NZRU ban non-Kiwis from national sevens

“Hard-nosed, but necessary” is how the New Zealand Rugby Union is describing new eligibility rules, which will be more restrictive for the women’s competition than that men's, who will still be able to select one overseas player.

It is controversial move that will particularly affect the many Samoan players. Almost the entire Samoan squad at the recent World Cup live and play in New Zealand and several are fixtures in their provincial teams, including Brenda Collins, who has represented Samoa, but has lived and played in Wellington all her life, Cynthia Taala (Counties Manukau, winners in 2014) and Bella Milo (Auckland).

It is likely other players, who in the past may have been eligible for both New Zealand and Samoa, will now fall under the ban as a result of having played for Samoa in Paris.

New Zealand Rugby Union manager of professional rugby Neil Sorensen accepted the policy change could be unpopular with some, but was making no excuses for toughening up eligibility rules ahead of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

"Yep, we are being quite hard nosed about it," he said. "We are about developing talent ourselves and we don't have too many opportunities to do that in sevens."

That was particularly so in the women's game where the NZRU wanted to give young athletes every chance to emerge ahead of Rio.

A women's inter-provincial competition was only included in theNational Sevens as recently as 2013and Provinces have had to make a formal request for overseas players to be allowed to take part. This season the NZRU say that 10 to 15 per cent of players in the tournament would not have been New Zealand eligible if they had granted every provincial request.

The sevens rule will not apply to regional tournaments, and is far tougher than the rule in the Women’s NPC where up to three in the match day 22 can be overseas players.

"It will upset some people and it might seem unfair on people who have played international rugby for another country, but that's where we've drawn the line," Sorensen added.

Brenda Collins didn't want to comment publicly yesterday after learning of the rule change, but Wellington men's sevens captain Greg Foe, also a Samoan international, said the restrictions seemed harsh.

"I don't think it [playing for another country] should play a part at all in this case. Nationals is nationals and if you live and play in New Zealand you have the right to play for your province," the Poneke openside flanker said. “Everyone playing club rugby obviously want to play rep rugby and represent their province and if this rule is going to prevent that, then it is quite unfair."

This weekend also saw the completion of the pool phase of the Women's National Provincial Championship XVs. Auckland - who have won every previous tournament since 2006 - were unbeaten and will play Waikato (who have never reached this stage before) in the final.