The exiles teams. How much pull do the countres they 'represent' have?

London Irish - not much on the face of it. But does the IRFU have a special relationship?

And what about London Welsh and London Scottish? Are they still nationally-based clubs in exile or is that concept long gone?

How much is the country tag real and how much just a nominal a legacy of the old amateur days?

London Welsh is currently a branch of the Ospreys region from what I remember.

Though they only have 9 Welsh Qualified players out of 34 in their current squad.

Just a name these days Portnoy.

These clubs were important in the amateur era because many players earned their bread and butter working in London.

Cymroglan wrote:These clubs were important in the amateur era because many players earned their bread and butter working in London.

There were big communities of Irish Scottish and Welsh in London that the clubs organised themselves around. I have many happy memories of Old deer Park, a wonderful club house.

There is still a London Welsh Social Club in Clerkenwell in London that is a very active center for those who wish to find the Welsh community in london.

The country tag certainly isn't that relevant for Scottish, particularly withthe withdrawal of the remnants of SRU funding a year or two ago. However, in some senses the ties run quite deep still, and I would imagine that the SRU are looking at Scottish with real interet given their recent return to the championship, possibly as a potential home for Scottishqualified players for whom there simply isn't space in eitherof the two pro district teams

I agree with ASBO. A beneficial relationship could be struck between LS and the two pro regions. LS will need to improve its player pool this season to compete, and when the international players come back from the WC, Edinburgh and Glasgow may well end up with good players unable to get a game. Player loans could very well be a good way of helping out all parties in the long run, and the likes of Eddie, Newlands, Alex Blair, Rory Hutton et al could have found themselves with an alternative.

London Irish have nothing to do with Irish rugby.
They are Irish in 2 ways only - Name and supporters. In ever other respect they are an English team.

Didn't an Exiles side once play in the InterPros?

London Welsh still has many members with strong welsh ties, and still brings in youth players for their younger teams with welsh backgrounds and parentage. Don't know much about their first team's welsh connections.

geoff998rugby wrote:London Irish have nothing to do with Irish rugby.
They are Irish in 2 ways only - Name and supporters. In ever other respect they are an English team.

There seems to be a fairly close Munster connection - the majority shareholder (think about 80%) is Cathal Ryan (of RyanAir fame) and Keith Wood is also a director.

Besides some of their supporters London Irish are mostly English. Since the growth of the Irish provinces and the arrival of central contracts they haven't really been an Irish team.

Thomond - Microsoft in Ireland is still an American company even though they are based in Ireland, most of their employees are Irish and they pay their corporation tax to the Irish Exchequer.

Didn't the exiles cut their links with the IRFU after the IRFU refused to help fund their academy? Conor O'Shea wanted them to become a feeder club for Ireland but the IRFU decided to prioritise Connacht instead as they didn't have the cash for both.

Sin, the main reason they aren't Irish is they don't receive IRFU funding.

London Welsh do get annual funding from the WRU and are members of the WRU. I think their role is to find English based players with Welsh roots.

The last player they produced for Wales was Tom Shanklin.

Were London Welsh to become a premiership team would this cause an issue for the WRU policy of not selecting players outside of the pro12. (Making an assumption that they would be able to attract more established players) Or would it become a sort of '5th' region?

There had been some talk of L Welsh getting some serious funding to bring them up to 5th regional level. I havent heard anything for a while though.
Imagine what that would do to PRL if they got to the Premiership and became members...

Gatland openly ditched the non existant policy of not picking foriegn based players. He even said Hook moving to France would be a good thing as Ospreys never did what he asked them anyway.

Thomond wrote:Sin, the main reason they aren't Irish is they don't receive IRFU funding.

A quote from the LI chairman in 2008. Its Irish pockets the money is coming from.

"A fundraising initiative launched two weeks ago to secure an additional £6.25 million is almost fully subscribed. Long-term backers such as Kevin Clancy from the construction and utilities company and Declan Ryan, the son of the late Tony Ryan, the founder of Ryanair, have deep pockets and a deeper commitment. “We may be playing in England and developing England players, but 80 per cent of our shareholders are Irish and our DNA is very much still Irish,” Conlan said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby_union/article3716906.ece

IRFU decided the could not fund both Connacht and London Irish.

they choose Connacht

SinE, to me they represent nothing about Ireland. Based outside Ireland, players aren't Irish, IRFU don't fund them.

Having Irish shareholders means very little to me in terms of assessing them as Irish. I hear Chelsea are a Russian club Also I'm willing to bet the Irish funding has dried up since 3 years ago.

