would have told you Australian, and that, I think, is why it doesn't sit right with a lot of us.
Ultimately, attempting to define what someone else is from the outside is quite difficult and I think we will struggle to find a rule that works for every situation. The rules are as they are, other nations are profiting from it and have for a long time, so I can see why this has arisen and, whichever of the guys pulls on the shirt will have my full support once the game starts. But I think we are heading down a road that will one day lead to a re-evaluation of precisely what international sport is.