Rowlands

[Old Geezer]

I guess Jake Ball going back to Oz will not help us keep him!

[Chunky24]

Pivac was at Scarlets when he first identified Rowlands as a Welsh qualified player and tried to get him there.

[HDAWG]

Now out of all the Welsh teams, Scarlets are probably the best, so this is one heck of an opportunity for him.

[backdoc]

Surely the opposite is the case?

He is in even more demand by the Welsh team, so can resist their unreasonable request that he play in Wales.

[andermt]

Surely the opposite is the case?

He is in even more demand by the Welsh team, so can resist their unreasonable request that he play in Wales.

Yes but unless he extends his contract at Wasps (if that loophole still exists as it doesn't seem to for YY) he will get a new contract, as soon as he has a new contract he can't play for Wales. Therefore he would need to play for a Welsh region.

Same situation with any English players.

[Neils]

Surely the opposite is the case?

He is in even more demand by the Welsh team, so can resist their unreasonable request that he play in Wales.

Yes but unless he extends his contract at Wasps (if that loophole still exists as it doesn't seem to for YY) he will get a new contract, as soon as he has a new contract he can't play for Wales. Therefore he would need to play for a Welsh region.

Same situation with any English players.

Also remember the Wasps players had their contracts reduced. Not sure whether permanently or temporarily but he may not want to hang around to find out.

[wasps]

These overseas player rules are there to help the clubs/regions, rather than the national team.
Typically they're the trade off to allow the national team with more access to the players.


So, the WRFU have to decide if allowing Will to continue to play for Wales outside of the ruling is detrimental to the regions and the national team in the short/medium/long term.

I don't see them being bothered about instant pros/cons. It'll be about how they feel it will affect them in 12+ months time with other players.



I don't see them making an exception for him, so I expect him to be off.
As said above, he can probably use this to bargain for a stronger region

[Bloke in North Dorset]

Surely the opposite is the case?

He is in even more demand by the Welsh team, so can resist their unreasonable request that he play in Wales.

Yes but unless he extends his contract at Wasps (if that loophole still exists as it doesn't seem to for YY) he will get a new contract, as soon as he has a new contract he can't play for Wales. Therefore he would need to play for a Welsh region.

Same situation with any English players.

Also remember the Wasps players had their contracts reduced. Not sure whether permanently or temporarily but he may not want to hang around to find out.

I think he's honest and driven by the opportunity to play international rugby, but if it was money he might be better off where he is, there were financial concerns in Wales before Covid and those have been exacerbated by it.

[Raggs]

He may be on a lower wage with the region, but match fees for Wales could easily boost that a lot.

[Shugs]

I think it's a done deal based on a silly rule.

[Raggs]

I think it's a done deal based on a silly rule.

Why silly? It allows the WRU to care for their players much more easily, and have access to them for training etc.

Is it the best way to operate? Tough to say, but I certainly wouldn't consider it silly.

[Shugs]

Silly as it denies them access to their own players in some cases and limits the legitimate choices of players who have international aspirations. For me you should be free to play wherever you want and still be allowed to play for your country. I understand the counter arguments, which have some validity, but I don't think they trump that simple scenario.

[wasps]

I don't really think it's about counter arguments. In England at least it's about contractual obligations
If you look at the RFU, I'm sure they'd like nothing more than to select the best players regardless of where they play...

However, they have to compromise with the clubs who are all their own entities.
If they want more time with the players they had to give some ground...... One of things being to only select those playing in England so that the clubs as a whole don't have to worry too much about losing their best talent for euros or yen.




Its obviously a bit different in Wales given that the WRFU essentially run the regions, however they still need to ensure that the regions themselves are largely competitive and that the league remains a competition.
If they bleed all their best talent, the league and regions may lose sponsorship and cost the WRFU more.

There may well be contractual obligations within Welsh rugby as well - albeit on a different scale to England




Ultimately though is Will Rowlands the kind of player that the WRFU would want to change their policy over?
He's a quality lock and I'll be hugely disappointed to see him leave Wasps. However, is he really going to be the difference that allows Wales to win grand slams/ world cups?

[Montague Withnail]

To be fair, premiership teams haven't been very helpful with Welsh players in the past. All perfectly within their rights, but not allowing extra training before international or release for occasional out-of-window fixtures, not being able to dictate rest periods etc means that the WRU is heavily incentivised to have the players controlled by their own regions.

There is no right answer really, but in the past this was aimed at genuinely Welsh players who had been poached by premiership clubs, and to be quite honest, I had a lot of sympathy with the Welsh over that. Now it's changed, all started by the Scots, and they have begun to aggressively target Welsh qualified English players. While that's an opportunity for those players, it leaves clubs like Wasps in a horrible position, and certainly the Welsh deserve no sympathy whatsoever for that.

In the end the premiership teams can only really protect themselves via contracts terms, or by simply not admitting dual qualified players to their academies. Ultimately clubs can not compete with international rugby, however great they are to play for or how big the salary. Losing Rowlands and Flament, 2 academy players in the same position in the space of a season is too big an impact for Wasps.

In my opinion it leaves us sadly no choice at all over Lima, we must recruit a top second row now and we need the money we spend on him to do that.

[welsh wasp]

Montague: There is a long history of Welsh qualified English players and English qualified Welsh players being targeted by either Wales or England so don't just blame it on Wales. Stuart Barnes and Dewi Morris were qualified for Wales but decided to target England. There have been other that I can't remember.