NiQ v NWQ v 2011 NIQ v 2011 NWQ v 2012 NSQ

Slightly off topic but someone mentioned in another thread that Ireland got quality NIQ players and Wales didn't but I can remember a time when we used to do a NIQ v NWQ teams and they were fairly even, Thought it was time to bring it back.

We can compare NI/WQ now and then and compare, and get back to rugby and argue which team is best.


I dont think we can get a NIQ team anymore
NIQ 15
No NIQ front row.
Fardy
Carter
Botha
Butler
Coetzee
Mathewson
Horwitz
Lowe
Tomane
Godwin
Porch
Faddes

2011 era NIQ
1. Van Der Merwe
2Richardt Strauss
3. BJ Botha
4. Nathan Hines
5. Muller
6. Michael McCarthy ?
7. Wannenburg
8. Ezra Taylor
9. Pienaar
10. Shaun Berne
11. Danielli
12. Nacewa
13. Sam Tuitupou
14.Doug Howlett,
15.Paul Warwick,

NWQ (I dont know them well enough to say which NWQ is better in some position, so if anyone wishes to update it feel free)
1) Kuger/botha
2
3 arhip/Fia
4 Kuger
5 Ratuva
6 Cassium
7Thomsom
8 Robinson (cant believe williams is WQ)
9 venter
10 Lamb
11klim
12 Ray le lo
13 Fonitia
14 asquith
15mckenzie

2011 NWQ team
15 - Blair (NZ)
14 - Bowe (IRE)
13 - King (NZ)
12 - Lualala (NZ)
11 - Lamont (SCO)
10 - Parks (SCO)
9 - Nutbrown (NZ)

8 - Rush (NZ)
7 - Hollah (NZ)
6 - Collins (NZ)
5 - Molitika (FIJ) (was Tito but he is technically qualified)
4 - Paterson (NZ)
3 - Filisse (TON)
2 - Willis (NZ)
1 - Manu (FIJ)

NSQ ( please correct, not sure which backrows can pkay lock?)
1 de pleses
2 dolokoto
3 schoman
4
5
6Gibbons
7 Vakaloloma
8 mata
9 Frisby
10 Thomson
11 Matawalu
12hickley
13 sau
14 DTHWDM
15 van der Walt


And 2012 NSQ team
1. Yapp
2. Titterall
3. Cusack
4. Van Der Westhuizen
5. Cox
6. Strauss
7. Basilia
8. Talei
9.Rees
10. Matawalu
11. Paris
12. Nathan
13. DTH
14. Sep Visser
15. Atiga

Its interesting two SWQ are still there, think the 2011 teams are better than the current ones.

The 2011 NWQ is the best out of the 6 for me. Don't think there are any 2019 NWQ that would get into it. But Ill wait for someone more knowledgeable can correct the 2019 NWQ team.

Pretty selective doing it in 2011 tbh. The point is clearly that for the majority of the last decade, the quality and expenditure made by the Irish surpasses the Welsh regions. This is a really poor way to quantify that.

Also the point was talking about bringing overseas talent over to make them qualified for the national team. I assume you're referencing my point. I'm just not sure how you think this is 'speaking to' it. There's a good long list of 'Irish' players missing here - Aki, Stander, soon to be Lowe etc. Up until the last 2 years, where we've now selected 3-4, Wales hadn't picked a residency player since Sonny Parker or Brent Cockbain. Ireland have made it a systemic goal.

miaow wrote: - Up until the last 2 years, where we've now selected 3-4, Wales hadn't picked a residency player since Sonny Parker or Brent Cockbain. Ireland have made it a systemic goal.

Catching up? . Have Wales realised it's a big ask for a small Nation to compete at the top with home grown selections completely.  So....within the then rules, Ireland so concluded.  

Of course it's coming to the end of those ideas though with the five year rule.  But in any case, even on a systemic basis, Ireland haven't been in any sense of the word excessive with the number of 'Irish' players used on the field of play.  That's thankfully because we've had enough Irish players to carry the burden.  Long may it continue.

But in truth, the Provinces will still have their own ambitions within the context of Pro14 and Europe, so there'll still be some exotic players in there into the future, some even perhaps coming close to a five year stay.....

Definitely. Wales had a pretty good record - other than Englishmen with Welsh heritage like Francis, there genuinely hasn't been a non-Welsh player play for the side since maybe Hal Luscombe in the mid-00s? You can talk small nations all you want, but there's something about international representative rugby being...well...representative of your actual country. And yes, I see the argument that your finances are all part of the nation's power...but it makes it a bit grubby. It's not the reason I watch sport, at all. It's not the reason I played it. It's not the reason I would support a team. So you can call it a way for small nations to compete, but really, it's anything but - it's wealthy nations taking the quick fix option to keep the money rolling in. Ireland's approach was top down and systemic - Scotland likewise. Wales got on the act late in the game with Haloholo and McNicholl. They're stil uncapped, yet those two will represent 66% of the non-Welsh project players Wales will cap in the last decade - you can argue Anscombe might be one, but thn Parkes was more luck than judgement, so it's between 3 or 4 players for Wales. I'd be amazed if Scotland and Ireland's are in single figures.

