British Lions qualification...

What happens if a player uncapped for Scotland, England, Ireland or Wales plays for the Lions but has dual qualification, can he then play for another, non-British, nation?

Oh no. You do realise the entire thread is going to go off track and simply be about how its British and Irish Lions.

123456789 wrote:What happens if a player uncapped for Scotland, England, Ireland or Wales plays for the Lions but has dual qualification, can he then play for another, non-British, nation?

BTW I would say yes he can. The Lions isn't a nation.

123456789 wrote:What happens if a player uncapped for Scotland, England, Ireland or Wales plays for the Lions but has dual qualification, can he then play for another, non-British, nation?

Numbers, yes - Ireland!

Seriously, I'm sure I recall that a Lions cap counts equivalent to a national cap, so to be eligible for selection, the player would have to have committed himself to one for the 4 unions

Lions matches are classed as full international tests, and caps are awarded and to be up for for selection you would have already made your bed in one of the four eligible nations.

I cant recall a situation before?

There have been plenty of uncapped Lions though.

And OP please do the right thing and address the British and Irish Lions as well as Britain and Ireland in your post...!

But Derek Quinnell got a Lions cap before he got a Welsh cap didn't he. So how does that work?

Admittedly in them days there was less off the 'playing for other countries other than birth' but who was he capped for as he had not played for Wales at time.

Had he played for Wales A? Or Wales 7s?

Very much doubt DQ ever played 7s not sure about the A Side but always remember him pushing through security guards to get on to the pitch in Cardiff for his Welsh cap.

Commentators said then that he had got Lions cap before Welsh cap.

The thing is he was qualified to play for Wales so that made him eligible for Lions selection.It does not matter if he had not won a Welsh cap.

Jason Robinson hadn't played for England before he played for the Lions, same as Titterrell I think

Bathite,

Robinson was capped in February 01 before the Lions tour

Titterall was capped in 04 on the NZ tour before going on the 05 Lions tour

Yeah Robinson had played for England and England A's.

Had John Bentley played for England before the Lions?

According to wiki the Lions were only known as the British and Irish Lions since 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_Irish_Lions

rodders,

I am pretty sure Bentley was a Union player when it was amateur and got one cap before going to League.

He gained his reputation however in League.

Until you get the name of the team right I refuse to contribute

I'm pretty sure Greenwood won his Lions cap before his England one - but he's also on record as saying he doesn't think, in the professional era and with more international matches on offer, that it will ever happen again.

Poor,

Think your right about Grrenwood and the cap situation, players get caps for coming on for 2 minutes at end of game and somewhat devalues the cap IMO so inlikely un capped players will go on future Lions tours.

Cat among the pigeons here. Personally I don't think residency qualified players should be eligible to play for the Lions unless they came through the youth system.

I would have no problem with Tuilagi or Faletau being selected but the likes of Flutey & co should not be up for selection.

Cymro,

I think most would agree with you but thems the rules, Flutey was capped by England and therefore up for selection.

I certainly agree with you Cymro..!

With regards to the previous debate, Will Greenwood was not capped before he went on Lions tour but wasn't capped on it either. He went home injured.

Derek Quinnel was first capped by the lions and later capped by Wales.

But Quinnel only qualified for wales so he couldn't have played for another country.

Poorfour wrote:I'm pretty sure Greenwood won his Lions cap before his England one - but he's also on record as saying he doesn't think, in the professional era and with more international matches on offer, that it will ever happen again.

Greenwood didn't get capped on the 1997 tour. He dislocated his shoulder before the test series began.

Edit: sorry maestegmafia you beat me to it!

Cymroglan wrote:Cat among the pigeons here. Personally I don't think residency qualified players should be eligible to play for the Lions unless they came through the youth system.

I would have no problem with Tuilagi or Faletau being selected but the likes of Flutey & co should not be up for selection.

Cymro, didn't Tuilagi overstay on a visitor visa tho, so maybe someone could argue that his coming thru the youth system shouldn't count? So many shades of grey ...

I would say it's very unlikely someone would get capped for the Lions and play for someone other than the home nations.
We tend to take players off other countries not give them away, I can;t really recall a situation where a British player might play for another country.

The only one I can think who might have a chance would be Rhys Llewellyn, who is Welsh but moved from the Ospreys academy, to Canterbury Crusaders, when his parents moved to New Zealand.
He is 20 at the moment and pushing for a squad place.

I apologise for not including "Irish" in the name however at the time of writing I was in a rush and elsewhere in the post I do speak about Ireland. The main point of my argument was about a crusaders player qualified for Scotland but is being suggested for the all blacks and I was wondering if he could play for the lions but the new Zealand.

Ah yes, Mr Maitland? Hopefully he'll have chosen Scotland by then and it won't be an issue!

I'm fairly sure that IRB rules would not prevent a dual nationality player opting for a non B&I nation after playing for the Lions.
The issue would more likely be with selection in the first place - this includes a fair amount of politicking and horse trading among the four home unions and I can't imagine a player who wasn't already in the system of a home unions side getting the support needed to be selected.
It would still be possible (though unlikely) for someone to come through age group rugby, play for the Lions and then go elsewhere, but I can't see a scenario that would allow someone like Maitland to play for the Lions before committing to a home union ever happening.

