Quade Cooper says Wallabies should follow Springboks' lead
Former Wallabies flyhalf Quade Cooper has urged Rugby Australia to take a page from the Springboks’ playbook by rethinking its selection policy around overseas-based players.
South Africa’s rise to dominance in recent years, including back-to-back Rugby World Cup wins in 2019 and 2023, has been credited in part to its flexible approach to picking players based abroad.
Under Rassie Erasmus, SA Rugby scrapped a rule that required players to have at least 30 Test caps to be eligible for national selection if they were playing overseas.
The 30-cap criteria was introduced at the start of 2017 in an attempt to keep top talent in the country, instead of signing lucrative deals with clubs in the UK, Japan, and France.
However, the policy was abolished in 2018 as part of an overhaul of its contracting system – and it paid off.
Now, Cooper says Australia should consider a similar move.
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“South Africa have won two World Cups by embracing overseas-based players,” Cooper wrote in his Courier Mail column.
“Meanwhile, Australia’s refusal to go down the same path has cost the Wallabies immensely.”
Previously, Wallabies management had been limited when selecting overseas-based players by the Giteau Law, which required players to have 60 or more Test caps for the Wallabies or 7 years of service in Australian Super Rugby and still be eligible for the national team.
The restrictions have been relaxed since Phil Waugh took charge of Rugby Australia and Joe Schmidt became head coach of the Wallabies.
Currently, the head coach can pick overseas-based players if they have a minimum of 30 Test caps for Australia or at least five seasons of Super Rugby experience.
However, Schmidt has been reluctant to make use of this regulation, with several stars left out of training camps earlier this year after signing deals abroad.
“If we want to compete with the world’s best, we need to select the world’s best players, regardless of where they play.
“Look at South Africa. They’ve won the past two World Cups and dominated the global stage not because they’ve kept their stars locked at home, but because they’ve embraced a smarter model.”
Having played in Japan for the past six years, Cooper argues that SA Rugby benefits from letting its players sharpen their skills in elite competitions while foreign clubs pay the salaries.
“Australia is trying to hold players here with limited funds and a domestic competition that simply isn’t the strongest anymore,” he added.
“We keep a few, lose many, and the ones we lose, we can’t even select. It’s a double loss.”
Source: Courier Mail