I would imagine we will now see some plundering of late teens/early 20s players to mitigate the 5 year rule. Like in football, it will be about fleshing out the academy system and deeming them homegrown. English teams are well on their way to this already - the French are, too.

Even so, it really does make a mockery of this snapshot-style approach to quantifying the regions v provinces.

NSQ for now I would say looks like (likely project players)

Schoeman - Willemse - Nuke (Kebble - ? -  Cecarelli)
Kunavalo - Vakalolamo
? - Mata - Gibbins

Groom - Hickey (Frisby - Jaco van der Walt)
? - DTH VDM (Matawalu)
Sau - Thomson - DVDM

We need help at prop, half backs (even then mainly at 10, Frisby is arguably 5th choice at Glasgow and is likely gone at the end of the season) and wings. Don't really need hookers, locks, centres or FB's. Back-row is predominantly Scots but the SRU take flyers on Fijians for the Nakarawa's and Mata's of the world.

The Welsh regions have signed some seriously bad NWQ players over the years that have been to the detriment of the regions.

miaow wrote:Also the point was talking about bringing overseas talent over to make them qualified for the national team. I assume you're referencing my point. I'm just not sure how you think this is 'speaking to' it. There's a good long list of 'Irish' players missing here - Aki, Stander, soon to be Lowe etc. Up until the last 2 years, where we've now selected 3-4, Wales hadn't picked a residency player since Sonny Parker or Brent Cockbain. Ireland have made it a systemic goal.

Not really. Half the players who were picked were accidental test players - Roux, Ah you, White - all based in Connacht and who got capped mainly due to injuries to key Irish players.

Payne, Kleyn, Aki and possibly Stander you could argue - although Munster needed Stander - Ireland had plenty of backrow options at the time. Lam wanted Aki to build up team and Connacht were not subject to the Player Succession quotas.

van den Heever, Ludik, McCartney, Bleyendaal, Teo, Butler, Borlase, Triggs, Gibson-Park, Schalke are/were uncapped players - it doesn't make them project players per se. Lowe is seen as a replacement for Isa Nacewa - his age/health work against him. He came in largely because Fitzgerald retired earlier than expected and Nacewa finished. I doubt that Farrell would be relying on using him for RWC 2023.

All that said, Irish provinces generally have picked better foreign - capped and uncapped - talent than Welsh regions have. And for population size and historical reasons - it has a wider spread of parent/grandparent qualified players beyond England.

They've picked better foreign talent because they're vastly more cash rich. Which is one of the main points I was making for the unhappiness with the league as is from a Welsh perspective. If we're going to play second fiddle to weatlhy unions/clubs, may as well join up with England and play in a more viable league, even if the likelihood of that is slim to none now (I dare say it wouldn't have been 10-15 years ago).

The point is they had a project player system. And maybe some of those were accidental test players, but not 'complete' accidents. It's not like the old condom ripping - more like perhaps giving it a pull and a tug and a poke beforehand and just seeing what happens...oh right, excellent, this massive South African lock actually WILL do a job for us at test level. Good stuff...

Also, Te'o? He was definitely brought over to ply for Ireland but jumped shipped because he's clearly as much of a mercenary as you can get. Sounds like an absolute Robbie Diack based on talk from the Lions tour as well.

miaow wrote:They've picked better foreign talent because they're vastly more cash rich. Which is one of the main points I was making for the unhappiness with the league as is from a Welsh perspective. If we're going to play second fiddle to weatlhy unions/clubs, may as well join up with England and play in a more viable league, even if the likelihood of that is slim to none now (I dare say it wouldn't have been 10-15 years ago).

The point is they had a project player system. And maybe some of those were accidental test players, but not 'complete' accidents. It's not like the old condom ripping - more like perhaps giving it a pull and a tug and a poke beforehand and just seeing what happens...oh right, excellent, this massive South African lock actually WILL do a job for us at test level. Good stuff...

Also, Te'o? He was definitely brought over to ply for Ireland but jumped shipped because he's clearly as much of a mercenary as you can get. Sounds like an absolute Robbie Diack based on talk from the Lions tour as well.

Yep - don't disagree with most of that - the provinces generate more revenue for themselves than the regions do and the provinces have to meet foreign player salaries mainly from their own budgets.  Te'o was not a project midfield player, though,.   He was seen as an experiment for Leinster in making the switch from rugby league and was only given a 2-year contract in 2014 at age 27/28, so he'd have been 30/31 before residency reached - wrong profile.  The Leinster press release around his departure points to that - "Te’o, who had only recently expressed a desire to play international rugby at some stage in his career, will see out the current season with Leinster...".

Project players are always in hindsight.  Once a player proved good enough then suddenly they were a project player waiting out the three years before playing for Ireland.

I doubt Munster signed Stander thinking we are going to make him an Ireland star.  They saw him as a bargain player who was ready to leave SA because he was told he wasn't good enough.

