Will France reduce the number of foreign players in Top 14?

With the recent poor performances of France in the Six Nations championship - even losing to Italy - questions are being asked. French coach Saint Andre blames the players under par performance to foreign players stifling local players especially in the Top 14.

Frances Top 14 has around 250 foreign players compared to only half of that in the English Premiership.

Below are excerpts from Philippe Saint-Andre's interview in the Daily Mail.

    'In the French league it's good to have foreign players but when you have too many of them, well... Jonathan Sexton has signed to play fly-half for Racing, Jonny Wilkinson is at Toulon, Luke McAlister at Toulouse, Felipe Contepomi at Stade Francais, Brock James at Clermont.

    'We need to be careful for the next 15-20 years of French rugby - the situation is similar to Premier League football in England.

    'The change was made in England when I was coaching Sale and English rugby seven years ago and they realised they needed to prioritise getting English players playing in the English league, perhaps to the detriment of the clubs' chances in the Heineken Cup.

    'You have 40 or 50 young English players ready for international games. At the moment we don't have 40 French players ready for internationals.'

    Bringing Wilkinson to Toulon was fantastic because of his professionalism and the way he trained,' continued Saint-Andre.

    'He pulled all the young players up with him. But if you have as first choice a foreigner, as second choice a foreigner and as third choice a foreigner, then it's very bad for our country.'

Will we see a reduction in Fijian Rugby players in France? This comment from Jamie Bruce of the Silktails Rugby group on Facebook.

Is the number of Fijians going to reduce in T14?

No, I don't think so.

Many Fijians starting to come through the ranks in T14 are now being bred by french academies. If I am correct the quota system in France (and Marc will correct if in wrong) expects (this has risen) now 60% of players to have been raised in French academies.

It is important to recognise talk of too many overseas players is down to France's poor start to the 6N. 2 lost games! A knee jerk reaction. As Richard Pool-Jones (manager Stade Francais) has said 'it's business as usual' remember France won their games in November and everyone thought they were brilliant. This is normal ups and downs.

What cannot be denied is in key positions such as fly-half, wing and tight head there are too many foreigners. 10 of the T14 clubs have overseas fly-halfs. up to 20 of 28 wingers on any weekend may be foreign (many fijian!!).

But is this likely to change? No. Firstly because there is such disharmony between the clubs and Les Bleus. The clubs are powerful. Financially doing very strongly and show no desire to become more subservient to the FFR. France are the only country whose players have to play club games during the 6N. Additionally they have less preparation time.

In the case of fly-halfs Grass roots needs to start producing them. Quotas is not enough. Culturally much revolves around 9 in France.

Lastly the other thing to remember about Fijians is they tend to be employed to play wing or less so at back row. Even if quotas rise or other rules are introduced there will always be a demand for chaps who can score tries. ie. wingers. And for some years now the French have recognised the best place to get those is from VITI!