Which foreigner has had the biggest impact on your club

First topic message reminder :

A curent thread is talking about who has the most foreigners etc...

What i was wondering is which foreign imports do you think have had the biggest impact at your club?
It might not just be on the pitch...but off it...inspiring and helping the youth in training, community projects etc...

Hound of Harrow wrote:Wasps - no one individual really. They all bought into the club ethos.

If I was to pick one it would probably be Craig Dowd. Big Trev was a fan favourite for his commitment, but a useless thrower at the line out.

Surely Betsen must be near the top of the list? Followed by Howley?

red_stag wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:...Easterby was some player for Ireland too. He would walk into the current Ireland team I reckon.

The definition of a man not appreciated in his own time.

Totally agree...I don't even appreciate him now .....

You are being a right *&*^%$$£"*&^%£er this season, Rodders.

Good man, carry on

Bathite wrote:

Hound of Harrow wrote:Wasps - no one individual really. They all bought into the club ethos.

If I was to pick one it would probably be Craig Dowd. Big Trev was a fan favourite for his commitment, but a useless thrower at the line out.

Surely Betsen must be near the top of the list? Followed by Howley?

Betsen wasn't at Wasps that long was he?

SecretFly wrote:You are being a right *&*^%$$£"*&^%£er this season, Rodders.

Good man, carry on

Rodders has lost his mojo. How can we get it back for him?

GunsGerms wrote:

SecretFly wrote:You are being a right *&*^%$$£"*&^%£er this season, Rodders.

Good man, carry on

Rodders has lost his mojo. How can we get it back for him?

Only messing Guns, auld Simon was as good a Welsh based Englishmen as ever played for Ireland .

Actually his wee bro wasn't a bad auld player.

GunsGerms wrote:

SecretFly wrote:You are being a right *&*^%$$£"*&^%£er this season, Rodders.

Good man, carry on

Rodders has lost his mojo. How can we get it back for him?

When he sees Warburton walking Keane's dead dog Triggs in a few weeks time when he should be with the Lions, then he'll hitch up his mojo again and become nice Rodders.

rodders wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:

SecretFly wrote:You are being a right *&*^%$$£"*&^%£er this season, Rodders.

Good man, carry on

Rodders has lost his mojo. How can we get it back for him?

Only messing Guns, auld Simon was as good a Welsh based Englishmen as ever played for Ireland .

Actually his wee bro wasn't a bad auld player.

He got the Tony Casacarino Award for services rendered when he retired.

red_stag wrote:

Bathite wrote:

Hound of Harrow wrote:Wasps - no one individual really. They all bought into the club ethos.

If I was to pick one it would probably be Craig Dowd. Big Trev was a fan favourite for his commitment, but a useless thrower at the line out.

Surely Betsen must be near the top of the list? Followed by Howley?

Betsen wasn't at Wasps that long was he?

Betsen was there four years, but it was Ibanez I was actually thinking of! Got my Frenchines mixed up!

SecretFly wrote:When he sees Warburton walking Keane's dead dog Triggs in a few weeks time when he should be with the Lions, then he'll hitch up his mojo again and become nice Rodders.

As long as he leverages some dog walking advice from the experienced Welsh dog walkers in the squad fly .....

Dragons (currently)

For Good

For Bad

Chavanga - Always injured but some good tries when he got the ball (now released)

Andy Hands-like-feet - Some good moments, mostly poor or injured (released)

Ian Nimmo - Not the player that was touted (hyped) - Hoepfully still getting used to Proffessional rugby, could improve

Munk, what is your opinion of Percy Montgomery when he was at the dregs?

gcBlues wrote:Munk, what is your opinion of Percy Montgomery when he was at the dregs?

Must confess, I only started going to see the Dragons at around 2007 so missed him by a few years

For Munster, while Dougie has been a fantastic signing for munster for the past 4.5 seasons, I'd have to agree that for impact purposes, Langford & Jim Williams are very highly regarded by Munster players then and the impact of their professional ethos is still being felt now.

