Bryn Hall

Look, you can put Artie Sevilla anywhere on the field.

It doesn't matter if he's seven or 13 or anything.

So yeah, maybe a little bit of a harvest, switching them both between the game to keep teams guessing.

But no, I don't think they will.

At seven, we'll just have a nice if he wants to play seven down at the Crusaders.

There's a little bit happening over here.

I think with most of the players that have applied their trade over here for a long period of time, the rules are changing.

So at the moment, it goes that if you played five years or you studied at university and been able to play for two years or for five years collectively, then you're classed as a Japanese player, not a foreigner.

So at the moment, for example, I'm classed as Category B. I haven't played five years for Japan, so I'm classed as a foreigner as a Category B.

And then there's a category C, which would be your international players that have played for the All Blacks, Springboks and whatever it may be.

Their class is category C. So the difference around what they're doing right now is that that five years is going to be scrapped and you'd have to be able to play for 30 games for Japan or you had schooling at the high school level to be able to be classed as a Japanese player.

So, you know, guys like Tim Lafayette or Lamecki that have played 29 games for Japan and

have played two part have played two two world cups who played have played um you know 10 to 12 years in japan they're not going to be classed as japanese players anymore so there's a little bit of um conversations that are happening over here helping out those guys that have you know got that have pretty much given up their their passports have given up their

their home countries and are in japan have done a lot for japan um and trying to i guess fight to be able to change those rules so i guess what that does do it just yeah for the players that do come over that want to play um for a long period of time your five years or coming a little bit earlier and want to play for japan you won't be classed as a japanese as a japanese player because you've got to be able to have 30 games so

It might change a little bit I think Ross with the New Zealanders coming over but I think at the same time it probably doesn't change a lot for my guys in category B that have been over here for a while because I think what it does do now is that the Japanese players more so the university players that have been here I mean Pacific Islander boys or a couple of South Africans the Australian boys that have come here earlier with the notion that they are going to play

pretty early doors for a long period of time under that category A system they're pretty much going up against Kiwis or South Africans or Australian the best category B players that are not international players and now they're going up against them so it's a little bit different over here and there's going to be a lot of movements I guess within the competition and it's been a big massive talking point over here between players and I guess even the companies over here as well.

your category C's your internationals it's not going to change at all and you're really good category B players that have like played a lot of rugby in New Zealand so for example when I came over played a lot of rugby for New Zealand in New Zealand was still at an age where I was playing you know at a young enough age to be able to be recruited at a good level

it's more so just taking out the um your kind of university guys or the boys that have come over here nice and early to be able to try and be eligible for for japan after five years you know so what you would normally do the you know pacific island the boys even the south africans australians keywords would come over you know for university do their three to four years and then within one year of playing of japanese rugby they would be classes as far as japanese players so

i think what the the competition did do is i think there was some stat last year where i think in the first round of japan top league 53 of the 23 of all the teams were seen as foreigners now yes teams have been able to um those players had done their time during the five years but i think as a look and i think if you're looking at the international stage and

those kind of players within that 53% weren't playing for Japan and they were like well you know we want to be able to have players that are playing for Japan so they've changed a rule where they want to be able to promote Japanese players to be able to come through and play for Japan and I think have that kind of look as well that there are Japanese players playing in the Japan top league because it is the Japan top league if you think about it and so