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England poaching may backfire: O'Neill
AAP - June 28, 2008, 12:36 pm
ARU supremo John O'Neill says it will actually be England's problem - not Australia's - if the old enemy persists in luring Wallabies and All Blacks to English premiership rugby on big-money contracts.
While O'Neill insists the ARU is doing everything it can to prevent a player drain to cashed-up club sides in Europe, particularly the UK and France, he predicts England may well be the big losers in the long-term.
O'Neill pointed to the failure of England's national soccer team to qualify for Euro 2008 as evidence of the dangers in swelling the domestic ranks with international imports.
"I was interested the other day to read a statistic that said the English Premier League - soccer - that 38 per cent of players were English. The other 62 per cent were foreign and you wonder whether that's been good for English soccer," O'Neill said.
"Equally, when you move into the rugby sphere and see what's happening in English rugby and French rugby where they're throwing money at foreign players, I think they've got to actually rethink the actual long-term benefit of that strategy in terms of what it does to their national team."
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