One unestablished player from your country that others should know about

First topic message reminder :

Let us know about one upcoming player from your country whom others may not know about, but should be hearing more of over the next few years.

Ill start. My candidate is Greig Laidlaw.

Laidlaw has been called Scotlands Michalak recently, a scrumhalf who has proved to be extremely capable at fly half. I dont think this term is correct however. Laidlaw is a completely different player to Michalak. Greig is as defensively sound as youll ever see in a half back. Despite being tiny, hes not afraid to cover tackle a 20st prop on a rampaging run, or scramble on the deck for loose ball with half the opposition jumping on top of him. While not the flashiest, he is one of the most consistent players in Scotland, and one of the few players who has enhanced their reputation during edinburghs disastrous regime under rafa.

He's in Scotlands world cup training squad, but is overlooked by pundits/fans etc as he is the least experienced scrumhalf, behind Mike Blair, Chris Cusiter and Rory Lawson. He is arguably on current form however, better than all three of these players. Laidlaws advantage as mentioned above, is his versatility. Greig covered fly half towards the end of the season for edinburgh after David Blair's form nosedived, and did it so well that many are calling for him to travel to New Zealand as a Stand off, if not a scrumhalf.

With rumours circulating that Cusiter is still struggling with injury, as well as Mike Blair, and Lawsons awfull game against the Irish, Laidlaw may have a chance to grab the number 9 shirt, or with Parks' poor form, the 10 shirt as an alternative to Jackson.

red_stag wrote:Yea its correct. Don't see any difference to be honest. For me they either are or are not eligable.

Unless there is a different type of contract I doubt there is any difference really. As far as I'm concerned the 4+1 rule just means if you have 5 NIQs then the can't all be foreign internationals and at least one of them should be eligible to qualify for Ireland at some point in the future.

For me it's Colin Gregor. I think he's a quality scrum half and should be going to the world cup. he's as elusive as a bag of weasils and quick as fire up a fart