Non Welsh Players Eating up Regional Budgets...!

First topic message reminder :

There are good and bad points at having foreign players in your region, if they pass on experience to youth and if they contribute masses to the cause, helping your region win trophies then good. But they are taking the place of a prospective Welsh player. They have to really be worth their while else they are wasting playing time for Welsh players and more importantly they are wasting the small budgets that the regions exist on.

There are probably also Welsh players that could be put out to pasture, so that younger Welsh players wishing to go abroad could be held on to.


Blues

Ben Blair
Tao Filise
Casey Lualala
Ma'ama Molitika
Dan Parks
Mike Patterson
Andries Pretorius
Xavier Rush
Paul Tito
Ryan Tyrrell


Dragons

Joe Bedford
Ben Castle
Tonderai Chavhanga
Nigel Hall
Jamie Smith
Andy Tuilagi
Dan Way
Tom Willis


Ospreys

Joe Bearman
Tommy Bowe
Hanno Dirksen
Ken Dowding
Khan Fotouali'i
Chauncey O'Toole
George Stowers


Scarlets

Sean Lamont
Deacon Manu
Sione Timani
Viliame Iongi

AlynDavies wrote:

rugbydreamer wrote:Scarlets aren't too fussed about the Blues I don't; think.

We love beating the O's the most, then the Dragons, then the Blues I reckon.

I think the Ospreys dislike the Blues the most, then the Scarlets then the Dragons, although Ospreys fans are starting to get irritated with the Dragons as we can't seem to beat them!

For somebody that posts on here and the Ospreys Forum, I think you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think most of our supporters dislike the Blues more than the Scarlets and dreamer you are in the same place if you think there is not even more vitriol on SF, have a word with Once a Monkey on that Forum that is why he spends so much time on the Ospreys Forum

Wayne as myself an Alyn suggested before the Ospreys region boasts a decent enough typography that encompasses several varied rivalries. Some with Cardif some with Scarlets...

Luckily the fixture list keeps us all enticed.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:But the Blues have 10 Cardiff Dave

And as it is they are limited to the number of NWQ's they can field in a matchday squad.

The limit is for the squad all season not just on the match day.
I'm not sure why you find that difficult to understand you are two players over the quota.

Cymroglan wrote:The limit is for the squad all season not just on the match day.
I'm not sure why you find that difficult to understand you are two players over the quota.

From the participation agreement;

"Match squads for all Regional games are intended to contain on average at least 17 players qualified to play for Wales out of the 22 or 23 named from now on."

Yes that is correct and in your regions squad you can have 5+2 NWQ.
Every week you must select your 22 and that could be 20 Q and 2 NWQ and the following week it could be 17+5 but on average through the season it must work out that you have selected at least 17 WQ.

The current quota for NWQ is 5+2 but will be less next year and that is the maximum you should have on your books how you play them is up to the region.
The Blues is now over the Quota I believe you have 10 non Welsh qualified players there.

What the Blues have is a squad they can not afford. One that will have to change.

It is good to see players like Cook, Downes, Cuthbert, Williams, Warburton even players in their third season like Halfpenny.

Players like Rush, Molitika, Blair, Tito are not as much use as they once were, they are expensive. Players like Dan Parks are expensive and every game I watch I doubt his relevance more and more.

maestegmafia wrote:What the Blues have is a squad they can not afford. One that will have to change.

It is good to see players like Cook, Downes, Cuthbert, Williams, Warburton even players in their third season like Halfpenny.

Players like Rush, Molitika, Blair, Tito are not as much use as they once were, they are expensive. Players like Dan Parks are expensive and every game I watch I doubt his relevance more and more.

+1

Why do so many believe that experience from foreign players are so important.

The fact is if you don't have foreign players you will build experienced local players, then tey will pass on their knowledge.

I still believe the opportunities taken away from local players far outweigh the benefit of having foreign players.

These days squad depth at international level is more important than ever before, and if you don't expose enough local talent, how do you build depth?

True there's a difficult balance to it biltongbek - I do think the benefit's that players like Lyons and King have brought to the Scarlets has been huge, especially with the youngsters, and also I'm not sure where in Wales we would have found players with those talents (certainly at No8 there was no one around for a long while) - they helped bring through players like Morgan and Murphy at 8, and JD2, Williams & Warren at centre and improved Maule as well.

But at the same time too many will be highly detrimental to the international squad.

Class foreigners in certain positions can also raise the bar for the youngsters and give then a high level to strive for, whereas if the foreigners weren't there you might be in a position where the youngster merely had to replace an average Welsh player and may pick up their bad habits during training while doing it.

It's all about what sort of foreign player you bring in. An international, highly capped player will bring loads and will positively influence youth. But just S15 experience isn't always enough. My team Gwent Dragons has been bitten on the behind by assuming that buying in a Kiwi with S15 experience automatically makes them good players. Tom Willis, Hoani Macdonald, Ben Castle, Grant Webb, Danny Lee, Nic Fitesemanu, James Arlidge: all in the last few years but brought so little to the team that other local talent could probably do just as well (or certainly no worse!). Paul Turner has to take the blame for them. It then takes a new coach in Edwards a few years to be able to offload them at the end of their contracts.

