Luckycreed

I thought Tonga did have the better of it in the second half, they forced three line drop outs, Australia none, they just lacked the class to turn pressure into points, that was the difference between them and New Zealand last week. The other difference between Tonga and New Zealand was goal line defence.New Zealand won last weeks test in the first ten minutes after half time. Australia pounded their line after a clean break from Mitchell but came up empty.That was the turning point in the game, Tongan defence can't handle that kind of pressure at this point in time.

Well I can't comment on that because I don't know what the relationship between the RFL and Superleague is, and I also don't know what the relationship between the ARL and the NRL is .Although my guess is the ARL just rubber stamp what the NRL ask for. I knew how the game down here was structured pre 1995.and through the Murdoch years but exactly how it works since Murdoch jumped ship I am not entirely sure. In theory it was going to be run like the AFL with an independent commission running the sport from top to bottom but from the outside looking in it appears the NRL clubs have taken back control, of the sport, in other words the pre Murdoch set up has more or less returned

I think what he means is at least in theory international football and indeed interstate football is the territory of the ARL not the NRL although exactly how the two bureaucracies interact these day's I wouldn't have the foggiest.

I have been looking at historical attendance trends, but it is very difficult to compare figures for a sixteen team league with a twelve team league as the old sixteen team League had a much longer "tail" and the "glamour" clubs of whatever era where only meeting twice rather than three times in a season.Also prior to 1973 it was a thirty to thirty two team league split into two geographic "conferences " making comparisons even harder. I think what we can conclusively say was there was a big drop in Rugby League attendances during the second half of the sixties, quite dramatic actually, figures bottomed out in the early seventies and then started picking up again but never back to the glory days of the fifties and early sixties. The situation since the late seventies has remained pretty constant, those clubs in the top five or six spots on the ladder pull decent enough crowds and everyone else struggles,The names at the top have changed a bit over the years but the general trend has remained the same, with no doubt the odd exception to the rule here and there.

Also sky viewing figures , the most important number of all, but he won't have bee in the job long enough to have a big influence on any of that, but he will have a two year "work up" leading into the next pay tv rights deal. that will be his baby.

The time to judge him, and the new boss of the RFL will be when ink hits paper on the next broadcasting agreement with numbers rather than words being the metrics used to make the judgement.

Australia also miss Matt Scott and Paul Gallen, we are a bit weak up front at the moment, we are one really good prop short,.

Actually limited over cricket was an English invention it appeared on the county scene before it made it to Australia.Kerry Packer pioneered day night cricket, but limited over cricket was not an Australian innovation.

2014 /2015 Actually Harry We lost the four nations final to New Zealand in Wellington, and then they beat us again in the "ANZAC" test in 2015. In fact they also beat us in the opening game of the 2014 four nations meaning they took three straight tests off us only the second time they had ever beaten Australia in three straight tests (they beat us 3 - 0 in a series back in the early fifties) We lost two in a row to Great Britain in 1970 the 2nd and 3rd tests both at the Sydney Cricket ground.Great Britain beat us three times in a row that year as they beat us in Leeds during the 1970 World Cup. Australia went into the final of that tournament as outsiders but broke the losing steak beating a Great Britain in what was supposedly (I have never seen any footage) a very violent game even by 1970 standards.

