Sports Letter: Foreign bodies

Sir: In his excellent weekly rugby column, Alan Watkins has mentioned that England do not tend to use players from abroad. It is interesting to note that a quick check of the Planet Rugby England team details revealed the following:

a. Steve Ojomoh, Adedayo Adebayo and Victor Ubogu are all Nigerian.

b. Mike Catt is as South African as Dion O'Cuinnegain (Irish parents).

c. Kyran Bracken is Irish and has won an Under-14 medal with Leinster.

d. Kevin Yates is Canadian.

It would be a useful exercise to compare the size of the rugby playing population in England to that of the other Home Unions and compare the number of foreigners used by the Scottish, the Irish and the Welsh.

Also, to my knowledge, France use Morroco in much the same way as New Zealand use Western Samoa. It's just that the talent pool is that much smaller.

VAL DAVEY

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