Exiled Wiganer

Saints Cats Leeds Wire Hull Hull KR Wigan Huddersfield Cas Salford Toulouse Trinity I am pretty confident as to which teams will be in each block of 4, but not that confident as to how they will finish within those blocks. With Wigan, honestly it could be anywhere between 1st and 12th. We should know pretty soon after the Wire pre season game and the HKR and Leeds matches how they’ll go. Among the good sides, Leeds’ squad looks really good, and all eyes will be on what Powell can do with more resources available to him.

If Farnworth jumps ship for the Dark Side, will there be counselling available for everyone on here affected by the loss?

DNFTT.

There is some serious Samoan talent. I wonder whether they might have a different coach by then, in which case it could be a very dangerous game for England.

I disagree. Our game has a long tradition of considering international competition to be the pinnacle of the game. We have never before been in a position where one competition has such financial power and influence it can take anybody from anywhere. We have never before been in a position in which a league can dictate if and when any internationals are played. The scenario of doom for the game outside Australia is one in which they sign up any talented youngsters and all of the top talent, play them or hoard them (and they will soon have 18 clubs, so the potential for both is clearly there), while the world outside is left with the scraps. Having successfully gone “nah, don’t fancy it” to this year’s World Cup, next time it will be even easier. Give them a couple of years and they will have their own international calendar, with England and France “allowed” to arrange their own fixtures not including any NRL players. As a sport, we will have become the NFL. Which might be sort of ok as far as long time fans like us are concerned, as we can sell tickets, and pay some decent quality players, but we can forget anyone ever seeing a Hanley or Schofield, a Boston or a Myler playing most of their careers over here. Losing our quality youngsters is even more pernicious than our top players being cherry picked. But we better get used to it, because they have the money and, like the former President used to say to inspire his fans, they will use it to build a wall around themselves.

A young player drain adds to the senior player drain to a competition whose strategy is to place itself first, above the rest of the sport, with no interest in the wider game. Hence no World Cup, and no 2022 WCC. They are a threat to everybody looking to play or watch the game anywhere outside the NRL.

Am being slow here, but as this thread has become completely trollified, how do I ignore them again (can’t seem to work that out from my phone)?

I suspect a bit of DNFTT is called for on this thread.

I tend not to respond to AFL trolls, but in this case I will make an exception. This is complete nonsense - all of PNG, Tonga, Samoa, France, Fiji or Wales have played profitable internationals in front of 5 figure crowds without NZ and Aus. Indeed, we could have run a superb tournament with those teams. plus England, had we had a year’s notice that they could not be bothered coming. You could sell many 10s of thousands of tickets for a Tonga - England series (which I would much prefer to playing NZ), and every game would be a classic. This down playing of the rest of the world is wilful ignorance/stupidity. It’s like the poster who dismisses the 4 minutes notice as “shabby”. No, it is far far worse than that - it entirely exploded the tournament for no benefit to anyone (unless the NRL considers every other nation suffering to be a benefit).

But they don’t need to destroy the rest of the world to achieve their aims. They could, instead, ask for control of TV rights for all Aussie games and bundle them into their TV deal. They could put a price on developing players across the Pacific. They could make a list of the things that the IRL does in which they have no interest, and the game can form a view as to how the money would be raised to keep those going (eg funding the ERL). The IRL and other bodies have 2 very different roles - acting as a not for profit development tool for new countries and forms of the game across the world, and organising internationals. The 2 could easily be separated. There is an adult conversation to be had, which has not been had, and that is to everyone’s detriment.

But even if they do, the key point here is that they have the power and the influence to bring that about. It really wouldn’t take much for them to say to the rest of the world “we think that we can make more money and run a better International Board than the current people” and make that happen. As long as they have a vision for the whole international game, and are prepared to invest in developing the game around the world, as well as putting in place an interesting international calendar, then we could well be better off. Instead, everything they have done recently suggests that they would prefer to have no international games at all. I have seen absolutely nothing constructive from them before and since they exploded the World Cup.

I have tried to follow your train of thought, but i am really struggling to see what the point your trying to make is. If it’s NRL have loads of money and the Aussies never lose so they view the international game differently from us, then, err, yes that’s so. I think that would be worth a separate thread, but what this thread is about (without being presumptuous) is THIS World Cup and what they have done over to the rest of the game in the last 3 weeks. If their view has always been exactly as you describe, then they should have raised this in one of the dozens of meetings they attended, seeing first hand the real live thousands of hours spent by hundreds of people to put this together. They could have saved everyone a great deal of trouble by withdrawing at any time earlier than when they chose to do so - on 4 minutes notice. Pretty much everyone on this thread knows the reality of where the power resides, what matters here is how that power has been exercised. By all means, though, start a thread on reasons why the Aussies are justified in viewing the rest of the world with contempt. I think that would be an interesting discussion point.

