Forum Topic

The change in demography in sport depicted in the Lions make-up

The British & Irish Lions (Lions) play their 1st Test match against Australia this coming Saturday in Brisbane.From the pool of 38 players (containing just 2 Welshmen) 8 (21%) were born outside of the UK and Ireland.Unlike the 2025 squad the 1974 Lions (containing 9 Welshmen) playing in SA contained no foreign born players at all.

Denis I. Fox ● 2d5 Comments

The entire premise of this thread is wrong.The criteria to represent the Lions has not changed.  If you are qualified to play for England, Scotland, Ireland or Wales then you meet the criteria.There are 2 ways of qualifying to represent a Home Country: by birth right or by residency.Qualifying by birth means (a) you were born here or (b) one of your parents qualifies to represent this country or (c) one of your grandparents qualifies.Qualifying by residency was a minimum of 3 years continuous residency and registration  AND you had not played for another country main team (or in some cases designated second team), with effect from 1 Aug 2024 that was changed (but not applied retrospectively) to 5 years of registration.Being born abroad but having an English parent makes you English qualified by birth for rugby purposes.Looking at the Lions squad the following players were born abroad:Marcus Smith (Philippines), Pierre Schoeman (South Africa), Bundee Aki (New Zealand), Duhan van der Merwe (South Africa), Sione Tuipulotu (Australia), James Lowe (New Zealand), Mack Hansen (Australia), Jamison Gibson-Park (New Zealand), and Joe McCarthy (United States)4 of those players listed qualify by birth right.We even had a recent foreign born Prime Minister in Boris (born in USA), nobody doubted he was British - although many doubted his ability

Justin Stephenson ● 10h

Doesn't his suitability for Scotland come through his family lieage though,rather than by residency? There have been several players representing the England cricket team who have qualified by lineage,the current captain being one and fast bowler Brydon Carse another.

Keith Iddon ● 2d

I have no qualms about players representing adopted countries through residency; after all the NZ and Australian rugby lineups are far stronger with their contingent of Pacific Islanders. There is talk however of the authorities lengthening the period of residency, of which there is a case..I do smile wryly whenever I see South African born Duhan van de Merwe, 6 foot 4 and built like a *hithouse representing Scotland, and running through England players every  time he takes the field to them.

Denis I. Fox ● 2d

There is at least one broadcaster and academic who peddles the idea on TV that having a parent or parents born overseas means that someone is somehow less British.  When I was at boarding school because my parents worked overseas most of my fellow boarders had parents living and working overseas and very many were in the UK forces.  There are masses of British people who have been born overseas to parents working overseas and whose parents were also either born overseas or met and married overseas in one country or another.  This has happened for generations.  This is how trade has been done worldwide.  We don't grow or make everything we need or want in the UK - and we tend to want just about everything that can be imagined!Travel and communications have changed amazingly just in my lifetime. You couldn't phone many countries in the same way as we can now and my first intercontinental travel as a baby was by boat.  Now not only are there non-stop flights on jet planes (prop planes were so much slower and had to stop more often to refuel) BUT we often now don't even need to travel at all and can have Zoom or Teams meetings where we communicate face to face on the internet.

Philippa Bond ● 2d

This shouldn't be a surprise to you given the globalisation we have seen over the last fifty years. Even so  the touring party of 1904 included two New Zealand born players.Far more people find their jobs taking them overseas than ever before. Joe McCarthy and Marcus Smith were born in New York and Manila respectively presumably due to their parents' work. The concept of 'foreign born' isn't really a helpful one.If you raise this particularly statistic out of concern for the number of players included due to residency qualification, I think you need to bear in mind that this is an inevitable result of professionalisation. I'm not entirely comfortable with it myself but it allows countries like Ireland and Scotland to be consistently competitive by enabling to fill gaps in their very limited player base.

Francis Rowe ● 2d