Others of note would be De Villiers. He had an up and down time and was dropped for a big game by McGahan, brought on for 20 mins and wrecked Perpignan with hard running angles. Actually that might be phrased as Munster impacting the player. Both benefitted from the other and we haven't filled that hole at 12 since he left.

Rua Tipoki cannot be ignored in this regard either at 13, he bought into the Munster ethos while retaining the Kiwi flair. You could make a strong case that his injury against the All Blacks in November 2008 had a massive bearing on the ultimate result (18-16 to the AB's)

As for flops etc, Where to begin?

Jones Hughes. The Portuguese guy who I think may have played about 3 or 4 games, if that? There was a Russian prop that played for a few other clubs before and since and seemed to feature more, but while not bad he wasn't amazing either. I know there are more that i have selective amnesia over.

Christian Cullen must surely be the least effective signing we made.

He had the potential to have ended up like Howlett. When we signed him he was the record All Black try scorer and at just 27 years of age, could have been looking at being a part of a truly great Munster side.

However injury prevented him gaining any momentum. In his four years at Munster he played in just 8 Heineken Cup games and was (through no fault of his own as it was injury related) probably the biggest waste of money Munster have ever invested.

We did win the Heineken Cup while he was at Munster but considering he played just 20 minutes in that entire campaign I'm not sure we can offer him much credit.

Its such a shame as he had so much potential which was never capitalised upon.

True Stag, but I left him off the list as in fairness to Cullen, I think in his second season he was top try scorer in the CL. And there is a really weird statistic that I think he actually played less than 10 games with ROG at outhalf, due to his own injuries and ROG being moth-balled by the IRFU at times.

Sam Norton Knight for the Cardiff Blues was a real coup as was CJ Van Der Linde for Leinster.

Think Matt Burke and Carl Heyman were great signings for Newcastle. Not sure how they managed to get them.

Scarlets best quality NWQs have been Easterby, King, Lyons, and Morgan. Earle and Snyman are looking like they will join that list. And a special mention to Deacon Manu, not setting the world alight but IMO he has seen off many attempts on his shirt over the years.

The list of bad NWQs would be Kees Meeuws, Bruce Douglas, Mo'honari Schwalger, James Hayter, Craig Dunlea, Simon Marling, Adam Useless, Hottie Louw, Tomos Vallejos-Cinalli, Ruki Tipuna, Yannick N'Gog and I am sure tehre are others but this is getting depressing.

Id say a Toulon supporter would have a nightmare trying to list the good and bad foreign signings.

LeinsterFan4life wrote:Id say a Toulon supporter would have a nightmare trying to list the good and bad foreign signings.

Easier to list the best/Worst French signings

For Saints this is an easy one. Bruce Reihana was terrific. He stayed with the club when we went down and led us back up. All this whilst Graham Henry was asking him to come back to new Zealand for the ABs. He was great for our club and great within the Northampton community. Class player and class individual.

greytiger wrote:For good - Pat Howard
For ill - Heyneke Meyer

For ill I'll raise you...Rod Kafer and Ramiro Pez.

i agree with everyone else about regan king - he had so much skill. shame he only had 1 cap for the all blacks. yeap i agree easterby had brought into west walian life. but then again he married a welsh speaking woman espn sarah elgan, so i guess he had no option. probably the most influential though was Rupert Henry St. John Barker Moon who was born in Birmingham and represented English/Students. He is pretty much "Mr Scarlet" has represented Wales, is fluent in Welsh, became commercial director at the scarlets and still lives in the region.

But my personal favorite foreigner was Frano Botica, the 1st really star that signed for us in my time. I know people might pick up on the was he "Llanelli or Scarlets" but still for me he was the 1st big name signing i remember. i remembered him playing league for wigan in that great team, then couldnt believe when he signed for us. top bloke too.