To me they are Irish from a PR point of view.

red_stag wrote:SinE, to me they represent nothing about Ireland. Based outside Ireland, players aren't Irish, IRFU don't fund them.

Having Irish shareholders means very little to me in terms of assessing them as Irish. I hear Chelsea are a Russian club Also I'm willing to bet the Irish funding has dried up since 3 years ago.

To me they are Irish from a PR point of view.

Its not up to you to decide anyone's nationality or how they feel. If you read that article, they feel Irish. Most of the directors of London Irish are ex-players born on the island of Ireland and a lot of their supporters would have similar backgrounds.

I don't recall the Chelsea owner claiming that Chelsea had Russian DNA?

I wouldn't bet on that funding drying up - RyanAir are still making money hand over fist and with the recent death of Tony Ryan, his son has probably come into even more money. The other main shareholder is in the UK (property dev). Probably making a killing in the Olympics construction.

Sin its not up to any of us here to decide anything about professional rugby but thats what we do. We are establishing how connected Ireland and London Irish are. You made a point that 80% irish shareholders is a reason. I said then that clubs like Chelsea who are all owned by foreigners are not themselves foreign. I've seen nothing in last decade to consider London Irish as an Irish club.

red_stag wrote:Sin its not up to any of us here to decide anything about professional rugby but thats what we do. We are establishing how connected Ireland and London Irish are. You made a point that 80% irish shareholders is a reason. I said then that clubs like Chelsea who are all owned by foreigners are not themselves foreign. I've seen nothing in last decade to consider London Irish as an Irish club.

So the green jersey, the Fields, their supporters etc. is nothing? The fact that London Irish always comes over here to play the provinces in pre-season (old tradition). The fact that the underage teams play each other.

It was pointed out that the IRFU don't fund LI. I pointed out who actually owns (and funds) the club, that is why I mentioned the 80% shareholding.

I take it you would have regarded it as an Irish club 10-15 years ago. Its doubtful that the IRFU funded it back then either.

Chelsea is a completely different scenario. It has no Russian heritage whatsoever. Its the toy of one man. And I don't think he has ever talked up the Russian association.

There is still a connection with the countries, especially in the lower teams, I know Welsh people who play for London Welsh and Scottish who play for London Scottish. There seems to be good 'exile' communities at both these clubs, although they are have the usual London club mix of English, Kiwis, Saffas, Zims etc.

However the professional sides of these clubs is moving further away from the original exile idea. The vast majority of the playing and coaching staff at these clubs are not from the exile country and London Irish for example I think I'm right in saying has a RFU regional academy?
While they have that in place you would think it's unlikely that they could develop too much Irish talent?

I believe that all premiership clubs HAVE to have an academy for developing English players. Not sure what would happen if London Welsh ever got promoted.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:
Gatland openly ditched the non existant policy of not picking foriegn based players. He even said Hook moving to France would be a good thing as Ospreys never did what he asked them anyway.

Is that strictly accurate?

AlynDavies wrote:London Welsh do get annual funding from the WRU and are members of the WRU. I think their role is to find English based players with Welsh roots.

The last player they produced for Wales was Tom Shanklin.

So I've done a quick search on the WRU website. London Welsh surprisingly reveals nothing. I'm not sure that LW can't be members of two unions.

They play after all, under the auspices of the RFU, Can you expand/explain?

Doesn't saying anything about funding and it's a bit old but...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/english/6199419.stm

Says they're members of both RFU and WRU.

Which brings me to my intended second point.

There are assumptions from some parts that they can somehow hijack the English leagues for their own nefarious purposes.

Once Saffered twice shy I fancy

To compare London Irish to Chelsea is unfair, if you want to compare to a football club then it has to be Celtic.

Are Celtic Irish, no they are Scottish, but Scottish with a very strong Irish connection and long history of this connection.
A Connection that the Club is proud of and promotes, and connection that is felt by most football fans in Ireland. If the the Irish people picked a team they wanted to win the Scottish League they'd pick Celtic.

Same can be said for London Irish, English with a very strong Irish connection and long history of this connection. If you did a poll in Ireland as to who they wanted to win the Jeff, London Irish would be the chosen team. (altough prob not by the same percentage as in years gone by).

I wouldn't pick 'em

you are in a minority, I didn't say every single person but the majority of football fans in Ireland would pick Celtic to win the Scottish league,

Or did you mean you wouldn't pick London Irish?

Sorry I was talking about London Irish - not interest in soccer.