Mouritz Botha : why can't I be content that he's playing for England?

First topic message reminder :

He's been in England for six years according to his Wiki account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouritz_Botha.

But I can't accept that he has any right to be donning the white jersey. I should but I can't.

So far has I can see Botha has no connection with England.

And it's not as though he had to do a Kevin Pietersen in cricket to get a chance to play.

His Sarries club-mate Bradley Barritt at least has full parental qualifications - but Mourtiz is so far as I can see is an opportunist. Plain and simple.

While I dont really like the residency rule, surely there Botha is different to say Flutey? Botha came over as an amateur player and worked in a series of menial jobs before getting signed by Bedford and working his way up.

Whereas a player such as Flutey was already a pro, and possibly moved over here after realising he wouldnt be an AB and so wanted to maximise his earnings in europe. (just speculating obviously, but if he was in the AB its unlikely he would have moved.)

Bathman - whilst I see your reasoning - Botha is South African - I just don't get it, he's South African and not english - that to me is pretty simple - It's just my opinion but you tell me, if you moved to another country for 5, 10, 15 years would you not be english anymore? FARCE ,

He's been in England for six years- fair play. Once you make a life in an adoptive nation, then you deserve the right to play for that country.

Actually six years is what I think is appropriate for residency; six years as a minimum continuous stay before qualification.

Oh, and Portnoys, when have you ever been content?

Bathman_in_London wrote:While I dont really like the residency rule, surely there Botha is different to say Flutey? Botha came over as an amateur player and worked in a series of menial jobs before getting signed by Bedford and working his way up.

Whereas a player such as Flutey was already a pro, and possibly moved over here after realising he wouldnt be an AB and so wanted to maximise his earnings in europe. (just speculating obviously, but if he was in the AB its unlikely he would have moved.)

Flutey moved here after his life went down the toilet. He was nearly put in prison when on a tour to Argentina. If he hadn't left he probably would have. Instead he moved to England for a fresh start. That move gave him the opportunity (or the focus or whatever) to turn his life around. Fair play to him I have no problem with him representing England.

Notch - Ive been in Cornwall 20 years mate and guess what? I'm still welsh - Botha is South African why are people deluding themselves otherwise, He's South African born and bred - the residency rule is a FARCE He could still play for his country if he's good enough - FARCE - what message is this giving to those young english lads who dream and train of playing for their country - FARCE

to be honest i would much rather have Lawes in the side over Botha..

i dont rate botha that highly at all.

Oh I see. Everyone is a copy of you and your thoughts. No-one is entitled to think differently. Makes sense now.

Care to point out the farcical brother playing against each other you mentioned either? Or are you just talking Poopie like usual?

hes not good enough. that the real issue here.

Ruby, I agree he is a South African and probably wouldnt cheer on England if they were playing South Africa at cricket. But seeing as he didnt come over as a rugby mercenary, didnt play any age grade rugby in SA and English rugby has made him what he is today, why shouldn't he play?

Notch, I agree, 6 years would be more appropriate I think.

Thunor - these are my views and if no one chooses to share them I don't mind. I think the Bachop brothers have played against each other, the Tuilagis are likely to and there are a few others.

Bathman - Whether he is a rugby mercenary or not does not matter for me. He's a nice guy and enjoys is rugby the simple fact of that matter to me is that he's South African - Nothing wrong with that but that's who he should play for IMO.

Its just my opinion lads and I am quite passionate about it. England in time may be fielding 10-12 non-english players, is this really the way to go?. For me it just waters down the victory much like it does in the cricket. Like I said, just my opinion.

I think we have all 4 different types of residency here.

1) Hartley - English parent, moved to England when 14

2) Tuilagi - Moved to England as a kid, and learnt the trade in England (work permit or not)

3) Botha - Moved to England as an adult, but learnt most of his rugby trade here from Amateur

4) Flutey - Moved to England as an adult, and Pro rugby player. Learnt the trade in NZ, but frankly was never even in contention of the England side when he moved here.... probably wasn't even in his thoughts at the time


If I suddenly found out tomorrow that I had a Dutch mother, why should that make me qualified to play for the Netherlands?
I was born in England, I've spent 35 years in England, and don't remember much about my short trip to Amsterdam
Some sort of residency is going to give me more of a bond to a country, than potentially having a parent of that nationality (if I've never been there)
This is similar to the Waldrom rule. He suddenly became qualified because of a grandparent (or was it parent) that he didn't even know about.


I would have no problem with the residency rule being extended to 5 or 6 years.
However, even a 3 year residency rule is in some ways better than other rules (a la grandparent)

As someone else pointed out, just being born in a country (even accidentally) makes you qualified to play for them, even if you've never been back there in your life.
Now that's a crazy law if you ask me.

Ruby,not just yours!Have lived in England for45 years.Still Welsh!