Havent Islander players gone on to play for New Zealand?
Islanders are supposed to be Tonga, Fiji and Samoan but many of them would only play for the Islands team if they were not tied down to one of those 3 countries.

AlynDavies wrote:Havent Islander players gone on to play for New Zealand?
Islanders are supposed to be Tonga, Fiji and Samoan but many of them would only play for the Islands team if they were not tied down to one of those 3 countries.

The (defunct) Pacific Islanders set-up specifically did not tie players to Tonga, Fiji or Samoa - they wanted Lauaki and Sivivatu for the team's debut tour (as the pair would help gate takings - money was the sole reason for setting the team up*), but both had NZ aspirations



* It's worth noting that Fiji and Tonga very nearly went to war with each other last year. There are some serious rivalries between the 3 countries.

beshocked wrote:According to wiki the Lions were only known as the British and Irish Lions since 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_Irish_Lions

The first tour to Australia and New Zealand was in 1888 but didn't have any Irish or Welsh players in it and was not sanctioned by the RFU or the other Unions.

In 1891 they went to South Africa with full RFU status. They played a number of provincial sides and the best of them was presented with a cup given to the touring team by Donald Currie, the shipping magnate, who had arranged their transport. As per his instructions, they presented the cup to the best provincial side they faced - Griqualand West. This tour had the backing of RFU this time, and the team was called the English Rugby Foootball team. However, because it had 4 Scottish players in it, they subsequently changed it to the British Isles team.

5 years on, the British Isles team toured South Africa again this time with players from all four home unions. And the name stuck on subsequent tours to New Zealand and Australia, and Argentina. In 1924 on tour, whilst the official title was still the British Isles Rugby Union Team, a journalist nicknamed them the Lions due to the emblem on their ties. The media name stuck.

Sixty years after they started, in 1950 the name was formally shortened to just the British Lions, with the "Isles" bit taken for granted (rather than any attempt to hold the nationality of Irish players from the Republic which coincidentally had formally left the Commonwealth the previous year, following independence.)

Eventually, in 2001, after a fair amount of rumblings from Irish players who did not want to be denoted as British in nationality, it was changed to the British and Irish Lions.

Interestingly, traditions live on in the touring countries - the older name of British Isles still crops up on tours - even during the recent SA tour, a local TV station used the name "B Isles" in the little score monitor at the left hand top of the screen.

beshocked wrote:According to wiki the Lions were only known as the British and Irish Lions since 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_Irish_Lions

Believe it or not it was Staurt Barnes who first started calling them that on Sky, he made one of his usual controversial moans and started emphasising "BritishAND IRISH" when referring to them, and everyone else copied when Barnes explained it may be offensive to the Republican Irish to refer to them as British.
They have been called that ever since, thanks to Stuart Barnes and politically correct Sky coverage

Nothing 'politically correct' about calling a people by the name of their nation. I'd consider it good manners. Or has good manners turned into a bad joke?

Wales and Scotland ...yes, AND Northern Ireland (you all thought I'd evade that one) they quite easily merge into 'British' when they go to the Olympics, or join a war, or celebrate a Queen's Jubilee. The world knows what 'British' means, and it don't include the Republic, and it doesn't denote the British Isles - it means what it say, a Political territory.

In any given year that there are no Southern Irish selected for the Lions then by all means call them what you want. But if we're involved it's only good manners to include us in the title. BTW, to get over everyone's sensitivities, why not just call them The Lions. They are not a National side and need no National appendage.

Sorry for the intrusion, you can all get back to the real topic now.

Well said Secret fly.

AlynDavies wrote:

beshocked wrote:According to wiki the Lions were only known as the British and Irish Lions since 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_Irish_Lions

Believe it or not it was Staurt Barnes who first started calling them that on Sky, he made one of his usual controversial moans and started emphasising "BritishAND IRISH" when referring to them, and everyone else copied when Barnes explained it may be offensive to the Republican Irish to refer to them as British.
They have been called that ever since, thanks to Stuart Barnes and politically correct Sky coverage

That has to be the funniest explanation I have ever seen. Please tell us you are joking or having a laugh. Republic Irish

DOD wrote:

AlynDavies wrote:

beshocked wrote:According to wiki the Lions were only known as the British and Irish Lions since 2001.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_Irish_Lions

Believe it or not it was Staurt Barnes who first started calling them that on Sky, he made one of his usual controversial moans and started emphasising "BritishAND IRISH" when referring to them, and everyone else copied when Barnes explained it may be offensive to the Republican Irish to refer to them as British.
They have been called that ever since, thanks to Stuart Barnes and politically correct Sky coverage

That has to be the funniest explanation I have ever seen. Please tell us you are joking or having a laugh. Republic Irish

I think Keith Wood & Co might disagree with that explanation and were in the queue long before Mr Barnes said it publicly on sky - the name change got well decided before Mr Barnes started his first Lions match as a pundit. All of the memorabilia, tour guides, programmes had the new name.

Still, nice try.....