The Ospreys have had some terrific NWQ players Steffan Terblanche, Jason Spice and Justin Marshall amongst them, but far and away the best has been Filo Tiatia, we have had this poll on our site and he won by a country mile.

wayne wrote:The Ospreys have had some terrific NWQ players Steffan Terblanche, Jason Spice and Justin Marshall amongst them, but far and away the best has been Filo Tiatia, we have had this poll on our site and he won by a country mile.

Terblanche was great for Ulster as well, but only for half a season which is how long he was with us. Ospreys also had Jerry Collins and Marty Holah who were both good for the Ospreys, but I would argue Tommy Bowe was as good for the Ospreys as anyone else scoring 36 trys in 77 games. Which is a better strike rate than he has for Ulster. In fact he scored more trys for the Ospreys in 77 games than he has for Ulster in 91 games. Showed real class at 13 for the Ospreys as well as at 14.

gcBlues wrote:Munk, what is your opinion of Percy Montgomery when he was at the dregs?

He was going to be my mention along with Bobby Skinstad, but before that when they were still Newport it has to be Teichman, I remember going down to Rodney Parade on a Friday night to watch Newport in the HC and he was subbed with about ten minutes or so to go because of injury and he was behind the dead ball line screaming at his team mates to dig in and keep tackling for the win, he walked off the pitch with the rest of the team who had just won, I cannot remember who it was against though.

Artful_Dodger wrote:

wayne wrote:The Ospreys have had some terrific NWQ players Steffan Terblanche, Jason Spice and Justin Marshall amongst them, but far and away the best has been Filo Tiatia, we have had this poll on our site and he won by a country mile.

Terblanche was great for Ulster as well, but only for half a season which is how long he was with us. Ospreys also had Jerry Collins and Marty Holah who were both good for the Ospreys, but I would argue Tommy Bowe was as good for the Ospreys as anyone else scoring 36 trys in 77 games. Which is a better strike rate than he has for Ulster. In fact he scored more trys for the Ospreys in 77 games than he has for Ulster in 91 games. Showed real class at 13 for the Ospreys as well as at 14.

Agree with both of those posts. More recently, Kahn Fotuali'i has been a good signing - shame he's not stuck around. We could really do with a decent scrumhalf. Ricky Januarie was very handy for O's as well when we borrowed him. As for the bad, well Jamie Nutbrown was pretty useless.

I actually posted bad stats above. Bowe has scored 40 trys for Ulster in 104 appearances and 36 for the Ospreys in 77 appearances, still a better strike rate for the Ospreys.

LordDowlais wrote:

gcBlues wrote:Munk, what is your opinion of Percy Montgomery when he was at the dregs?

He was going to be my mention along with Bobby Skinstad, but before that when they were still Newport it has to be Teichman, I remember going down to Rodney Parade on a Friday night to watch Newport in the HC and he was subbed with about ten minutes or so to go because of injury and he was behind the dead ball line screaming at his team mates to dig in and keep tackling for the win, he walked off the pitch with the rest of the team who had just won, I cannot remember who it was against though.

Are you taking the p*ss about Bobby Skinstad LD??? Big name maybe, but terrible signing. He rocked up, played a couple of games and then p*ssed off to follow business interests. Probably the worst of all our foreign signings. Clearly did not want to be here at all. Gave absolutely nothing, bar the 7 or so appearances (and a lot of them were from the bench if I remember correctly).

Going back to Newport, Adrian Garvey at prop was very good, as was Teichmann, Howarth, Montgomery, Hal Luscombe had his moments, but for me the legend that was Rod Snow had to be the best import. Absolutely fantastic!

The best import Irish rugby ever made was made by James I. You see bringing in those shower of English and Scottish Protestants in 1609? Masterstroke. The only problem is that we had a few too many NIQ players in the ranks but long term it worked out well. Big Lizzie I tried it in Munster earlier but it didn't take as well. Supposedly the imports didn't like turnips and refused to eat washed fruit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVdi_-jvB0I