Toby Flood - German

http://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/story/_/id/20404773/germany-coach-kobus-potgieter-welcome-toby-flood-open-arms

The German Rugby Federation (DRV) will explore the possibility of having former England fly-half Toby Flood play for their national side ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

Seems like a long shot. Also sounds like Brexit caused Flood to apply for his German passport, to secure his status. That may have started the conversation about eligibility

Kohl's to Newcastle - why-awe man!

Loads of huff and puff about this on the falcons unofficial.

And even if it did happen then fair on him... Good to give German rugby a push. They could be a powerful team with more players and interest.

And by then we have young players that will be bossing games anyway.

I wonder who was the last big name player to play for a smaller European side? Frano Botica played for Croatia didn't he?

Gorgodze?

If hes willing to do it good on him, and it can't be a bad thing for Germany to have a player of his calibre involved. If nothing else it will expose their players to professional standards. 

That said its pretty unlikely he will.

Obviously this is unlikely to happen. Suppose the only way it would really work if you could only switch to a team not in World Rugby's high performance bracket.

It would only be of benefit for tier 3 nations to be able to bring on players with bags of experience and expose their own players to a higher standard of rugby. Off the top of my head Tim Visser and Sam Hidalgo-Clyne are examples of players eligible who may wish to play for the Netherlands and Spain respectively in a few years once they have started to drop down the pecking order.

Eejit wrote:Obviously this is unlikely to happen. Suppose the only way it would really work if you could only switch to a team not in World Rugby's high performance bracket.  

It would only be of benefit for tier 3 nations to be able to bring on players with bags of experience and expose their own players to a higher standard of rugby. Off the top of my head Tim Visser and Sam Hidalgo-Clyne are examples of players eligible who may wish to play for the Netherlands and Spain respectively in a few years once they have started to drop down the pecking order.

Or Ben Morgan for Wales

He'd need to actually qualify.

If someone like Flood can play for someone lower down the rankings like Germany, then someone like Savea could play for someone lower down the rankings like Wales?! Is that what we're saying? Cool

I always had my suspicions about Flood's loyalty but I never expected him to be seditious.