Let's be plucky losers. How terrifically British.

As for "fringe" international players, what's the message? Get better. Make yourself a better player than the guy from the NRL. Make it so the coach - whoever it is - cannot leave you out.

Besides, anyone who thinks Wayne Bennett will select on the basis of birthplace or accent needs their head testing. Bennett's a winner. He'll pick the best eligible team to win a game, as he should.

Correct.

Ok, so chucking a curve ball in to it... I was born in a British Army camp in Germany to English parents and grandparents. What does that mean..?

Lots of blanket judgements going on by the sounds of it. Frankly if someone 'not English' is that keen to do what they have to to play for England, fair enough. More of a deliberate and concerted effort than the guy who comes from 26 generations of English people who have all lived in the same town their whole life and never left the UK shores.

That makes you English - Army bases like embassies are consider part of the country they represent.

You've got UK nationality by virtue of your parents. You can't have German nationality unless one of your parents qualified to become a naturalised German citizen in their own right, which I think means living there for 8 years.

So IIRC - and I'm thinking here of the example of Richard Horne, who was born on the Isle of Man - you could have your pick of any of the home nations in terms of who you represent because while you have UK nationality, you weren't born in any of the constituent countries or principalities of the UK.

I'd be interested to see whether some of the posters on here think Mikolaj Oledzki should be representing England Academy, given he was born in Poland but grew up here?

Funny that the responses have had a bit more patience / been less dismissive toward me since the second adding the detail of being a forces baby...

People have different reasons if / when they have the possibility to choose between different ones. Arguably that they have a choice means they are more committed to it than someone who does not.

I do think (like others have said) it is quite farcical administratively that having made that choice and represented one country you are then given the option to choose again further down the line.

Another interesting one is Jason Nightingale, Maori descendant born in Sydney and grew up in both New Zealand and Australia.

Mikolaj could represent whoever he wants IMO; if Poland would hold more for him, then brilliant and hope he has a stormer. If he feels 'English' firstly having been brought up here then I am pleased for him that he gets the chance to represent them (potentially) in the future because he has the option of both he has the right to choose and whichever it would be would earn massive respect.

Tonie Carroll - born in New Zealand, grew up in Queensland. Represented both countries.

Brent Webb - born in Cairns. of Torres Strait Islander heritage (a Melanesian people most closely linked to PNG although it forms part of Queensland), qualified for New Zealand by residency after moving to the Warriors.

Brad Thorn - born in New Zealand, relocated to Australia aged 8. Played his junior RL in Queensland, and for the Junior Kangaroos. Moved back to New Zealand to play for the All Blacks, back to Queensland and played Origin, then back to New Zealand and played for the All Blacks again.

All interesting cases that prove your nationality is more than just where you were born. The only one there I have any issue with is Brent Webb who didn't move to New Zealand until he was an adult.

James Tamou is of Māori and English descent born in NZ. Moved to Aus when he was 13, has represented NZ Māori and now plays for Australia.
For me he's a New Zealander.

now imagine that the RFL somehow got it's head out of the sand (or it's ) whichever and actually manages to organise some form of international games during the season.....how many of the NRL based players would:-
a) want to play for their adopted country
b) be allowed to play with the permission of their NRL clubs...????

wasn't Anthony Milford refused permission by Bennett to play for Samoa recently...just shows the contempt the NRL coaches have for international rugby

That's not a curve ball. That makes you British. All in all there are too many rules and regulations. It should be simple. Wherever you're born, that's who you represent.

You realise people can be dual-nationality, don't you?

Whilst the current system may have too many rules & regs, having it as just where you're born is massively oversimplifying it.


The biggest issue is that players can swap nations. Players should have to stick to their decision, and ideally that decision would be based on which nationality they identify with being the most (rather than being driven by other incentives).

As long as they can do a convincing English accent for the after match interview that should be enough for qualification.

Having a choice isn't a problem, I played with a lad who was born and raised here but whose family was Scottish and he was extremely proud of that so from a young age he chose Scotland.

The problem is people swapping and changing once they have already been capped. We stop that, we start to have a somewhat respectable system. This problem started with the Pacific islanders, but to be fair less of them are choosing NZ first these days, Kata and Hurrell for example sticking with Tonga. Now it unfortunately does still happen in terms of internationals (Tui Lolohea) and origin (Josh Maguire)

Let players with dual nationality, ancestry or whatever choose, but only let them choose once. It's really not that hard.

Exactly my point, and imo Hodkinson chose when he played origin

Keiran Foran for example qualifies for Aus and NZ but passed up what seemed a nailed on origin selection and formally declared for NZ

You've got confused here, Bennet held back Milfor for Milfords benefit, because at the time the rule stood that if he played for samoa he couldn't play for Aus for 2 years and possibly not QLD either

This incident was one of the major reasons the international body has introduced this ludicrous new rule which basically states that you can play for any country you qualify for at any time (which for some down under could be 3/4 different nations)

There has been some backlash to this and hopefully it is tightened up so you can only play for one nation, anyone who wished to break this rule would have to formally apply to do so much in the way Costa did, and should only be granted in certain circumstances, such as (as in Costa's case) they have only played in friendlies
However know the way RL is ran they will probably just ignore the problem until people stop complaining and we will continue our 3 team international game

Bennett needs to find 3 other NRL players who would qualify.

1. Sam Tomkins
2. Joe Burgess
3. Josh Morris
4. Jack Reed
5. Brett Morris
6. Gareth Widdop
7. Trent Hodkinson
8.
9. Josh Hodgson
10. James Graham
11. Mike Cooper
12. Elliott Whitehead
13. Sam Burgess

14. George Burgess
15. Tom Burgess
16.
17.

this fits with my views. As long as someone qualifies they can choose who they want to represent, but the only get to choose once. This would in turn help international RL as the likes of Samoa and Tonga get stronger and aus or NZ don't get to cherry pick the best islanders

About half the NRL will qualify, I think you only need a grandparent, take your pick

Oh and you need to replace tomkins with Greg Eden

Have you seen Eden playing for Brisbane - he is calamity waiting to happen.

Eden is awfully weak in the tackle as well. When he commits he's fine, but most of the time its like he's scared to make a tackle.

Should disqualify anyone from Wigan then.

Point taken.

I've decided to replace Tomkins with Darius Boyd instead.

[uENGLAND[/u
1. Darius Boyd
2. Joe Burgess
3. Josh Morris
4. Jack Reed
5. Brett Morris
6. Gareth Widdop
7. Trent Hodkinson
8. TBA
9. Josh Hodgson
10. James Graham
11. Mike Cooper
12. Elliott Whitehead
13. Sam Burgess

14. George Burgess
15. Tom Burgess
16. TBA
17. TBA