Shirt-swap stars can carry on regardless

Scotland set the long-distance ball rolling, England joined in, Wales followed suit and Ireland are now poised to complete a Home Nations’ custom.

- PETER JACKSON

The ritual initiation of would-be All Blacks into the four tribes of the Lions began with Shaun Longstaff enlisting in the regiment of Kilted Kiwis for the first professional World Cup. More recently, the blue jersey has been wrapped around another New Zealander, Sean Maitland.

Having dressed Lesley Vainikolo in a Red Rose some ten years ago, England have done likewise with a newer model, Denny Solomona. Wales put their shirt on Johnny McNicholl last year and Ireland will turn James Lowe, once a Maori All Black, green from tip to toe at the earliest available opportunity this autumn.

Lowe and McNicholl have much in common besides being natives of the South Island. They gave Super Rugby a whirl and made their separate ways to the far side of the world, each trading in his All Black ambition for the long shot at finding a distant route onto the magic roundabout of Test rugby.

Neither had any ancestral claim which meant qualifying elsewhere via residence as countless others had done, especially post-professionalism more than two decades ago. The nationality conversion market thrived, unwittingly aided and abetted by the game’s failure to take swift action, even when confronted with a fait accompli of dodgy-dealing.

When Scotland and Wales were exposed for picking non-Scots and nonWelsh on the bogus claim that the players involved had ancestry to justify their capping, the International Rugby Board let them off with a slap on the wrist. Their failure to insist on any kind of documentary proof, no matter how flimsy, made the scandal inevitable.