The residency thing has been done to death.

If the law allows them to play for their newly adopted country then that is the law.

It really doesn't matter whether one country has a "clean slate" and another are packed with a number of South Africans.

Thousands of South Africans move to the UK as they feel the transformation clause impacts on their opportunity to play professionally.

It isn't going to stop.

As much as England posters are ragged by it, and other people complain about it, nothing will change.

Embrace the new millenium, I am sure each of these sportsmen are commited to play for their new countries at the best of their abilities, even if the change room now speaks more Afrikaans than English.

Brothers who have played against each other in rugby tests:

The Bachops (Stephen played for NZ and Samoa, Graeme for NZ and Japan)
The So'oialos (NZ and Samoa)
The Umagas (Mike Umaga played RL for NZ and RU for Samoa)
The Yachvillis (Dmitri's brother played for Georgia)
The Tagicakibaus (Fiji and Tonga)

Pretty sure the Tuilagis haven't yet. Ditto the Cockbains.

The Shingler's had thought about playing against each other

Tagicakibaus

Say that fast 7 times.

biltongbek wrote: Tagicakibaus

Say that fast 7 times.

I had to Google the Fiji RWC squad to get the spelling

Kiwireddevil wrote:

biltongbek wrote: Tagicakibaus

Say that fast 7 times.

I had to Google the Fiji RWC squad to get the spelling

Thought so.

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:Or Shane my Grandmother used to bake me Welsh cakes Howarth so I must be Welsh.

Actually to be fair Shane Howarth did apparently have a Welsh grand father, but apparently One of Shane Parents was born out of an affair so the Welsh grand father wasn't the real father if that makes any sense.

I remember it being in the papers and Howarth pleading with the press to leave his 80 year old grand mother alone after they were banging on her door at 7am in the morning for information, when she was in poor health.

Pretty disgusting really and I always felt sorry for Howarth, I never felt he did anything wrong. That's more skeletons in the family closet, not malicious cheating.

Bret Sinkinson is maybe another issue, because his grand father was from Oldham, which is not in Wales...

Iv'e always felt people should judge this on a case by case basis.

RubyGuby wrote:Botha is South African

I know. So what? He lives and works in England, he's built his career and life in England. Once someone has done that I couldn't care less where he's born or what accent he has, what it says on his passport. All that matters is he's willing to pull on the jersey and give everything to represent the country he's made his home.

Just to clarify for some people on here the residency laws aren't created for rugby by the IRB or RFU etc, they are the law!

Therefore the RFU can't state differently for Rugby as it would be against the law (que the lawsuits!). I hate to break it people here but as much as many of us love rugby we can't rule the world with it.

For what it's worth I agree with the likes of people stating that if someone has moved to a country,based their life here,had a family here etc I have no problem with them representing that country.

kiakahaaotearoa wrote:I have dual nationality and have residence in Spain. I am tinkering with the idea of getting Spanish nationality but then I´d have to revoke my British nationality (I wouldn´t tell them about my NZ nationality as they don't make checks). I am loathe to do that even though the insistence on identity cards or passports for identification in Spain makes life difficult as they don't make foreign national residence cards anymore and the UK don´t have identity cards.

I'm in the same boat here in Canada. Eligible for Canadian Citizenship and will probably get it once I get my lazy fat ass in gear and fill out the paperwork (and part with the $1.8k). Difference for me is that both the UK & Canada allow duel citizenship otherwise I wouldn't bother. The Canadian thing is for purely selfish reasons (voting rights, second passport to confuse immigration offices in airports etc) as I will always class myself as English, although the chances are that I will end up spending most of my adult life in Canada providing I live to retirement age.

For me I was born English, (more or less) raised in England and will always class myself as English no matter where I live. That is why I feel that the residency rule is wrong and personally feel that in order to represent any national adult team then you should be a citizen of that country, whatever that countries rules on gaining citizenship may be. If that means you have to revoke the citizenship of their birth country then so be it, it would just underline a players desire and commitment to represent their new national team more.

Whose law ? The recidency rule is not the same in all sports rugby it's 3 years but only 2 years in football.

Portnoy wrote:He's been in England for six years according to his Wiki account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouritz_Botha.

It doesn't make much difference to the arguments, but on a point of order he's actually been here since 2004. The wikipedia article shows when he was at Bedford Blues, but he was first with Bedford Athletic in National Three North & Midlands One whilst working in a carpet washing factory and then stripping asbestos.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/8555134/Mouritz-Botha-makes-his-debut-for-England-Saxons-and-hopes-a-trip-to-the-World-Cup-will-follow.html

eirebilly wrote:

Portnoy wrote:
On a technical note, I think the term should be libellous.

On a practical point, I think that this just the sort of debate that should be covered in a rugby forum.

Far better, say, than this geezer is better than that one etc.

