Exiled Wiganer

Great build up, great finish, and great kick. Smith has had a great start.

Next week will be very different. The Kiwis will leave nothing out there. The Kangaroos did what they always do - they challenge their opponents to be on it for every tackle for 80 minutes. If not, they hurt you. The Kiwis will be at home, with a full house, and no fear. It should be an absolute classic.

Kristian Woolfe is one of the best things in our game. He is so professional, and thinks so deeply about the Tonga identity. He is the beating heart of this Tonga side. It would not be the end of the world for them to win and set up winners take all.

There should be an appetite for internationals in Hull. But they have had awful crowds over and over in the World Cup games they bid for.

When you have built a (v successful) career on running as hard as you can into the defence, there is only so long before it takes its toll.

It’s a funny world when Johnstone is our most durable winger.

Looking at the squad, there are clearly a lot of good players who were unavailable. Plus, comparing this squad with the World Cup, we have a lot of new players to integrate. To beat that Tonga side against that backdrop is some achievement. I would happily see Young come in (though Makinson is a terrific player, so the difference isn’t huge). I would like us to try Dupree and Mulhearn replacing Lees and Hill, and think Farrell is at least as good over as this version of Whitehead. Only the English would ban as important a player as Williams.

He was educated in wigan, so only to be expected.

Great match. Tonga are a superb side, and to beat them any which way is a great result. To do so with a sense of real jeopardy right to the end is even better. England are not far off being a very good side. One of the good things is that there are alternatives in pretty much every position for England. So looking forward to next week. I think both sides have a lot of improvement in them. International football on BBC1. Life is good on days like these.

Come on England! And, of course, Tonga!

I don’t. There is an air of reality, and understanding of the potential, across the major international nations, that has been hard earned. After the last World Cup, we had a range of options as a game, and the strategy - if it can be called that - is unapologetically to engineer opportunities for the best international teams to focus on playing each other, year in and year out. This has coincided with a world in which we have 11/12 nations who either have pro clubs or competitive teams. That we have a mouth watering series in the NH while the 2 strongest international rugby sides prepare to play each other back to back over the next 2 weekends. The SH market is different from ours - we love RL and embrace it internationally over and over again, whereas Down Under they understand the game so well they won’t be enthusiastic about exile teams like Italy (with respect to the amateurs who fly the flag locally). But they know quality when they see it - and this Kiwi team is quality. Meanwhile, back to Tonga v England!

NZ now have the chance to stake their claim yet again to be the team to beat Australia in a tournament, and they look good enough to do it. Bearing in mind how close they got in that glorious World Cup semi last year, and that they will play the final in their home nation, these next 2 games will be huge. They have made it clear they want to host future World Cups - with the Warriors going from strength to strength, this feels like their time.

I know this thread was restricted to the 3 teams, and the men’s tournament, but I would like to highlight how important the Orchids are to the game over in PNG. They are fantastic national role models.

There is a cross code forum. The Kiwis and the Warriors are having a great year. They have their own style of play, seen to perfection at times this morning. Last year’s Roos Kiwis game was the finest game of rugby played last year. I have an inkling the Kiwis could win this tournament. Samoa have a lot of very fine players and went toe for toe with the Kangaroos for much of last week. From where I was sitting, they are some side.

I appreciate there is a doom scrollers’ thread already on this, but I thought it would be worth starting one about the games. Seeing the style and flair with which the Kiwis set about their job today, we are set up for a spell binding couple of weeks in this tournament. With the Warriors taking pride of place as every discerning Kiwis’ favourite club side, and with a World Cup likely down there.next door in 2026, these are great times for our game in those parts. Ours is a hard game, and their display today showed all the hallmarks of toughness and flair we look for from their best teams. These next 2 weeks should be spell binding.

Indeed. I was wondering, have you been on here with a different name, or indeed, names, in the past?

Welsby would be a better England captain than Farrell. Full back is a great place to have a captain, and maybe the responsibility will concentrate his mind somewhat.

We need people like this committed all day every day to the Kangaroos.

They need people who wake every day and think about the Kangaroos, not as an after thought to their NRL responsibilities. Selling the Kangaroos should be simple. They are the finest rugby players on the planet. Until that happens, we will have no idea what their potential market is. One day it will happen. In fact, give me a few years, and I will have a go myself.

I hesitate to counter your firmly held opinion, but I was in a section with a fair few neutrals, and everyone seemed to enjoy it immensely. I hope to re watch it soon, but it was a compelling arm wrestle until the dam broke, and then a great exercise in controlling the game. It held my attention more intently than a fair few higher scoring “your turn, our turn” games. The CC final was very different, a superb game between 2 (if their performance over the year is a guide) slightly lower quality but still excellent and most importantly well matched teams. I thought Saturday’s game was fine, for those with or without a stake in it as leaguies, but would also have looked like a proper event to casual viewers - curtesy of over 40k Wiganers - and had enough skill and tension to hold the attention. The group that would not have enjoyed it at all were the anyone but Wigan group. And, as an anyone but Saints gold member, I get that. I have not done a vox pop, so cannot comment definitively of course.

You are younger than me. We have 6 nations in 2 side by side competitions in the SH. While England play Tonga in a 3 match series up here. While dozens of other nations play games at an amateur level. As a game we have come a long way.

It’ll be fine. Build the brand, sell the events, tell the stories. We have the greatest game. These are the first steps after many years of neglect. It will grow and grow. When I started watching, a tournament on this scale was an impossible dream.

But have they said it enough? I don’t know what it looked like to a neutral, and haven’t re watched it properly yet, but it was tense and then magnificent from where we were sitting. Plus, the atmosphere was absolutely cracking at the ground, far better than I expected. I hope that came over.

Out of interest, did you used to post on here with another name?

For Penrith, we are likely to be able to field a fit and firing Thompson and Havard, plus our motivation is likely to be higher than theirs. I would not under estimate our chances. That said, back in the real world, I can only see it in the range of a very narrow backs to the wall wigan win to a 40 point Penrith one. Saints’ win was definitely in my highlights of the year, as it mean the NRL = GODS crowd had to give their heads a wobble for a while.