Tonga Rugby League coach Kristian Woolf is confident that Michael Jennings will resist the Fiji National Rugby League approach to play for the Vodafone Fiji Bati at the Rugby League World Cup.
Jennings has assured Woolf that he remained committed to playing for Tonga at the World Cup, despite being included in Fiji’s preliminary 40‑man squad.
FNRL CEO Timoci Naleba says that Jennings has been included in the Bati’s 40‑man squad and the list was submitted by coach Mick Potter.
He adds that they respect any players decision if they choose another country with the final Fiji Bati squad to be announced after the Battle of the Bati on the 7th of next month.
Jennings qualifies for Tonga through his parents, champion high school athletes Antonio and Via, who moved to Australia before he was born, but he also has Fijian bloodlines.
The 29‑year‑old’s great grandfather was an Englishman named George Napier Jennings, who settled in the Pacific Islands and married a half‑Tongan, half‑Fijian wife, while his uncle Arthur Jennings was the first Fiji‑born player to represent the All Blacks.
Under new international eligibility rules introduced this year, a player can switch between a Tier 1 country and a Tier 2 nation for whom he also qualifies but not between two countries in the same tier if he has represented one in the previous four years.
What the tug‑of‑war over Jennings has highlighted is the depth of talent available to the Pacific nations at the World Cup, with Fiji able to call on Hayne, Vunivalu, Kevin Naiqama, Waqa Blake, Akuila Uate, John Sutton, Api Koroisau, Ashton, Korbin and Tariq Sims, Reagan Campbell‑Gillard, Kane Evans and Jayson Bukuya
Source: RLWC2017
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