Ok libellous.

I dont think that a rugby board is an appropriate place to make claims that they heard a players girlfriend tell people that a player had given up hope of playing for their own country so they moved to England.

Discuss the residency rule, fine, but do not make such claims.

Apologies if I offended your sensibilities Eire. However, if the residency rule is to be judged in practice (as opposed to in theory) then surely anecdote is legitimate ground for discussion. If you object to the source of the anecdote, fair enough: however, there are several interviews with Barritt in the print media that more or less make the same point. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not on an anti-Barritt crusade, it's just that I feel that his particular case highlights the shortcomings of the system.

Portnoy
The reason your not happy about it is probably one of the following:
1. You can't complain that the AP is biased against the tiggers with games during the six nations and them supplying 400 players for England and sarries nil
2. Sarries give nothing to England and English rugby(while ignoring all the other top AP sides with nearly no contribution to the side)
3. Sarries is full of NEQ players and only bring in ringers with questionable ties(cough Waldrom)

At the moment you have nearly all your players back, in the LV final and doing well in the AP, but all you can think of posting is how you don't like a sarries player playing for England, even though he has played amateur rugby here and been here for about 8 years

The danger of anecdotal evidence of this sort is the margin for error: Did someone hear something wrong, or hear it out of context? Has the story grown in the telling? We simply can't know. Imagine if Barritt's girlfriend was describing a "What if?" situation and saying IF Barritt was doing it for those reasons he'd be a mercenary, but he isn't doing it for those reasons so he isn't a mercenary and your friend only heard the part of the conversation about being a mercenary? We have no way of knowing. I suppose it's the difference between gossip and journalism.

Regarding the OP, whatever the residency rules there will always be people who can use the letter of them for their own purposes. We are an immigrant culture and a lot of people have come here to make lives for themselves. They become British with rights the same as the native born, as they rightly should. But when do they become English, Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish? It's a discussion that is ongoing in our culture and has no clear answer yet. Certainly feeling comes into it a lot and you can't legislate a feeling. I don't think there IS a clear line you can draw.

And many English families have connections in other parts of these islands: I am (or was!) theoretically eligible to represent Ireland and Scotland through family or residence. If I had stayed in Scotland I would have felt I should have represented Scotland in my sport because it was my home. As far as I know, Botha came over here as a casual player and NOT a pro and was making a life for himself, or maybe just extending a visit, then was discovered? Maybe I'm confusing him with someone else. But if I'm right, I have no problem with him. Rather proud, in fact, that our system has found him and he's got himself to this point. Good man.

I've much more of a problem with Barritt if the gossip is true. And that's the problem with gossip - I can't not know it, but must remember it has a big warning light on it as unreliable evidence. And wherever the boundaries are placed, people will be able to legally push limits; unless the rules are made so tight that people like Botha (as I understand his situation) could never play internationally. And that seems even more unfair.

Ah well. I'll be cheering on England tomorrow. Without all our confusions and agonisings and sheer befuddlement we wouldn't be us. So quake in fear, Six Nations, the English are coming! Or going. Er...

I understand your line out calls will be in Afrikaans.

"Het je Biig Mann wit de Baal?"

Did anyone else read the Sunday Times profile on him last weekend?

It was a bit of a promo for him as an English import.

But.

It read like a Daily Express profile of the blessed Diana.

I still can't believe that any player without any allegiance or remotest familial connection to England can wear the rose.

Seven years residence minimum is still what I believe to be suitable.

I have no problem with a player plying his trade for a club, but to play for England is a step too far.

After 7 years he's still South African - sorry

RubyGuby wrote:After 7 years he's still South African - sorry

Yes. You are right there Ruby.

The only import leopard that changed its spots for me would be Mike Catt.

Portnoy wrote:

RubyGuby wrote:After 7 years he's still South African - sorry

Yes. You are right there Ruby.

The only import leopard that changed its spots for me would be Mike Catt.

What's the difference, Portnoy?

and Englishman Cuthbert is Welsh after a couple of years ?

If someone offered me 200 000 Pounds a year to go work in england, even though I prefer the lifestyle, sunshine, standard of living and everything else here in SA, but they say I can only get that post if I change my allegiance to England, I will become as english as tea and crumpets.

Might struggle with the accent though.

biltongbek wrote:If someone offered me 200 000 Pounds a year to go work in england, even though I prefer the lifestyle, sunshine, standard of living and everything else here in SA, but they say I can only get that post if I change my allegiance to England, I will become as english as tea and crumpets.

Might struggle with the accent though.

I'm coming up 6 years here and I'm still struggling with the accent

I understand your line out calls will be in Afrikaans

Ben Kay actually learnt Afrikaan to try and nulify the South African line out, Botha should be a step ahead. Kay, now there was a top class second row, undoubtebly English as well.

