Anfields5thKing Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:31 pm
ChelseaQuinsfan wrote:Just a couple of examples on the top of my head:
Joe Rockocko was Fijian and born in Fiji. Same goes for Sivivatu. Toeva and Muliania who are both in the current squad were born in Samoa. Fair enough they lived in NZ for a large part of there lives, but the same applies to Tuliagi.
As for OZ, aside from having a couple of Kiwis in the side they have Samo (Fiji born) and Will Genia (Papa New Guinea) not to mention past players like Lote Tuqiri.
As Gin said, pretty much the entire Samoan side was born abroad.
Samoa don't claim to be a rugby superpower and in all fairness, that's a tiny Island with a population of 180,000. None of those players were born abroad to anything other than Samoan parents either, which is a major difference to the England imports.
I went through the list of Aussies in my previous post. Lote Tuquiri also moved as a child.
Same goes for all the New Zealanders born in Samoa. All moved as children and don't forget that when their parents were born Samoa was part of New Zealand as it didn't gain independance until the 60's so they were considered New Zealanders in the same way Irish people born in the Ireland were considered British up until independence and thus their children were automatically entitled to passports from that country, so all the Samoan born players on the NZ team were entitled to NZ passports.
Rokocoko moved at 5 and all his rugby development took place in NZ. He, like most of the other on the Aussie and NZ teams that were born abroad, had never even played rugby before landing in their new homes.
Hape was 22 and an establish pro league player when he moved, he also played league for NZ a bunch of times. Manu moved at like 14 as far as I can remember but he has no ties to England and a move from Samoa to England is a bit different than any of the ones made by the Aussie or NZ players, except for Moore, but he was a lot younger and his parents moved to work. Manu moved to live with his brothers and play rugby. Don't forget that he was almost deported last year because he had been in England illegally after coming over on a holiday visa and then never leaving. He actually has no legal right or entitlement to play for England because he was never actually a resident of England up until last year and by law he is required to have been resident for 3 years before he can represent England. He was granted special residency based on his "special talent" when in reality he was an illegal immigrant and should have been deported.