Why wouldn't/shouldn't a player want to expose themselves to a higher level of coaching etc.fivepointer wrote:He used the system. He was at Hartpury, linked to Gloucester and had grown up in the English game. You can understand why a player will want to hedge their bets and to take advantage of the English school/college/academy structure, even though they may never seriously want to play for England.twitchy wrote:He could have said "no thanks I'm welsh" and stayed at home and had a cuppa if he was "undecided" or we could have just picked someone else who actually wanted to play for england. If you wanted to be cynical you could say he used it as a shop window.Puja wrote:
Moriarty was a special case, as Wales at the time were using their U20s side as their second capture team and thus if he'd played age grade for them, he'd've been making a choice for all of his future at 17.
I don't see any particular need to be too strident about age grades and qualifications. Yes, it is mildly annoying developing someone through our youth teams only for them to be poached as soon as they break through, but I'd rather that than be proscriptive d*cks to children.
Puja
My gripe is that a player should make a firm commitment at U20 level. An appearance here should be binding. That way we stop investing time and energy on a player who wont go on to represent us.
I completely disagree with binding at u20s however, since it's effectively binding 30+ players every single season, which is ridiculous.