Rugby’s project player system criticised by active project player….

An unlikely source of criticism you would think.

Ah, the never ending argument surrounding the project player rule, also known as the three-year residency rule. If you have been living under a rock, the project player rule is essentially a policy in international rugby whereby a foreign player (who does not have a full senior international cap) can play for another country, as long as that player has resided in that country for three years. Ireland's most recent successful example of this would be CJ Stander, who although hailing from South Africa, is now a fully fledged Ireland international after arriving in Munster back in October 2012. Ireland have obviously benefited from this rule, as the likes of Stander and Ulster's Jared Payne have been regular starters for Ireland over the past 12 months. But the ploicy has come in for major criticism. Recently retired Luke Fitzgerald, blasted the rule in an interview last year where he said that he was "pissed off" at a time where foreign players were picked ahead of him for Ireland selection. The policy has now rather surprisingly been criticised by a man who has benefited from it, Scotland's Tim Visser. Visser originally hails from the Netherlands but after spending three years playing for Edinburgh, he was eligible to play for the Scottish national side. He made his debut in June 2012 and has now scored 11 tries in 28 Tests for Scotland. Visser told TheRugbyPaper that although it is difficult to criticise a rule which he has benefited from, he admits that there needs to be a distinction made between players who are signed to fill a position in the national team and ones who just merely qualify from residing in that country for a certain period of time.

“It’s hard to criticise a rule that allowed me to play international rugby but you don’t really find it in any other sport....There has to be some sort of balance and it’ll be interesting to see what they do. For me, there has to be a real distinction between project players, players that are specifically brought over to play for a country in a certain position, and players that just qualified because they have been living there for a long time."

With World Rugby expected to extend the eligibility surrounding the policy from three to five years, it will be interesting to see whether there will be a massive influx of players to Ireland in the near future to take advantage of the three year rule before it is no longer valid.