I did not miss your point at all. I was drawing out that this issue today is around a particular set of facts at a particular time. There are lots of reasons why the NRL might think as they do, but those issues have been around for years. It is not inevitable that a league, or any group of people behaves appallingly, and seeks to damage everyone in sight for no reason. The NRL could have pulled the plug on this any time in the last 5 years, but chose their moment with complete disregard for the rest of the sport. This isn’t a debate about player release, or the balance of power, or even the timetable for the international game, this is naked bullying of the worst sort.

I think we are in danger of mixing up a few things here. It is possible to argue that the Australians are justified in feeling that international RL is not to their benefit, and it is possible to argue that they would be better running the whole show. If that’s what you want to argue, start a new thread on it. Indeed, there could even be one about the NFL/NHL approach. These are important points. What this thread concerns is the here and now - an actual World Cup, in which the ARL has been front and centre for each month for the last 5 years. At any point, they could have made it clear that withdrawal was a possibility. Instead, they got to 4 seconds to midnight and then exploded the tournament, bringing NZRL with them. Even their “the Aussies are the great ones, and you are all losers” posters on this thread do not dispute that. They did not consult their own players, and they did not engage in a dialogue prior to their announcement. There is no other way of looking at that than that it was a betrayal of the international game, and to borrow Dutton’s word, it treated the organisers with “contempt”. As far as everyone else in the international game is concerned, they are worse off as a consequence - every other nation playing our game. Plus, hundreds of paid and unpaid tireless workers have had their work trashed and traduced, on no notice. The game has to find a way to move on, but just because you’re big enough to smash everyone else’s head in doesn’t mean that’s the right thing to do.

I would let it go if I were you. Or disappear to the Guardian for a bit.

We now know where we stand. The Aussies are not playing the same sport, and will go out of their way to destroy us. We are back where we were in 1895, but the strength of our game has got us through in the past and will do so again. I have watched a lot of sport recently but was absorbed and thrilled by the Wire Leeds game in a way I had not been by pretty much anything (aside from Cav’s resurrection at the Tour). We are facing an existential threat, and need to do everything we can to keep our own flags flying.

The previous page had an excellent article, which looks on the money. What it doesn’t draw out is that it’s actually even worse than that, as the NRL/ARL could have done this at any time at all over the last 10 years. The reality is that the money and the power has resided with them for a long long time. Given that not only are they masters of their own fate they control the media which reports on them, they could have made half a dozen phone calls at any point in time and achieved the same goal without detonating the work of hundreds of true leaguies around the world. if it was ignorance, that would be inexcusable, if it was contempt (to borrow John’s word) then that would show them for the sorts of people they are, but this deliberately malicious destruction of the hopes and dreams of the rest of the international community must surely be without precedent in any sport at any time. Until this year, what France went through was the lowest point for our game. But that was a different sport, seeking to destroy a competitor… here it’s the Red Wedding.

“The World Cup is the only event which has kept the IRL afloat...” That is completely disingenuous. The World Cup makes the money which supports the international game (with its 60 odd members). It is the most successful event the game has had in over 100 years, and has allowed many players to play for their countries and many countries to benefit. As well as that, it generates enough money to subsidise the rest of the calendar. “And it is in jeopardy.” Because of the 4 minute warning NRL. So, to tweak this for accuracy, the World Cup has been an unqualified success, allowing the IG to grow as never before, and so we will crush it.

I won’t be watching the NRL any time soon, but of course each ti their own. We should put NRL threads into cross code, given that they have their own rules on and off the pitch.

I don’t know how to answer that, as it doesn’t bear any relation to the facts we are dealing with here.

He answered these questions in his interview.

He was central to 2013, so has already delivered a successful World Cup. He is superb, and a man of integrity, as well as working all day every day for our game.

Which is true. And they may not. Indeed they probably don’t. But they are big enough and strong enough to present their case. The key people in this are the players - what do they want to happen? How much does international football matter to them? If enough of them care, then even the NRL ought to take that into account. If instead none of them cares and they only want to play SoO, then we are left with a potential SL and semi pro international game. I suspect plenty of them would like to play, and the NRL knows this, because they didn’t ask them in advance, but let’s have a proper debate.

Err, we are talking about a game, not another series of Succession. They could have easily taken over the international game without destroying it first.

Which in a way is fine, if that’s the reality. They have had years to work out how they want to use their power, and come up with a plan. Their approach, lest we forget, was instead to wait till 4 minutes to midnight to explode a tournament on which the world game was entirely dependent. I have no particular issue with the NRL’s argument that they develop the players, and that they should have a major say in the international game. Let’s have an open debate around that, and involve the players. How about let’s not destroy the IRL, the RFL and the hopes and plans of developing the international game for the next 4 years while we are going about it.