NRL Issues of Contention Round 7

Instead of focusing on what has happening during the NRL round, instead I am going to focus on what has become the number one talking point. Eligibility of players for state and country.  With the selection of Tamou for the Australian team the can of worms has been opened yet again. It doesn't matter which side of the sate you live on or which side of the Tasman you will always accuse the other side of using dirty tactics and stealing players.

What a lot of people forget is what started Origin in the first place was NSW continually using a team packed with Queenslanders to take on Queensland. More than twenty years later and it seems that both sides are still complaining about where players should be playing.  What annoys me most is how supporters of NSW will throw every accusation under the sun at Queensland for some of their selections, yet they will never admit to how many players they have selected that are not from NSW.  All in all both sides have done it.

With Tamou's defection to Australia though indicates a serious change needs to be done. Although he may be eligible, this is a player that less than 12 months ago accepted his call up for the New Zealand Test train on squad.  Is his heart really in it for his country? Should acceptance to a train on squad be the same as selection and automatically enforce a 2 year sit out rule? Which National Anthem is the one that puts a chill down his spine when he hears it? Is he going to defect again? If he is born in New Zealand and hold a New Zealand passport then how can he call himself an Australian?

But at the end of the day there will always be the arguments but it is the players themselves that make the decision. If the NRL, ARL and NZRL want to be serious on the issue of eligibility then it must be a hard and fast rule. But any change in rules needs to be done carefully as the powerhouses will not care about the minnows of league.  As it is I can see plenty of flaws in the rules at the moment. If a player is signed to a club from Perth and goes to Melbourne and his first game is for Melbourne's Under 20 side, which state does he play for? Until there is a strict guideline we will be having this debate again next year, and the next and the next..............