International Rugby League (IRL) boss Troy Grant is standing firm — and in doing so, he has triggered the biggest eligibility debate rugby league has seen since the Tonga revolution of 2017 shook the power structure of the international game forever.
Calls have grown louder — especially across the last two weeks — for a dramatic overhaul of Test eligibility rules after Payne Haas and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow made the stunning decision to leave Australia and declare for Samoa. Rugby league fans, rugby league media voices, former Kangaroos, former coaches and multiple administrators have responded with outrage, with many now openly calling for a “one nation for life” policy to be implemented immediately.
But Grant does not agree. Grant does not believe international rugby league is broken. In fact, he believes international rugby league is healthier right now than it has ever been — precisely because of the Pacific eligibility freedom that exists today.
And this is why he has formally ruled out implementing any eligibility change.
This is not a small story. This is not minor ripple effect noise. This is multi-year structural identity level controversy that no other football code in the world faces at this scale. Rugby union wrestles with this occasionally. Football (soccer) has strict rules already — you represent one nation and that is it except extremely rare FIFA-approved exceptions. But rugby league has always been different — because rugby league is connected deeply to Pacific heritage, Pacific identity culture, and cross-nation football development pipelines that were built long before modern commercial NRL. That unique heritage reality is why this debate is bigger than Payne Haas versus Australia or Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow versus Kangaroos. This debate literally touches the identity structure of the sport itself moving forward.
WAYNE BENNETT WANTS NATIONAL LOCKDOWN — ONE NATION ONLY, NO RETURNS
Master coach Wayne Bennett has been very public. He does not believe players should have the right to change nations.
Bennett has argued repeatedly that Test jerseys should hold sacred permanence. One country for life. No switching back. No tactical World Cup dance. No picking based on developmental timing or market opportunity or roster openings. He has made the claim that Test football must mean something bigger than just football situation optimization.
Former Kangaroos coach Mal Meninga supports this as well. Meninga believes moving between Tier 1 and Tier 2 breaks the principle core of international identity. Meninga believes this creates instability for national programs. Meninga believes this makes the Kangaroos brand vulnerable long term.
Their argument is this:
if you choose Australia, you should remain Australia
if you choose New Zealand, you should remain New Zealand
if you choose England, you should remain England
if you choose Samoa or Tonga or Fiji or PNG — that is your identity moving forward permanently
No four-year resets. No swapping cones between World Cup cycles.
PACIFIC COACHES AND PACIFIC PLAYERS DISAGREE
Samoa coach Ben Gardiner has now pushed back aggressively — calling the idea of limiting eligibility “archaic”, outdated, and damaging to competition growth.
He said the entire growth explosion of international rugby league since 2017 exists because Pacific stars were able to return home and lift their heritage nations into legitimate global heavyweights.
Tonga 2017 changed everything.
Jason Taumalolo changed everything.
Andrew Fifita changed everything.
Once that floodgate opened, the IRL experienced the greatest equalization movement the sport has ever seen. Samoa’s run to the 2022 World Cup final proved this was not temporary hype — this was a sustained shift of global competitive power.
World Cup finals used to be automatic Australia vs somebody else formalities — now the Pacific can smash those assumptions.
Gardiner also said elevating Samoa and Tonga into Tier 1 is not possible based on governance infrastructure alone. Tiering is not “how strong your team is” — it is how strong your league structure is, how big your competition ecosystem is, how broad your domestic system is. Tonga literally has a population smaller than Canberra — that alone structurally limits organizational scale. He argues penalizing Pacific nations for scale realities is unfair.
THE IRL BOSS SAYS ELIGIBILITY FREEDOM IS WORKING — AND MUST STAY
Troy Grant has drawn his line: the rules are working — the international game is the strongest it has ever been — therefore there is no need to change anything.
Grant specifically argues:
players should have the freedom to choose based on birth, citizenship, or grandparent heritage
fans deserve the best possible talent representing nations they genuinely qualify for
any attempt to restrict movement could fracture momentum the international scene spent decades fighting to build
He also states that the responsibility of the IRL is not to protect the Kangaroos brand, not to protect any one nation’s talent pipeline, not to protect national monopolies — but to grow global rugby league competitiveness everywhere.
He believes the current rules do exactly that.
THE GLOBAL CONTEXT MATTERS
This is where this discussion gets bigger than the personalities.
Australian domestic rugby league grew faster than international rugby league for decades — which created a competitive asymmetry. International tests often felt like exhibition level formality. Pacific nations could not hold full squads together full-time because the entire NRL system was absorbing the elite player pipeline before those players ever represented their heritage nations.
Eligibility freedom is literally the only reason Samoa and Tonga can compete at global finals level. Without that freedom — Pacific would collapse back into second class status and the sport would revert backwards to 1990s power imbalance levels.
Grant wants international rugby league to finally stand as its own legitimate global product — not just a side dish to NRL cycles.
THIS DEBATE WILL NOT END HERE
Even though Grant has ruled out changes — this is not over.
Wayne Bennett is not going to quiet down.
Mal Meninga is not going to quietly walk away from the argument.
Australian rugby league media is not going to accept that the Kangaroos brand becoming less dominant is automatically “good” for the sport. People who grew up in the era where Australia dominated everything view this through a national preservation lens — not a global expansion lens.
And fans will continue to divide:
some think national identity is sacred and should be locked once chosen
others think heritage deserves fluid respect, because culture is not linear and not single origin
But for now — the IRL boss has officially decided: rugby league will remain free movement heritage friendly, and Payne Haas and Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow will remain eligible for Samoa.
And until the World Cup cycle ends again — this fire will remain burning every single month from now until kickoff.
