This $10 million prop is as Irish as a suntan, but they almost poached him
Opinion
Nationality is a funny thing.
You could take anyone in the world, put them in a packed Murrayfield with the stirring Flower of Scotland playing, and they’d swear they were ready to lay down their lives to repel the invading English, Braveheart style.
But there must be a distinction between feeling Scottish, Irish or Welsh and actually being Scottish, Irish or Welsh, and rugby has lost its way in defining that gap.
Frankly, World Rugby’s grandparent eligibility rule has simply become an extraction tool for northern hemisphere teams – particularly the Celts – to raid the south for players they had no part in developing.
The recent re-signing of Reds prop Massimo de Lutiis with Rugby Australia until 2029 is a win for the Wallabies, but the mini soap opera has once again exposed how the grandparent rule is outdated and absurdly weighted towards the Six Nations countries.
I grew up in Ulster, the province keen to lure de Lutiis, so on a selfish level I should have cheered his potential move, but the truth is that Big Mass is about as Irish as a suntan.
In fact, those who qualify for their adopted countries under the five-year residency rule show a deeper connection to their new homelands than those who simply qualify by virtue of a single grandparent.
It’s a rule that should only apply to the Pasifika countries, as a way to repay the game’s debt to them. But northern hemisphere countries play the heritage game because there is no cost involved – it’s a no-brainer for them to run ancestry checks on all the Super Rugby squads each year.
The only way to stop this is to either retire the grandparent rule – complicated due to the Pasifika countries – or impose a cost on those who still want to use it.
The difficulty lies in agreeing on a cost: essentially deciding a player’s worth.
But a young tighthead prop such as de Lutiis is potentially worth $10 million and the Irish should have been on the hook if they had successfully signed him.
That seems like a lot of money in a sport lacking a transparent transfer market and a clear way to value players, but it’s not if you follow the logic.
At just 22 years old, de Lutiis could easily be a 10-year Test player. The prizemoney for winning the Six Nations alone over that period would be £65 million ($125m) – and that doesn’t include any other performance-related revenue such as sponsorship and broadcast earnings.
And what does everyone say about good tighthead props? They’re invaluable. You simply won’t win any competition without at least one world-class No.3.
Had Ireland been able to secure de Lutiis for nothing, it would have been an act of larceny, and it would have been impossible to quantify the value lost to Australian rugby against the value gained by the Irish.
Over a 10-year period, de Lutiis could have played 100 Tests for Ireland (and the British and Irish Lions), resulting in the $10m figure – a set fee of $100,000 every time he pulled on a green jersey.
That is how you value a player: stagger the payments based on Test appearances so the national union that lost the player is duly compensated and the union that recruited him pays a price.
This would also solve the issue of plausible deniability that exists in Europe regarding recruitment, particularly in France.
The French Rugby Federation’s stance is that it can’t stop French clubs from plundering young Australian talent, and is not directly involved in their recruitment of young Australian stars such as Heinz Lemoto.
That is technically true, but Les Bleus will ultimately benefit if Lemoto qualifies for France later, following in the footsteps of Emmanuel Meafou.
Rugby Australia may never stop the free-market flow of young Australians to the rich Top 14 clubs, but it would certainly soften the blow if they pocketed $100,000 each time an Australian played for France.
In my experience, the northern hemisphere has an extraordinary lack of understanding regarding the urgency of this issue for countries such as Australia.
Former Rebels coach Dave Wessels gets it. Wessels, who is now general manager of high performance at SA Rugby, recently had a shot at Ireland for poaching a few South African schoolboys with Irish heritage.
But he is fighting the assumption up north that anyone who had a pint of Guinness in Dublin or a Brains in Cardiff is basically Irish or Welsh anyway, so what’s the harm?
But the harm is real, and de Lutiis won’t be the last young Super Rugby player to field a tempting overseas offer, leaving the union that developed him with nothing.
Paul Cully is a rugby columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.