Overall, IRFU's new policy has a lot of merit

FROM THE BLINDSIDE:The one obvious problem is that there was little enough consultation with the provincial coaches and officials before the announcement was made

WAY BACK in 2002 or thereabouts, word came through of a new signing for Munster that would be arriving from New Zealand. There’s always a bit of excitement around the place when you hear that someone is coming to join up and you convince yourself that this guy is going to come in and improve your team from the word go. The player’s name was Clinton Huppert and from what we heard about him, he was the second coming of Christian Cullen. He was reputedly Cullen’s understudy in Wellington, exactly the type of signing that would put a bit more zip into our backline.

I don’t know if a wire got crossed somewhere or the wrong name was given to the wrong guy or what. It was a late enough signing in the season, around September or October, so maybe it was rushed a little. However, it happened and the lad who showed up to play for Munster wasn’t exactly ready to turn us into European champions straight away. Clinton Huppert came and trained with us and, well, let’s just say he was a disappointment.

You had to feel a bit sorry for him. I don’t think when he was flying halfway around the world he quite expected to land with Munster and be hailed as this big new signing who was going to score loads of tries and be a top-class overseas import. He was only a young guy who probably thought he was coming over to develop as a player and improve his own game. Munster were looking for the finished article and he wasn’t that.

In the end, he went and played club rugby for Shannon for a few months to see could he improve and get up to the level the province needed.

That didn’t work out too well either. One Sunday morning, he was playing for Shannon’s second team and Noel “Buddha” Healy was the coach. At half-time, Noel turned to Clinton and told him he was coming off.

“But you can’t take me off,” said Clinton, who was getting very annoyed by now. “Alan Gaffney said he was going to be here to watch me in the second half.”

Noel looked at him and said, “That’s why I’m taking you off.”

Every foreign player who comes to play professional rugby in Ireland has a different kind of story to tell and just as they’re not all Clinton Hupperts, they’re not all Rocky Elsoms either. If the IRFU’s new policy with regard to foreign players guarantees one thing, it’s that the provinces will have to get the process of finding new recruits from overseas down to a fine art over the coming years. They will have no other choice.

I have to say, I think some of the outrage there’s been since it was announced just before Christmas has been a bit over the top. If you sit down and go through it, there are some very good ideas in the new policy.

It makes sense from a national point of view. The objective of aiming to have two Irish-qualified players for every position is a worthwhile one and I suppose the IRFU can argue that since it’s not coming in until the end of next season, the provinces have time to think ahead and work out how they’re going to deal with it. It definitely needs tweaking in a couple of areas but overall there’s a lot of merit to it.

One obvious problem is that it looks as though there was little enough consultation with the provincial coaches and officials before the announcement was made.

I heard around a year ago something was in the works with regard to the number of foreign players under contract in Ireland but you hear rumours about a lot of things that never come to much in the end. For it to turn from rumour to what looks like a fact of life without the provinces being fully involved doesn’t seem right or fair.

When Munster beat Toulouse in the 2008 Heineken Cup final, we took a certain amount of pride in the fact that all eight starting forwards were home-grown. To do that and still beat the team with the biggest budget in Europe was a fair achievement and obviously something that’s worth striving for. But it’s rare you’re going to be able to do that and there’s no doubt a certain amount of overseas players will always be needed to compete in the Heineken Cup.

That’s just the way it is. The incredible standard of the competition won’t allow you to get away without having a handful of world-class players at your disposal. You can blood as many young lads as you like in the RaboDirect Pro 12 but when they make the step up to European level, they’ll get blown away if they’re all pushed in together. You need experience around them and there’s only so much experience you can grow in-house. Some of it has to be bought in from abroad or you just won’t compete in the competition. And if Irish provinces aren’t competing in the Heineken Cup, if they’re not winning it or making finals on a regular basis, then the knock-on effect on the national team will be negative no matter how many good young players are developed.

When we were coming through as professionals, we had John Langford in Munster. We were still learning what was required to be professional rugby players – the fitness, the diet, the attitude. Langford came in and changed every one of us in one way or another. It shocked us how fit he was and how hard he trained in the gym. We thought we were training hard but we were nowhere compared to him. We weren’t able to do the sessions he was able to do and he’d burn everyone in the 3km run to an embarrassing extent.

The thing is, there’s no need for a John Langford-type figure to be brought in to Irish rugby these days. Langford changed attitudes as much as anything else but we’re past that now. We’re in a different era that has moved on to the point where young players are coming out of the academy system with the right attitude and the right training methods already in place. They don’t need that foreign influence as much as we needed it in terms of development. These days, the foreign players who come in need to be world class and they need to be match winners who are going to help you win the Heineken Cup. They need to be an addition to what’s already there.

But it’s the IRFU’s responsibility to take an overall view of things and I can see a lot of sense in what they’re proposing. We’re a decade and a half into the professional game here and the time is probably right to build up a pool of quality Irish players for the national squad. The foundations have been laid and now the union can start building on it. This new policy will probably hurt the provinces in the short term but over time I can see it doing some good.

I do think it needs changing in a couple of areas though. Some parts of it that are unnecessary will do more damage than good. For example, the part that limits overseas players to just a single contract will only mean that the quality of player we get coming to Ireland will go down. That’s the only outcome I can see.

Think about it. Say you’re a 29-year-old Aussie or Kiwi player looking to play out the last few years of your career in Europe. You’re going to bring your family on a bit of an adventure while you still have some earning power but you don’t want to be dragging them all over the place. Let’s say you get two offers – one from Leinster and one from Leicester. If you choose to go to Dublin, it won’t matter how well you play or what roots you put down, you know going in that you won’t be offered a second contract.

There’s no guarantee with Leicester but at least the possibility is there.

Ireland, England – it’s all the same to you where you go. So nobody could blame you for choosing the option that has a future.

I really think that element of the new policy needs to be looked at. In theory, it’s there for mentoring young Irish players and bringing them along. But in practice, what it will mean is that the best overseas players won’t see coming here as an attractive option. The IRFU say they want non-Irish qualified players to keep being a big part of bringing success to the provinces but it’s hard to see how that will happen if you can only bring them in for two years and then send them on their way.

The overall concept itself is a good enough one. Everybody knows we’re short in key areas, that we don’t have enough tighthead props for instance. But as the playing population grows, we have to find room to develop players in all areas even if there’s a risk involved and even if the provinces suffer in the short term. I’d say you might find some of the exiles playing in England coming home as provinces try to find a way around it.

But all in all, this is going to mean Irish players will get more opportunities to improve and to play at the highest level. In the long run, that can only be a good thing.