Why league’s new international eligibility laws will turn NRL into the EPL

Resumen detallado

The IRLB’s new rules will allow more players to represent the lands of their ancestors and boost the domestic competition – but at the expense of the Australian national team.

It is difficult for young NRL players of Pasifika or New Zealand heritage who are expected to carry a torch for the family but at the same time hold ambitions to step away from their shadow.

Changed eligibility rules have thrown up multiple challenges, including threats to the future of the Kangaroos, who play the Kiwis in the World Cup final on Sunday.

Consider the case of 22-year-old Roosters premiership player Robert Toia, who represented Queensland and Tonga this year. Kangaroos coach Kevin Walters received a long text from the young centre late on the day before the NRL grand final, in which Toia declared his World Cup allegiance to Tonga – reneging on an earlier undertaking to Walters to represent Australia if selected.

Walters was disappointed with Toia’s decision, particularly because it followed the defection days earlier of Titans and Maroons winger Jojo Fifita to Tonga in the World Cup. However, he understood that Toia, with a grand final to play the following day, wanted to clear his mind of the competing loyalties and the family pressure.

“I don’t hold any grudges,” says Walters. “They need to go where their heart is. I said that to both of them. There is a lot of pressure from their Polynesian families. But that’s OK. They are just doing what is best for them.”

The passion of many NRL players, like Melbourne’s Eli Katoa, for their ancestral homelands, such as Tonga and Samoa, is almost endemic, while others face relentless pressure from their extended family to represent the land of their fathers – despite the pay disparity of $850 per game compared with the Kangaroos receiving $40,000 for the tournament.

New International Rugby League board eligibility rules will allow more players like Toia to elect to play for countries other than Australia. Under the rules in place for this year’s World Cup, players are eligible to be selected by the country where one of their grandparents was born.

Casey McLean, a 20-year-old centre, was born in Blacktown, plays for…

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