playing for a country not of your origin

Somehow I don't see that happening anytime soon. Either of those. We have leadership saying "let's call this Wet Tiddly Winks" and using rules stolen from another sport. Seems the seriousness needs to start at the top or be demanded by those on the bottom and it doesn't look like there enough of a push from either direction.

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

Does anybody else find it amusing when Jules pretends to be old and crap?

It's usually just before she makes you look quite average...

I spoke to WTD in a personal email as he suggested and he answered me within a couple of days, me thinks having this kind of access to the top people is quite good.

I asked him about the citizenship rules and he told me that the rules were forced on them by CMAS. Prior to this there were no rules and the member countries decided that their needed to be rules to stop super teams being built with the sole intention of winning world championships.

He also said that they can not just change the rules at their whim without prior discussion of the countries, if they did that then everybody would complain and from what i see here I agree. He did say that any country has the right to put up changes for their next meeting in Durban.

I think those so aggrieved should be talking to their rule makers and doing something about it, he told me also that he holds no particular stance on this and it will be what the masses decide.

Seems reasonable to me as I think this is how democracy works.

Later Gater

well then irrelevant as it may be, I'm f**king demanding from the bottom.

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

Did anybody else notice that comment "the rules were forced on them by CMAS"....

really??!

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Off Half-Backs Rule

Surely the importance you attach to playing for the country of your birth is personal and doesn't depend at all on what other people do?

The vast, vast majority of players will always play for their home country for lots of reasons. Whether you think a few players being able to switch countries for genuine reasons will degrade the value of your representation is up to you I guess.

...i guess we'll just see what happens. this is kinda funny cos generally i always had the impression that kiwis were some of the least patriotic people around,and here i seem to be a patriotism nazi all of a sudden.

who knew?

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it's more polite on the grating than on the subs bench

Probably happens when you're the target. Come in 2nd at next comp and maybe you'll change your stance

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Just in case you weren't sure, it's official -- CMAS sucks.
Oh yeah, and now they're broke.

I accept that CMAS may have in the past forced rule changes down our throats, but my comment was that since Sheffield, the uwh commission is not accepting everything CMAS says, eg Jersey, eg worlds in Bari. In fact CMAS refuse to acknowledge any rule changes made in Sheffield by the uwh commission. So it just seems a bit strange that this citizenship rule was "forced upon us". AQ is not a member of CMAS, so we can take or leave anything they put forward.

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Off Half-Backs Rule

Hi Guys - just signed in for the first time in ages. Good to see my name being used in vain! :-) For what it's worth - I agree that the rules as they are are too tight (presumably most of you saw my UWH group post). Have submitted a rule proposal that would hopefully fix things.

Cheers, Simon