Kiwi, keep at it mate, and you can play for England, no need for passable 'Received English' either.

formerly known as Sam wrote:

I understand your line out calls will be in Afrikaans

Ben Kay actually learnt Afrikaan to try and nulify the South African line out, Botha should be a step ahead. Kay, now there was a top class second row, undoubtebly English as well.

We have eleven different languages, why do you think chiliboy is in the team?

...because he's P Divvy's love child?

None As. Zip.

All I was saying that Mike Catt proved himself worthy as an English player after coming over here as a young man seeking speculative employment.

But he is one of a very few.

If total foreigners (say over 19) knew that there would be a seven-year hold on their international prospects if they decide to locate then that would be fairer for the clubs that sign them and the native players that are otherwise denied their chance to shine.

I know on previous debates ive said..and many others have agreed that 6 years minimum should be the residency rule.

Botha has been here 8 years, and was playing low level rugby whilst working aswell.

He has improved his rugby and whilst not truely English....has settled here in England.

This debate can go on for many other players. The Beast for Sa is Zimbabwean is he not...Pocock is also or was it Zambian...and as migration from developing to developed countries continuous...this will increase...

Portnoy wrote:None As. Zip.

All I was saying that Mike Catt proved himself worthy as an English player after coming over here as a young man seeking speculative employment.

But he is one of a very few.

If total foreigners (say over 19) knew that there would be a seven-year hold on their international prospects if they decide to locate then that would be fairer for the clubs that sign them and the native players that are otherwise denied their chance to shine.

(Am not disagreeing with you btw, just curious) What would Mauritz Botha have to do to prove himself or be equivalent to Catt in your eyes? Did you feel the same about Catt when he first pulled on the red rose as you currently do about Botha?

Also...If we are really opening up the debate....

What is English?
One of the most diverse peoples through history..

What is Australian?
Its a huge mix of English, Greeks, Italians, Scots..etc etc...

What is SA?
Dutch and all sorts?

The list goes on...

HammerofThunor wrote:

Portnoy wrote:He's been in England for six years according to his Wiki account http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouritz_Botha.

But I can't accept that he has any right to be donning the white jersey. I should but I can't.

So far has I can see Botha has no connection with England.

And it's not as though he had to do a Kevin Pietersen in cricket to get a chance to play.

His Sarries club-mate Bradley Barritt at least has full parental qualifications - but Mourtiz is so far as I can see is an opportunist. Plain and simple.

Maesteg I was referring to the original post. Tell me if this does not suggest that qualification by residency only is wrong. Then if someone can't qualify by residency then if they immigrat here they can't represent their new country. Would you not say that if someone did emmigrat to a country but weren't allowed to represent that country they would be classed as second class citizens? Or am I missing something?

Well you missed some spelling lessons at school

The problem is that nationality is become an anachronism, the world is (figuratively) smaller nowadays and people tend to move around a lot within a few generations and not to simply stay in one country and marry someone from that country.

It used to be rare to go to NZ, SA or Oz, but that's because it used to take months to get to/from there. Now it is a comparatively cheap 24 hour journey. I'm starting to see my support for England as similar to my support for Leicester. I support them because I always have, they were my local team growing up and it's nice to support someone.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Also...If we are really opening up the debate....
What is SA?
Dutch and all sorts?

Geez mate, we are from the whole of europe, if we tried hard enough we would all be able to get some european passport if we were allowed to trace past our great, great, great, great grand parents.

Alex Cuthbert is and always will be English. He's just a foreign mercenary who travelled to Wales because he wasn't going to make it in England. These foreign journeymen make me sick.
How stupid an unreasonable does that sound? Just the names change my friends.

GeordieFalcon wrote:Also...If we are really opening up the debate....

What is English?
One of the most diverse peoples through history..

What is Australian?
Its a huge mix of English, Greeks, Italians, Scots..etc etc...

What is SA?
Dutch and all sorts?

The list goes on...

The only pure one's are the WELSH, now leave our sheep ALONE !!!!!!!

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:

Portnoy wrote:None As. Zip.

All I was saying that Mike Catt proved himself worthy as an English player after coming over here as a young man seeking speculative employment.

But he is one of a very few.

If total foreigners (say over 19) knew that there would be a seven-year hold on their international prospects if they decide to locate then that would be fairer for the clubs that sign them and the native players that are otherwise denied their chance to shine.

(Am not disagreeing with you btw, just curious) What would Mauritz Botha have to do to prove himself or be equivalent to Catt in your eyes? Did you feel the same about Catt when he first pulled on the red rose as you currently do about Botha?

I was extremely - how shall I say this? discombobulated when Catty got his first cap.

But I'd have preferred him to have had a longer residence.

And without any functioning time-travel device available, I can't tell the difference between Catt and Botha and the people they were/are displacing