The vast majority of Brits also have zero interest in Rugby League, the current system was ok for a semi pro game, but there just are not enough clubs with large enough supporter bases for a Soccer type set up to be viable with the game trying to be full time pro. .The second tier has to be fully professional if the top tier is and the sport has to be culturally dominant enough that if a team slips into the second tier it doesn't damage the sports popularity in that teams catchment area or the whole thing is too unstable.I don't follow soccer but lets say I dunno Stoke get relegated., bad luck for poor old Stoke but Football will be still be king of the kids there. Lets look at Rugby League and take an extreme example.Lets imagine Leeds were to have a shocking season with injuries, the players fall out with the coach, morale falls away and they run last and get punted.,The very same year Leeds United finally get their stuff together and win their way back into the big dance, it could be goodnight nurse for Rugby League in Leeds. There will 5k at Headingley and 35k at Elland Rd.Leeds United will be getting beamed to a billion people across the globe while Leeds Rugby are not even on pay tv ,who the hell would want to put a single penny of sponsorship into Leeds Rugby League.,All very unlikely but the way game is currently structured it could happen.. English Rugby League is just not robust enough for this kind of structure the games supporter base is too small and beyond a handful of clubs too fragmented . You have a got about eight clubs at the most with large enough support for full time football with a structure that is constantly threatening to reduce that number via relegation and really needs about twenty four to be viable, . That is why the game over there restructures every other year, in a futile attempt to make four plus four equal a number greater than ten.

This Australian ream looks very similar to the one that played in the 2014 four nations and lost both games to New Zealand the opening game at Lang Park 30 -14 and the final in Wellington 22 - 18.From memory we beat England narrowly in a game where the rub of the green went our way big time.. This Australian team is very beatable but you just never quite no what you are going to get from the kiwis they remind me of that old nursery rhyme "when she's good she's very good , but when she's bad she's horrid."New Zealand by 20 Australia by 30 neither result would shock me. As far as the next big thing in the Australian game I disagree with Dunbar about Munster, I still remember him making his origin debut in the deciding game in 2017 and he was absolutely dominant, best player on the field,by a mile, it was like watching Wally Lewis in his prime.. Didn't quite come up as well as I expected this year but he showed glimpses of it, the pieces haven't quite fallen into place yet but they will and when they do we are going to see one hell of a footballer..

The issue in Australia isn't with the players it is with the games supporters.They just expect Australia to win and don't get excited when it happens, and when Australia lose there is this " that is the shot in the arm the international game needs"kind of sentiment rather than deep distress about it. While if you are playing interstate football for QLD you know the whole of the QLD Rugby League community and beyond to people who don't even follow the NRL desperately want you to win. When QLD lose it's like a really nasty toothache that lingers for days. I can't even imagine what playing for QLD must be like, probably a bit like playing for the All Blacks I guess,

i can't comment on what would happen in England but if Australia were touring this year instead of New Zealand and you took the series, and then two years later you were coming down here to try and hold on to the"ashes" we would be getting state of origin type tv ratings for at least the first two tests. The truth is international Rugby League down here was always about Anglo Australian football, the Kiwis were never big draw cards, the Frenchmen were in the forties and fifties but interest in them fell away during the sixties.After the hard fought series in 1990 the 92 gb tour was huge right up there with origin and you didn't even win in 1990 , one series win is all it would take,

Beating Australia in a best of three series is a more testing assignment than winning a world cup, so deep down I very much doubt that.The Rugby League world cup is boring, too much filler Australia are still flogging some unfortunate in the semi final. I find tournament football boring. I think it's a cultural thing. Britain is a soccer culture and in that sport the international game means big biannual tournaments with lots of countries and people on here want international league to look like soccer or six nations Rugby. But of course it can't replicate either of them it doesn't have the depth of soccer and there is only one and a half countries in Europe where the game has any kind of following so it can't replicate the six nations, but it could replicate ashes cricket which last time I checked was still doing good business. I grew up in a Rugby League, cricket culture were international sport meant test series with the odd world cup chucked in for a bit of novelty value.I was very happy with the way the international game was structured up until 1995 ever since then it has been a dogs breakfast full of meaningless tournaments that are forgotten within seconds of them finishing Eighty years of tradition being flushed down the toilet would be ok if what replaced it had the international game thriving, but it's not, it's all over the shop Tonga and Samoa are simply the product of migration patterns nothing to do with growth in the international game

I think of you asked any British player or indeed most English Rugby League supporters what their ultimate moment would be, it would be to knock off Australia in a best of three series.