Cooper Vuna and my Riddle

So Cooper Vuna is being talk about in big circles that he will play Wallabies rugby against Wales.

He is so exciting to watch and make a good combinations in Melbourne with so many already Wallabies like Kurtley Beale. Last year was top try scorer there and also win try of the year.

Today he was electric playing against Hurricanes even though Melbourne were beaten up on the scoreboard.

But my riddle today is that Cooper Vuna is born in Auckland, New Zealand. So why he can play for Australia? And with Kiwi coach and already one Kiwi Cooper (Quade) in the Wallaby, there is one piece of trivia. How many times did two players from the same wrong country playing for another team and both have the same name?

Firstly, never stop posting. You are great......................

Secondly no idea to your last question...

Lastly. Cooper Vuna is an interesting case. He's obviously a kiwi of Tongan heritage who moved to Australia to play rugby league. He's been in the Kiwis training squad and I think played for Tonga (league). In Union he was in the Tongan traing squad, but I think he still qualifies to paly for Australia (or NZ or Tonga should he shoose).

In terms of international rugby he reminds me of Hape, Vainakolo or Henry (or potentially Setaimata Sa in the future). It doesn't sit well with me. My feeling is that if you move to a country to play rugby (union or league) you shouldn't qualify to play for them. That's a personal view, and we regualrly debate it to death on here.

More interesting is the sustainability of rugby in NZ. We are really struggling to hold onto talent here. To a limited degree Vuna represents this. he is a former schooldboy union player (albiet also a junior league player). We're losing many union players overseas. They go to places in Europe, Japan and Australia. We are also losing a steady stream of talent to rugby league. There are a number of NZ secondary school rugby players in the current junior warriers, some of them have no league background at all. The same is true of the senior warriors team and the kiwis.

I listened to an interview with Graham Henry recently and he said the same thing. The problem is that league clubs offer a lot more money for junior contracts and there are a lot of clubs (many Autralian league clubs ahave scouts and development squads in NZ). Schools in NZ regularly travel to Australia and players are subject to offers there (e.g. Benji Marshall was at a touch tournement in Australia when he was approached to try out for a league team).

Added to that is this is the contracting of younger r union players to Australian and European clubs and there's a real issue for the game here.

anotherworldofpain
Maybe australia have also a Otahuhu.

Evans and Evans for Scotland?

For some reason I'm thinking of the name Shingler...