Imagine Messi playing for Spain?

Rugby residency rule

With both Finn Russel and Hastings out for selection, Gregor Townshend played Jaco van der Walt at 10. His name did not sound very Scottish and I looked him: yes, South African born and raised. Recruited in November 2017 for Scottish Pro14 side Edinburgh he is now three years in Scotland and qualifies to play for the National squad on the convenient residency rule.

Obviously someone had a good look at the talent pool in Scotland and decided three years ago they were a bit short on the Fly-Half position and made a little plan.

Looking at the S.R.U. Financial report, we see they have 176 coaches and players under contract. Let’s assume Jaco is in that 50k-75k group, the SRU invested around 200.000 pounds in a foreign player before they had a return on it.

The total budget for the 176 is more than 16 million pounds.

This comes from Six Nations, World Cup and Pro14 television contracts and sponsorships. I could not find the split in that Annual Report…. (Only saw that the Murrayfield ticketsales brought in 1.6 million pounds).

The best academy program in the world

During the COVID pandemic I listened to the fun podcast where Eddie Jones joked about the New Zealand RFU having “the best three academies in the world: Fiji, Samoa and Tonga”.

All tier 1 one countries are into this, all perhaps except Argentina!

And yes, there are New Zealand citizens with a PI heritage, I get that argument.

Residency Rule

In order to make the playing field more level, World Rugby wants to make this “Project Player” approach more difficult. A minefield to walk through because those Tier 1 countries have a lot of power.

In 2017 it was announced that the three year rule would be extended to five, but of course the COVID pandemic is now the excuse for it to get delayed. (Saving the SRU two valuable years and 100.000+ for the return on their “Jaco-investment”).

There is a fear that the countries will target these players at an even younger age.

Second Tier / Third Tier Countries

So, how can the Netherlands become part of this all? How can we get our hands on the 200.000 pounds and get our own Jaco van der Walt?

Certainly not from the Six Nations: why would they be interested in openingen up the competition and that money flowing in?

Related stuff

• More on our Jaco on his wikipedia page
• The S.R.U. Annual Report with those salaries;
• A great article on the Daily Mail, but Google “Rugby Residency Rules”;
• sds

The post Is Jaco van der Walt Scottish? first appeared on Martin's Rugbycoaching Blog.