Australia legend Matt Giteau says World Rugby should consider copying league’s eligibility laws

Tuesday, 14 November 2017 at 10:47

bySteven Smith

Matt Giteau has floated a thought bubble for World Rugby to consider.

The utility back, currently playing in Japan, made an interesting suggestion on Twitter on Tuesday that garnered a significant reaction from rugby fans around the world.

Matt Giteau 🇦🇺

@giteau_rugby

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Thoughts on union adopting a similar set up to the league World Cup where talented players not picked in tier one teams, NZ, Oz, England etc can then play for their homelands Fiji, Samoa, Tonga etc?? Purely for World Cup year. Make comp stronger 🤷🏼‍♂️??

9:23 AM · Nov 13, 2017

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Read 118 replies

He tweeted: "Thoughts on union adopting a similar set up to the league World Cup where talented players not picked in tier one teams, NZ, Oz, England etc can then play for their homelands Fiji, Samoa, Tonga etc?? Purely for World Cup year. Make comp stronger."

As of Tuesday afternoon, Giteau’s tweet had attracted 1300 likes, 250 retweets and 116 comments.

It is a divisive topic but Giteau’s sentiment certainly has merit.

Here are some of the more interesting responses.

Brendan O'Malley

@BrendanOMalley3

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Replying to @giteau_rugby

Once a player is capped they should be tied to that nation, unfortunate as it maybe, plenty of players with dual allegiance but once they are capped the other options are then closed. Better systems needed to aid smaller nations needed though.

10:15 AM · Nov 13, 2017