@Jack: Cause his name and skin colour are different to our idea of Irish.

Picture this. Imagine he came over, as a Kiwi centre from Super Rugby, three years done and invested hugely in the community and culture of his surrounding. But imagine he was white, and had a European name. Like picture all of the same factors but just change those details.

I wasnt describing him. I was describing Payne.

@Havid Dickey: bang on the money.

@Havid Dickey: Spot on man. It’s absolutely disgusting to see. He’s been outstanding for Connacht and has integrated into life in Galway from the off. You’d often see him round town & he’s always smiling & chatty. The guy’s a absolute hero & so talented that we should be glad he can finally play for Ireland.

@Jack: Id say its because he’s black.

The race thing is silly and is simply a way to win the argument because yis know people are afraid to come across as racist. What about the fact that there was a massive push to change the rules last year and it likely changed peoples minds? What about the fact that ireland has good player debth now, so dont need to resort to poaching foreign players? What about the fact that other nations put time and money into developing a world class player only to have another nation with more money lure them away? There are so many reasons to hate the “project player” system that have nothing to do with race. Plenty of non irish sounding/looking players have played for us without any complaint. Niyi Adeolokun moved here as a kid, and developed his rugby here, so he receives no hate from the media (as far as im aware of). Michael Bent got massive abuse on the other hand, despite being of Irish decent, because he played for Ireland before playing for Leinster.

@Ciarán: Spot on. You wouldn’t get this in Wales. There are loads of blacks playing rugby in Wales and people don’t see them as any different.

@Rudiger McMonihan: nonsense. Its clearly obviously a race issue compared to reaction to Payne CJ etc

Also, its very easy to jump to the defence of project player poaching, when an eijit like Neil Francis is attacking it. But the biggest opponent and influencer of its change was Agustin Pichot, who wasnt fighting it out of racism. He was fighting it because it puts teams like Argentina at a massive disadvantage

@bread of heaven: Like who? Falatau grew up in Wales. I cant think of anyone else

@Range Rover: Payne came in immediately after BOD retired and we had no replacements. He still got plenty of people calling for him to be dropped. Also, both players came in before tge push to change the rules which was the main point of my original comment

@Rudiger McMonihan: Sorry, we don’t have any black “project” players, if that’s what you mean. We can produce our own players instead of just poaching them from elsewhere

@bread of heaven: Faletau?

Grand, next time im arguing Adam Byrne should get picked because he scores loads of tries and someone claims his defense is poor i’ll call them racist. I

@Rudiger McMonihan: I think you’re being intellectually dishonest.

@Jack: there was the same for the other foreigners and rightly so, its a financial decision for these guys to play for ireland and its their greed that takes the irish jersey off an irish mans back who grew up with the dream of playing for ireland, its not right. You can dress it up anyway you want but its not right.

@Havid Dickey: every body with an issue on this also had and still have an issue with payne and stander

@Rudiger McMonihan: the only person talking sense here.

@Tommy Bread: But they simply didn’t Tommy. Some did certainly. No doubt. Remember the media uproar over Herring or Roux? I don’t.

@Havid Dickey: thats because the media arent going to talk about average players. If this wasnt an issur with the game then why has it been pushed from 3 years to 5?

@Paul K Murphy: because how would it make sense financialy to go away and have to start your residency period all over again in england or france last summer? … i can remember ben teo coming to ireland too and selling himself as loving ireland and couldnt wait to play, who is he playing for now? …. how naive are you? what about the winger who said while playing league he would never play for england? plays on the wing in union now?

@Tommy Bread: No, Ben Te’o said he was gonna go to England at the start of his Leinster contract. He has English family. Thats why he only signed up for 2 years. Also it is relevant that Aki and Stander are good players . None of our other project players were “poached” because they were never gonna be AllBlacks or Boks. We got that sob story abou CJ being asked to play in the front row and that made everyone justify it, but the reality was different. Look at the number of Super Rugby caps CJ got at a young age, his underage success and the fact that South Africa have changed coaches twice now since then. Hed have certainly been a Bok and Aki in my opinion would have been an AB

@Rudiger McMonihan: no he had two year contract to keep open the option of going back to league, google old interviews and he says if people at ireland think im good enough i will do the extra year as he wanted to play big games. Then he said afterwards a year is a long time in sports so didnt know if ireland would still want him so he played for england as they wanted him right away.

@Sherrypop Curtis: secondarily agreed

@Paul K Murphy: so you think he left new zealand and came to connacht because he had a sudden urge to play for a country he had never been too? or do you think maybe money motivated that decision? i dont think many french teams wanted him then to be honest? saili was in the all blacks team ahead of him amd he wasnt that highly regarded even thou he was in a brilliant chiefs team… as for stander he was offered more in ireland last time round so lets see how he deals with it this time because he is in the last year of his contract.

