Tawera Kerr Barlow in 2017. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Tawera Kerr Barlow in 2017. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
OPINION:
The intent behind the decision to change rugby's eligibility laws late last year was noble.
It was driven by back of the envelope arithmetic which said that if players who had represented one nation were able to stand down for three years and represent another for which they werequalified either through where they were born or where a parent or grandparent was born, then Fiji, Samoa and Tonga would all have immediate access to a handful of players currently off-limits due to having committed their eligibility elsewhere.
It made sense. There are Fijian, Samoan and Tongan rugby nomads all over the world – men capped by the likes of New Zealand, Australia, even England, Ireland and Wales, no longer wanted by the countries who captured their eligibility.
These are international rugby's lost souls – players trapped in a netherworld where they can't erase their past.
World Rugby's council, however, could at least give them a new future by voting for a return to an eligibility framework where players can once again represent two nations in a career.
And that's how the vote was sold: as one which would transform the Island nations – open up more of their talent pool and enable them to, potentially overnight, become better sides. The change also aligned with World Rugby's directive that the World Cup should feature as many of the game's best players as possible.
But as well intended as this ground-shifting vote was, the major nations who voted for it are now being impacted by the law of unintended consequences.
While the Island nations were the intended beneficiaries of the eligibility vote, the breadth of the change meant that there would be other players from other nations able to take advantage of the new law.
And this is precisely what has happened. Former All Black Tawera Kerr-Barlow has said, now that he has served a three-year stand down, that he would jump into a Wallabies jersey in a heartbeat if Dave Rennie was willing to offer him one.
This is not a random declaration but one borne by the strong allegiance and ties Kerr-Barlow has to Australia. He was born there, grew up in Darwin until his mid-teens when he shifted to board at Hamilton Boys' High School.
Like many in this part of the world, Kerr-Barlow is neither a Kiwi nor an Aussie, but effectively a citizen of Australasia – the child of New Zealand-born and raised parents who shifted across the Tasman for work. His heart is tugged in two directions, his life split across two countries.
So while it may indeed feel not quite right to those in New Zealand who feel his allegiance should exclusively be to the All Blacks given that he won 29 caps between 2012 and 2017, this is the monster that was made by changing the eligibility laws.
Kerr-Barlow will not be the first former All Black who wants to reinvent himself as a Wallaby saviour given how many others there are like him – qualified to play for both New Zealand and Australia.
Tawera Kerr-Barlow makes a break in the Heineken Cup final. Photo / Photosport.co.nz
Seeing familiar and much-admired players, who once did their thing for the All Blacks, doing it for the Wallabies three years later is going to become relatively common.
This is the choice the world game has made and while those who voted for the eligibility change will argue that they did so for all the right reasons, there's a deeper truth to this which is that they voted to appease their guilt and because changing the law was the softer and easier option.
The lost souls of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are not trapped by the decisions they made earlier in their career to represent another nation, but by a corrupt system that preserves an imbalance of power between the haves and the have nots by making it almost impossible for dual-qualified players to say no to the All Blacks and Wallabies.
The Island nations still have no home in any mainstream top-tier international competition. They still don't have any certainty of who they will play in any year and as a result, they continue to operate on the brink of insolvency.
There is no real choice for young dual-qualified Fijians, Samoans and Tongans because the system is so heavily weighted against them. They can become rich beyond their dreams playing for the All Blacks, but may even have to fork out for their own hotel should they play for Samoa. One route is paved with gold, the other is a sort of gravel path to nowhere in particular.
And that's the problem that needs to be fixed.
That's the long-term solution to the game finally having new contenders at the top table and a more plausible claim to being a global sport.
If playing for Fiji, Samoa or Tonga didn't come with massive financial and opportunity sacrifice, dual-qualified players wouldn't always opt to first play for New Zealand or Australia.
But 27 years into professionalism and nothing has changed in that regard so the talent pours out of the South Pacific into New Zealand and Australia, and indeed to England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and France. These nations, rather than push for Fiji, Samoa and Tonga to be included in the competitions that matter, voted yes for eligibility change so they could say the problem is fixed.
Maybe now that the consequences of how this cheap fix is going to directly impact the nations who voted for it are being realised, it will spark an appetite for more meaningful solutions to be sought to end the plight of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.
These three nations need the world game to give them a hand up not a hand out and perhaps the sight of Kerr-Barlow running around for the Wallabies at the World Cup next year will help hammer home that message.