However, on the flip side having Percy Montgomery at the Dragons was great. He was a great player for us first an foremost, but other players would have gained a lot from his experience. Similarly with players like Gary Teichmann and Adrian Garvey when I watched them play for Newport RFC.

biltongbek wrote:Why do so many believe that experience from foreign players are so important.

The fact is if you don't have foreign players you will build experienced local players, then tey will pass on their knowledge.

I still believe the opportunities taken away from local players far outweigh the benefit of having foreign players.

These days squad depth at international level is more important than ever before, and if you don't expose enough local talent, how do you build depth?

Agreed...!

Smirnoffpriest wrote:True there's a difficult balance to it biltongbek - I do think the benefit's that players like Lyons and King have brought to the Scarlets has been huge, especially with the youngsters, and also I'm not sure where in Wales we would have found players with those talents (certainly at No8 there was no one around for a long while) - they helped bring through players like Morgan and Murphy at 8, and JD2, Williams & Warren at centre and improved Maule as well.

But at the same time too many will be highly detrimental to the international squad.

Class foreigners in certain positions can also raise the bar for the youngsters and give then a high level to strive for, whereas if the foreigners weren't there you might be in a position where the youngster merely had to replace an average Welsh player and may pick up their bad habits during training while doing it.

The balance will now be decided by economics.

The Scarlets could not afford to keep King and Lyons on the payroll, they don't even want to keep a hold of Lamont. They do have an excellent academy and a really talented squad without those players.

I agree that a few of the best players in the world make a huge difference to any of the regions, but more than two or three of the very best is expensive and beyond the budgets of the regions in Wales.

I think it's not quite as simple as that maes - the Scarlets wanted to keep Lyons, but also realised that we had Morgan and Murphy coming through - as they knew that they had JD2, Williams, Maule, Warren and Reynolds coming through at centre and Liam Williams, Lee Williams, Reynolds, Stodds on the wing.
So they knew they couldn't compete with the French for Lyons and King and knew that they had good cover (and could use the big wage money on other areas of the squad)

I agree that in the past the experienced foreign players served their purpose but these days we have enough of our own seasoned quality internationals in the regions.

Smirnoffpriest wrote:I think it's not quite as simple as that maes - the Scarlets wanted to keep Lyons, but also realised that we had Morgan and Murphy coming through - as they knew that they had JD2, Williams, Maule, Warren and Reynolds coming through at centre and Liam Williams, Lee Williams, Reynolds, Stodds on the wing.
So they knew they couldn't compete with the French for Lyons and King and knew that they had good cover (and could use the big wage money on other areas of the squad)

That is just a slightly different way of writing exactly what I had posted above no?

Anyhow, its good to see how much Welsh qualified talent there is in Wales. A bigger problem than the NWQs stopping talent is likely to be every other bloody nation poaching our lads.

At the Dragons, not one of our foreign players is one of our top players. We signed Jamie Smith from Ulster. He must be injured because I sure ain't seem him. Joe Bedford. A pointless signing. We can't wait for Jonny Evans to be 100%, so Bedford can drop into the prem. For me that's a very poortransfer policy. At least Dan Way gets game time. Castle turned out a poor signing and didn't improve our tight head weakness. Tom willis has retired and has been decent at best.
I was delighted when the Dragons announced they were signing 2 big overseas names. Yes, they'll score you big points at scrabble, but I think Chavanga and Tuilagi will only be average. I wasn't upset about us signing foreigners, but I really feel they have to make a real impression and improve the region they are playing for eg Regan King, Tommy Bowe and Xavier Rush. The last top foreigner the Dragons have had was Percy and that was some time ago. Since then we've had the likes of Arlidge, McDonald and Danny Lee. They'll all be remembered.....for being urine poor!

Smirnoffpriest wrote:True there's a difficult balance to it biltongbek - I do think the benefit's that players like Lyons and King have brought to the Scarlets has been huge, especially with the youngsters, and also I'm not sure where in Wales we would have found players with those talents (certainly at No8 there was no one around for a long while) - they helped bring through players like Morgan and Murphy at 8, and JD2, Williams & Warren at centre and improved Maule as well.

But at the same time too many will be highly detrimental to the international squad.

Class foreigners in certain positions can also raise the bar for the youngsters and give then a high level to strive for, whereas if the foreigners weren't there you might be in a position where the youngster merely had to replace an average Welsh player and may pick up their bad habits during training while doing it.

Smirnoff, I understand what you are saying, and yes perhaps balance is the key, if it is only foreign journey men then it is of little benefit.

Was it not the Welsh squad that said during the world cup last year that the way they prepared was their best ever preperation for the tournament?

There is your answer, if the coaching and management staff of each region are as professional and committed to having their squad be the most professional you don't need foreign internationals to teach youngster good work ethics and professionalism.

As far as knowledge of the game and skills, that can be transferred in more ways than just playing together, academies that are used pre season ans during the off season of these foreign internationals will be able to transfer a lot of knowledge to youngsters.

The question however still remain how many potential greats do not get an opportunity because of the current system?

Remember if the regions expose more talent, Wales will automatically improve on depth of talent and those guys within a few years will be the model players youngsters learn from, but if it is not done, it will never happen.