The ban on Ireland players moving abroad is out of date and self-defeating

Irish Daily Mirror

2 days ago

IRFU Performance Director David Humphreys is adamant the IRFU will not be granting permission to any players of interest to the Ireland international side to play abroad any time soon.Those who move to play in another jurisdiction are and will remain automatically ruled out of contention.This at a time when double-World Cup winning Rassie Erasmus, who was all too familiar with the Ireland rule from his time at Munster, opened up Springbok selection on returning to South Africa.And on the back of former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt, who also had first-hand knowledge of the Ireland system, having just opened up selection from foreign clubs for Australia.Also while slashing the Mens and Womens Sevens programmes, putting circa 30 athletes out of their full-time jobs - to make a saving of €1.2m.And while, for example, Leinster have 12 Lions, 12 touring with Ireland this summer, three front line foreigners, three significant players on the injury list and seven U20s starting against Georgia this Sunday.Such is the log-jam when the province is at 'full-strength' it doesn't have first team jerseys for 2025 Six Nations stars such as Jimmy O'Brien, Jamie Osborn, Ciaran Frawley, Jack Boyle, Ronan Kelleher, Gus McCarthy, Thomas Clarkson, Ryan Baird.Or 2025 Ireland A internationals Tommy O'Brien, Max Deegan, Stephen Smith, Alex Soroka, Fintan Gunne and Harry Byrne.Surely, in the interest of bringing through young talent, the time has come to release a valve at Leinster and the other provinces; allow certain players in certain categories (say over 32 years-of-age and, say, over 33 caps move abroad without being ruled out of Ireland selection.Surely, in the interest of being morally right-on employers, the money saved by taking 4/5 players off the wage bill - €1.2m approximately - could have been used to keep the Sevens/Olympics programme in place - saving 30 dream-chasers jobs in the process.Hands up. When this is put to IRFU Performance Director David Humphreys as a way of finding €1.2m, saving the Sevens/Olympics jobs, and helping with the log-jam of young players, he disagrees with me completely...
"No," he says, leaving a pause and bringing a silence over the room such as when Mick Jagger announces 'now here's a sing we wrote recently..."No. We've talked about the competitiveness of our provinces not being where we want it to be if we were to let some of our top players go. "It's a question that we've talked about internally, we've discussed it internally."But actually when you look at the Irish system, one of the great strengths is our player welfare, our player management.
"We want all our players playing into their early-to-mid-thirties, we want to give them every chance and we believe by what we have in each of our provinces by how we manage them throughout the course of the season.
"That gives them the best opportunity to have a much longer career than perhaps if you let them go and play in other leagues. "For me at the minute, that is not something that's up for discussion. up for discussion.
"We've considered it, we believe that it's a fundamental strength of the Irish rugby system and believe it will continue to be so."I don't expect the IRFU Performance Director to change my mind on this soon but I'd like to see those 30 jobs in sport restored and I'd like for 19/20/21/22 year-olds being given chances to breakthrough at Champions Cup and international level.Besides, I still secretly think Jordie Barrett got to spy on us for six months, was taking notes, and consequently the All Blacks were not damaged in the least but will actually benefit from his spell in Dublin.We should do the same; send front-rows to France, second-rows to South Africa, back-rows to New Zealand and outside backs to Australia...and have them report back!
Meanwhile in a week where Rassie Erasmus said he wanted three players for every position before he chooses his treble-attempting RWC 2027 squad...
I'd like to see half-a-dozen more Irish youngsters being given their chance to impress - our current base is, as is repeatedly shown at Rugby World Cups, too thin.