Is 6 local players in your starting lineup good enough for you?

Tomorrow marks the start of Singapore's A5N campaign...and as always there are always controversies involved in the National team during every major tournament, and this year isn't short of its own fair share once again.

Newsletter Issue 31, April 2010

SINGAPORE RUGBY LIONS XV


The following players have been selected to represent Singapore.

1 George Rippon (Wanderers)
2 Gaspar Tan (Bedok Kings)
3 Nick Dance (Bucks)
4 Nick Macksey (Wanderers)
5 Andrew Bennett (SCC)
6 Joe Braithwaite (Wanderers)
7 Matt Roberts (Capt, Wanderers)
8 Mohd Ashraf (Blacks)
9 Suhaimi Amran (SCC)
10 Tom Burns (SCC)
11 Desmond Wee (Bedok Kings)
12 Charlie Ryan (Bucks)
13 Matt Taloni (Wanderers)
14 Goh Beng Chuan (Bedok Kings)
15 Muhd Zaki (SCC)

• Only 6 local players in the starting line up and a whole string of questionable 'quality' aka expatriate players, who by the way Singapore will probably not see in the next international tournament - Which will also pretty much explain or suggest the amount of continuity we have seen over the last 5 years or so in Singapore's 'development'.
  

• Where's last year's captain, Ben Wheeler? or 2 years ago national team captain too, Chris Gilbert ?!
  

What i am saying is.... Union! why bother starting rugby in primary schools and all that, if you are not going to start relying on the very talent you grow in your backyard? Young kids pick up rugby hoping to don the National jersey, and then when we grow up and realize that the criteria to being a national player is so different from what we thought of it to be...people just lose faith in the system.

Look at the line up and you see ONLY two stand out local players (Gasper Tan & Desmond Wee) who were immersed early in the system, and with the exposure given to them have now become great players in their own right. (if i am not wrong, combined both their number of caps together, it might total up to be more than the rest of the entire national team players cap put together, now thats jus ridiculous!). If the union does that with more local players, don't you think there might be a high possibility we will grow a solid pool of national players? I mean of course they have to be of quality. But problem i have seen lately, quality is higher subjective!

Damn. i am tired of ranting about the same thing every year...over the last 5 years, Singapore can't say that we have progressed all that much.

http://smu-rugbynews.blogspot.com/2008/11/arfu-2008-can-singapore-do-it-again.html
http://smu-rugbynews.blogspot.com/2009/11/history-do-you-know-who-are-anchor-reds.html