@Paul K Murphy: why do you think the residency rule was extended from 3 years to 5? surely if it was a good thing for international rugby it would have been shortened?

@Ciarán Ó Dáilaigh: agreed man. Full-on! It’s been horrible on Bundee. I never say this but Jesus it is just a game.

@Jack: pure and simple the reason is one word RACISM!! He’s the first overtly non Irish looking overseas player to be selected!!

@Rudiger McMonihan: Yes but Aki has done his apprenticeship and earned his call up as opposed to Bent who was parachuted in as it was called at the time and proved to be a disaster for Ireland.

@Rudiger McMonihan: Payne and Henshaw were both playing FB but Payne was already experienced in the outside backs. Remember Rob Kearney commenting on how big they were. Wonder what he thinks of Stockdale, Farrell and McCloskey?

@Paul K Murphy: you say they stayed when they could have made more money abroad and then you ask how i know how much stander was offered? back to the drawing board ya numpty…. are you going to answer my question either no? …. and i didnt call any of them a mercenary bud, they are making money and fair play to them. my problem is that the irb have allowed this to happen, they have seen they are wrong and tried to fix it fairness but 5 aint long enough either. if you have to tell yourself these guys love ireland to enjoy the game on satyuday on the high stoll then thats fine but i feel sorry for stuart mcclosky and rory scannell among others over the years who have to miss out.

he’s the first overtly non irish looking player?? What part of Ireland is the Ah You family name from? Look i honestly dont care about the whole denying a hardworkin irishman yarn, “blah blah blah Paddy O’Spudface has been squating sheep and deadlifting cattle for years, only to be bested by a furiner, etc etc”. What i care about is international rugby not turning into club rugby, where wealth determines the best team. Is there racism in ireland? Yes, obviously, just read the comment sections on thejournal on anything to do with muslims, trump or brexit if you want proof of thad. However, i dont agree that wanting players to qualify for citizenship before qualifying for the national team is racist.

@Paul K Murphy: Yes but the majority of people arent saying that he should never get to play for Ireland. The fact is that national teams were taking advantage of the 3 year rule so much that it had to be changed. Now that it has been ruled unfair by the majority of rugby playing nations, Aki is the first player to come through it before the rule is changed in 2 years. To simply say “everyone is against this because they are racist” is wrong, just as its wrong to say “you must be born in ireland, fluent in irish, a member of the Ra and live on a diet of potatoes and guinness if you want to play for ireland”.

@bread of heaven: Shane Howarth, Rupert Moon, Alex Cuthbert, Brent Cockbain, Jason Jones-Hughes, Tony Copsey, Tom Shanklin, Thomas Francis, Colin Charvis… Shall i go on?

@Jg Igoe: I’m not painting the entire country with the same brush, I’m saying certain Irish people can be.

@Rochelle:
Couldn’t agree more. There’s been some suggestion that some of the furore surrounding aki”s selection is down to racism, I think, for the most part, probably not. There was controversy and teeth gnashing over stander and payne too.

That post though, “tag a mate who thinks he’s irish” on a photo of aki was sickening. The obvious implication being, he can’t be Irish cos he’s dark. As someone born in Belfast to immigrant parents as well it was pretty jolting to see a mainstream commercial app post something like that.

@Rochelle: I was wondering how Rochelle was going to have a go at Leinster on this one. He never disappoints

@Chris Mc: In fairness she has a point, definitely crossed the line between humour and poor taste with that one

@Rochelle: I really it didn’t the reaction to that meme it was a joke. If you go on any of the various rugby Instagram sites the memes are a lot more brutal then making a joke about a man who’s not Irish(Aki has said himself plenty of times he’s doesn’t consider himself Irish) playing for Ireland. It wasn’t that big of a deal. But convenient how you also fail to mention Zebo also liked the meme on Instagram…,

@Vincent Ward: Francis does have a large support base in fact, and not just in Dublin.

@reg gordon: What about the abuse Kearney, McFadden, Stander, Heaslip and so on get? Nothing to do with race.

@reg gordon: I don’t think you understand what I am saying. Again, I believe the reason some commentators have reacted more vociferously to Aki’s inclusion in contrast to other project players is the fact that Bundee did not commit to Ireland sooner. I am not casting any aspersions on the player ,only trying to point out why some commentators have reacted the way they have. Now you assume I have an issue with Aki’s inclusion.I don’t by the way;I am very happy he has decided to join us and I am excited to see how he goes.

@Tom Reilly: You are completely right I missed your original point and see that now.
Apologies!