Tongan complaints at odds with IRB Olympic loophole clarification

The alteration to the much reported Olympic loophole was met with anger from by Tongan officials who were hoping to benefit. However their complaints don’t appear to fully add up with the IRB’s actual clarification.

Last month Tonga’s High Performance Director Peter Harding (pictured above) in an interview with Radio Australia was complaining about the need to play four Sevens World Series events, and that it wasn’t in the release period. However this was at odds to what the IRB’s clarification notice actually said.

First of all Tonga are not a core team in the Sevens World Series, and according to the IRB clarification that makes the SWS irrelevant in terms of Olympic qualification where they would compete as an invitational team. And as a result of it being not relevant to the Olympics, they cannot switch players eligibility in that competition. (See Question 2 on the IRB’s clarification notice).

Tonga are an invitational team on
the Sevens World Series circuit

So why were Tongan officials moaning about it being impossible to play four Sevens World Series legs when it was never relevant to them?

What really was relevant to nations like Tonga outside of the SWS core circuit, was the designated regional Olympic qualifying tournament. Confirmed details of Oceania qualifying event are not yet available, but it is more likely to be just one event. And to switch eligibility there to XV’s it says the player will have to play over 50% of the matches in that event. So a Tongan would just need to turn up to one event and play there, not four SWS event as was moaned about. (See Question 5 on the IRB’s clarification notice).

That one event (or possibly more in the case of Europe where they need to play in over 50% of the tournaments) also may be relevant to SWS core nations as well. As with only 4 qualifying through the SWS, that means 9 of the core sides will also play regional qualifying.

That could mean Samoa for instance could either convert a player through four SWS events of more than 50% of the regional tournament if they fail to finish top four.

Onto the moans about impossible to get players as it’s outside the window. In actual fact, technically both the Olympic qualifiers and the Olympics are listed by the IRB under Regulation 9 as a designated release event. So in theory Tonga could use that for the event, although it may be harder in practice and no core SWS core teams have as yet called up any big names despite technically being able to. (See 9.6 Designated Release Events on the IRB’s Regulation 9 document).

There were also other Tongan moaning articles making statements of dubious merit to what the clarification said. This article in Tonga Daily News says the IRB increased the stand down period to 3 years; false as it has always been 3 years but uniquely 18 months for 2016 only and that hasn’t changed.

But the article also says that a player had to play in the actual Olympics to switch to XV’s, but the IRB clarification doesn’t actually state that clearly. But surely that isn’t right, as with dozens of attempting to qualify and 12 making it there, that ruling could potentially leave players from a load of nations who didn’t make it stranded from XV’s even if they fulfilled the threshold of four SWS events or 50% of a regional qualifying event.

Now on to a couple of final points. Firstly these points and how they differed from the Tongan complaints was e-mailed to an IRB official with a question as to whether they could confirm yes or no whether they incorrect (as they seem to possibly be) or not. They replied but were too useless to give an answer to a simple question though.

Also there has been some claiming IRB conspiracies against the Pacific Islanders, who changed the rule just simply out of fear of them. That simply isn’t true at all. The IRB changed it to four SWS events as otherwise it would have made it demeaned the event, making it a farce with a load of players turning up to be shoehorned in to fit into XV’s programs. Similarly the the 50% of the regional qualifying event, wards off the possibility of teams abusing the purpose of the event and chucking a prop on for a game. And by the looks of it, their alteration succeeded in both instances.