Craig Clarke at 29 was brought over to Connacht on a 3 year contract.  Not because he could play for Ireland but because he was captain of a SR winning team.  They wanted to build the team around him.  When he had to retire Aki was brought over and was a major reason for Connacht's Pro12 win.  When Lam left, Aki sent an angry tweet giving out to Lam for leaving the project.  The IRFU had to step in to keep Aki from leaving Connacht not because of irish caps but because Connacht had lost Henshaw, McGinty and then Lam.  Keeping Aki (who is the big star of Connacht) is to important for the project of building up Connacht.  If he is too expensive to keep I expect the IRFU to look to replace him with another big player because they want 4 teams in the Champions Cup.

3 years is the standard contract duration in most of the professional leagues for both domestic and foreign players.  This is because it's enough time for the player to settle and get two good years.  If they are good the club has time to extend the contract, if only two years that becomes harder.  Four years means more risk for the club's due to poor form or injury.  Generally risky players are the only ones who dont get 3 year contracts and i dont know any player who has signed a 4 year contract

LordDowlais wrote:The Welsh regions have signed some seriously bad NWQ players over the years that have been to the detriment of the regions.

Just to balance this post, we’ve signed some shocking welsh qualified players over the years too who have been to the detriment of the regions.

Every signing is a gamble, regardless of where they’re from. The amount of dross from outside AND within Wales the Dragons have signed, for example, is huge. But that’s what happens with a smaller budget. You have to have a squad of players regardless of how much budget you have so when it’s low the players on average are going to be lower end.

Thank God 606 has a huge budget and can afford us....

Although I'd like to see some more transparency on what each poster is paid...

I hear they pay 7.5 in abattoir floor scrapings...but it would be good to know for certain...

miaow wrote:Although I'd like to see some more transparency on what each poster is paid...

I hear they pay 7.5 in abattoir floor scrapings...but it would be good to know for certain...

Meeeeeoowwwwww.

Saucer of milk, dear?

Pot Hale gets paid in man milk.

Just on the old 'Teo is/isn't a project player chestnut'...

2011 era. Would DeVilliers as a centre down in Munster be in that era? How about Thorn blowing in for half a season? Or Mafi at centre for Munster (who was the SH fella that partnered him in the centre, much better talent with a dubious non-rugby past?).

It's interesting that over the decade, the provinces have become much better at bringing through tight-five players. Backrow is so attritional that outside of Leinster, the rest struggle for numbers from their academy.

And for every decent player that came in, we've all had to contend with two specific types all too often;
1 - the injured legend (CJ van der linde with his hurt little toe!)
2 - the absolute muppet (the likes of a Clint Newland who can only have been offered a contract based on 10 seconds of a youtube clip, anyone who say the player in an actual match knew he was useless).

Mafi and Tipoki (both Samoan/Kiwi) were the centre partnership I can remember. Both awesome.

On the subject of PI centres, the fact that Casey Laulala left Wales for Ireland was/is a sign of the relative pulling power and the changing of the monetary appeal between the two countries. There aren't too many who go the other way - other than those who only half make it over like Xavier Rush.

miaow wrote:Just on the old 'Teo is/isn't a project player chestnut'...

What is this visual? Was it created by RTE?

Screenshot from RTE a few years ago taking the p out of Teo being a heart-grabbing Irishman, only to turn out for England a few months later.

As I said, he's the perfect example of a mercenary, and - by all accounts - a bit of a doorcheese, too. Encapsulates the exact opposite of the 'good' project player that you get with Aki or Stander, as well as the Irish trend for bringing players over the play for Ireland even if this one didn't work out as T'eo got cold feet with Schmidtball/heard what the match day fee for an England cap was.

miaow wrote:Screenshot from RTE a few years ago taking the p out of Teo being a heart-grabbing Irishman, only to turn out for England a few months later.

As I said, he's the perfect example of a mercenary, and - by all accounts - a bit of a doorcheese, too. Encapsulates the exact opposite of the 'good' project player that you get with Aki or Stander, as well as the Irish trend for bringing players over the play for Ireland even if this one didn't work out as T'eo got cold feet with Schmidtball/heard what the match day fee for an England cap was.

That’s good.   I do know Leinster were surprised at Te’o’s sudden interest in playing test rugby cos they were paying for most of him, and not the IRFU who only contribute towards the designated project NIQ player in each province.  Anyway, he’s made his money.

About as surprised my girlfriend when she says she didn't want anything for Christmas...yeah...

miaow wrote:About as surprised my girlfriend when she says she didn't want anything for Christmas...yeah...

You're too cynical, Miaow.

If you've signed someone for two years, and are hoping/planning to re-sign him for a further period after his 29th birthday, then yes you are surprised when he tells you a year after he's arrived that he's decided that he actually does want to play test rugby - and for England, and Eddie Jones and Worcester have made him an offer, so he's leaving at end of season. He signed with Worcester on 22 Dec 2015.

It would be more like your girlfriend telling you around about now that she doesn't want a Christmas present as errm...she's met someone else who is giving her a bigger one, - on 22 Dec.... but she's happy to stay with you for a few more months just to make sure you're okay, and anyway, his new place won't be ready until then....

Now that would be cynical ...