I was under the impression you had to have Maori ancestry to play for them, a minimum of one grandparent or something like that and their website says the followingDave Cahill wrote: ↑June 15th, 2022, 4:35 pmI know what you're saying, and you're 100% right, but the Maori all blacks are not a representative team - they're an invitational side, so you can choose to give the game as much weight or not as you like. Now, I would consider the Maori All Blacks to be an international side and I would cap players who play against them and as such I'd stick with Regulation 8. But thats a matter of choice. For example, MAB aren't covered by regulation 9 - player release (confirmed in 2016 when Eagles played them the day before we beat the All Blacks and the Eagles were unable to secure player release because exhibition games aren't covered by the regulation and ultimately thats what all games involving invitational sides are)leinsterforever wrote: ↑June 15th, 2022, 4:09 pm I can't get on board with your reading of it, Dave. I was looking at Regulation 8. A player has to be eligible to represent "the senior fifteen-a-side National Representative Team, the next senior fifteen-a-side National Representative Team and the senior National Representative Sevens Team of the Union".
This team that's on tour is the senior fifteen-a-side National Representative team of the Irish Union. So to be selected to represent the team a player must be Irish eligible.
Originally team selected was ‘loosely’ governed in terms of heritage, but now all players must have Māori whakapapa or genealogy confirmed in order to represent the side.
So they are limited in terms of who can play for them. Jagger for instance couldn't as far as I know he has no NZ ancestry