Outcry over van Rensburg call-up makes no sense – Andy Goode

For decades the nationality rules have been a joke all started by All Black’s robbing Fiji, Samoa, Tonga & Co. of so many good players.

England had a Kiwi captain as hooker who’s most famous for his comment “Hookers should not have to hook for the ball”. Well, he got his wish now as they feed the ball to the No.8 now.

Brad Barritt England captain was a Saffa with a British Passport

He qualifies. Quite honestly, its a ridiculous whinge. If you want professional sport with rules, don’t unfairly target one player.

I would love to hear BJ singing God save the King in his Saffa accent..

He is doing it for the money, not the badge…. its a professional sport.

Asking for a friend… could BJVR be the first Afrikaner selected for England?

Turns out not. I did not know there were a few before him. Mouritz Botha. Hendre Fourie. Clive van Ryneveld. Jan Kruger.

I was surprised to learn this.

Welcome to modern Britain. We’re a multicultural and multi ethnic society. Good! That means people want to come and live here. Would we rather that weren’t true? Big welcome to JVR to the team. Guarantee when all the English fans for whom it doesn’t ‘sit well’ see you helping our team reach better heights, they’ll suddenly have forgotten about how ‘off’ the whole thing suddenly feels for them.

My only gripe with him being selected is the fact that he’s not that much better, if at all, than the likes of Ojomoh or Lawrence. If he had been a more updated version of Manu Tuilagi then I could’ve understood but he’s hardly that.

All this effort (lobbying world rugby etc) to crowbar in one player while we insist on overlooking all our qualified players who play overseas is just ridiculous. If you want to make England as competitive as possible then scrap the Prem only rule. It is outdated, unfair on players who have only a short window as a professional to earn a living, and makes us less competitive. SA are the best team on the planet with the most depth and they are happy to let players earn a living wherever they want, we should follow that example.

Interested to know how England fans feel about the fact that their team was a back-up for Benhard Janse van Rensburg and not his first choice. He clearly stated that he would prefer to play for the Boks but, after being overlooked by Rassie, he decided to play for England. If there’s a team talk in the dressing room about giving it all for England, will BJVR really get it? He’ll probably get more goosebumps hearing the SA national before a game than God Save the King. Might be an old-school way of looking at things but having BJVR taking the spot of someone who dreamt of playing for England just seems wrong.

Whilst trying to help the Pacific Nations, World Rugby got the 3 year residency and birthplace rules badly wrong, which led to professional recruitment of overseas players to strengthen National sides - let’s call them “transplants”.

Having realised the mistake, World Rugby are extending the residency period to make it harder, which takes time to purge the system.

Sadly we are in the phase where the rules are gradually changing, yet we still see a bunch of “professional transplants” in National sides but the rules are the rules and for better or worse, they are what they are and he qualifies.

I would prefer players to be committed from age group representation U20, which would stop all this poaching nonsense and would be a consistent eligibility criteria but the reality is that will take 10-12 years to purge through the mistakes of the past, so it’s not going to change overnight.

It’s not our responsibility to set the criteria, so if players are eligible, so be it but I would prefer to see some greater consistency for the future, with more consistency and transparency regarding player representation for other Nations.

We are where we are but it does feel like it could be an awful lot better.

Agreed. You need to live in a country for half a decade to play for them these days. That's half your playing career. People are just in a tizz because they want to see Max Ojomoh in an England shirt. Unfortunately for some reason Borthwick doesn't rate him, that's not the Van Rensburg’s fault.

As you say, Tuipulotu isn't English. CCS has Kiwi accent, IFW has a Welsh one. Dozens of non-English players have played for England including Manu Tuilagi. It seems a bit vindictive to suddenly have a hissy fit over BJVR, leave the poor guy alone and let him play rugby. Whinging isn't going to change the residency rules so stop casting a shadow over his potential England debut. I hope he gets picked and puts everyone in their place, the man is a warrior.