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The benefits of a 10-team World Cup far outweigh any perceived disadvantages from having 5 teams per pool.

Why? What's the problem? The Rugby Union World Cup does it with no issues.

I like a 10-team RLWC, I have always favoured this. Two 5-team groups followed by semis and finals would be the ideal format. I'm not sure why so many want a bloated 16-team tournament filled with teams made up of reserve-grade Australians. 10 teams also offers the possibility of some decent qualifying tournaments that add excitement.

As others have commented, I won't believe a Kangaroos tour until they are running out on the hallowed turf of Leigh Sports Village.

Really the only important detail missing from this is how many games Leigh Sports Village is hosting.

Port Moresby is a sh*thole, nobody would go there. Auckland has a tough enough time recruiting players, can you imagine getting guys to live in Port Moresby where players would have to stay in a guarded compound and never venture out except for work?

We can solve the issue of French teams and attendance by simply moving the Challenge Cup Final to Nice or Barcelona. The English fans will show up anyway for a bit of fun in the sun, and the French fans will show up if their teams are playing close to home.

Perhaps a good plan for Odsal is bulldozing most of it and renovating the still standing sections? Easier to maintain 10,000 seats than 25,000 seats.

The problem with the approach of just organizing things without Australia onboard is that increasingly, the other SH teams like New Zealand, Samoa won't do anything wither without NRL approval. The international boards of these countries are basically one guy in a cubicle, they have no money or power over anything. Rugby League has no international game or infrastructure, it is a club-run game that sporadically organizes international games.

The Andorran rugby union team saw some success in the late 1990s making it through to the second round of world cup qualifiers and beating some more fancied teams along the way like Sweden and Hungary.

Until this season I wouldn't have said he has come up against great Queensland sides, he has lost a couple of series that NSW had no business losing. Queensland were ripe for the picking post Slater, Thurston, Cronk, Smith.

Most of us know what is needed for the international game to have credibility, unfortunately the decision-makers don't really care. People talking about RL surpassing RU in the Pacific or anywhere else are kidding themselves as long as the game remains in its current state. For all the enthusiasm around Tonga, Samoa, etc they rarely play and never at home. In RU these teams have games and tournaments scheduled years in advance.

Worst possible result for NSW, this will probably convince them that Fittler and Greg Alexander deserve another go-around.

There really isn't an international board. I don't think they do much of anything beyond the odd zoom meeting.

The prolonged CBA negotiations will no doubt lead to a cancellation of any international RL tournament at the end of the season. Any chance this could affect the Tongan tour? The Tongan team is essentially just NRL guys pitching up, I don't think the national body does much of anything. I often think Rugby League deserves the status it has, the game as a whole rarely gets anything right and is incapable of planning long term on an international level.

Watching on a device is the same as tv given we live in the age of screen sharing/mirroring from iPads to TVs.

England - Wembley Australia - North Sydney Oval New Zealand - Carlaw Park

They also aren't interested in increasing the earnings of minimum wage professional RL players, they mostly only care about the big names at the top.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nrl-premiership/nrl-2023-rlpa-calls-player-media-boycott-over-collective-bargaining-agreement-latest-news-nrl/news-story/8c3ecffb174b49b6c3cbce93266fe98c I'm guessing this makes international RL downunder even less likely this season. Tonga touring England is looking like a good decision at this stage.

Rugby League in France has zero media presence outside of Occitanie. It really is quite a small sport in the country. I would say the comparison to handball is accurate.

Luai has played like ###### and has no passion for NSW. This is the problem with reducing Origin teams to guys who don't want to represent Australia. Origin should be Australian players only.

NSW lacks the passion of Queensland. Queensland players want to play for Queensland, NSW players simply want to play Origin - big difference! Do guys like Luai and To'o bleed blue? I doubt it. Pangai certainly doesn't, he is a self-professed Queensland fan!

What is the salary floor?

Seeing Paul Kent tell Ben Ikin how players prepare for State of Origin was always a classic. I think Ikin probably knows a thing or two about Origin preparations.

NRL360 is particularly embarrassing if you watch AFL360. The AFL version is actually hosted by someone who is thoughtful and does his research. The NRL version is just idiot journalists yelling over each other. Kent has particularly frustrating views on the international game, including saying that he didn't think Tonga and Samoa's success and hype with the fans was a positive for the game - he thought they were a non-factor and irrelevant to the NRL. It was depressing to hear one of the more prominent commentators in the code claim that the game would be better off with no internationals.