londonrlfan

There's far too many teams in Sydney as it is, and Manly are already in the North. NZ 2, Perth, PNG, Victoria 2, Adelaide, Fiji, Central Queensland, Darwin should all come before another Sydney team.

Probably very little numbers or you'd see more heritage players. Mal Meninga is of Solomon Islands heritage apparently. The NRL should pay for development officers for the next ten years or so, and the likes of Meninga go over and do coaching sessions, play an NRL trial game etc. Similar to what's been happening in Fiji. There's real potential for RL there.

Lebanon would good, and also opens the sport to a new audience.

If you read Damien's posts, Ireland have no interest in developing the sport and just want to pick heritage players. So why should they get money that the RFL don't have?

Ireland and Scotland, who else?

The Solomon Islands is a strange one. Over 700k population, bigger than Tonga, Samoa and CI combined, not a big union nation and right next to PNG. We should targeting it over the next twenty years or so to make RL the number one sport. LOL just had a read of the rah rah in Solomon Islands wiki page.

I said before they should step away from the top level and work on development first. It's highly unlikely either will make the next two WCs anyway, so they could spend the next decade building with genuine development, before returning to WCQ.

There was so much potential with Jamaica with the large Jamaican and Caribbean diaspora in England, but as usual, it was completely wasted.

Completely agree. Though with more Kiwis and Pacific Islanders in the NRL, Origin starts to lose its status anyway.

Not sure "we beat Samoa in 3 match series" sells, or is as exciting, as "we won the xxxxx Cup". There's no reason why RL can't have a second major tournament alongside the WC, especially with the improvement from the Pacific nations.

I reckon there must be plenty of Marketing graduates fresh out of Uni who could do a better job of marketing the sport than the RFL. We should use Eric Perez more to sell big events/internationals.

Having a competitive international team is the last thing that should be focused on. That's why RL has got itself into a position reliant on heritage players, as no groundwork was done before having internationals. I didn't say Wales don't have that. In fact in my first post I asked why they're always lumped in alongside Scotland and Ireland as a heritage. You have to remember Wales is a small country and they're not a top side in any sport. So it shouldn't come as a surprise they're not a top side in RL either. They're a success as they produce their own players and are not reliant on heritage players, the same as PNG, Fiji, France.

By growth I mean have a regular domestic competition, schools and youth development, have players from their country playing in other countries' domestic competition etc. It seems you base growth from the top downwards, rather than start from the bottom. That idea has got RL into the position it's now in.

Thanks, that's pretty much what I expected. Yet the sport is happy to reward that it seems.

So what do the governing bodies do then? How comes other countries have managed to grow the sport without any help from the RFL?

Did you ask them about their plans for development?

I wouldn't give either of them any money, until they start showing genuine youth development there. Otherwise it'll be wasted on getting more Aussie heritage players for a game of two. I'd rather money went to Nigeria, who have 2000 schoolkids learning and playing the sport.

The NRL's hatred of internationals is really dumb, since it's the one thing they really have over the AFL.

Bringing back GB isn't going to grow the sport in Scotland and Ireland. I doubt any of them will even know or care about it either.

Scotland and Ireland should be looking to get players into the French league, as Serbia have done. Then look to League One and the Championship, before hopefully SL in a decade or so.

GB were brought back and Regan Grace wasn't picked. It'll be the exact same team as the current England team, so completely pointless.

That sums it up. There's obviously no interest in developing the sport there, so they need to stop being rewarded. Especially at expense of countries who are genuinely growing the game.

I meant at youth level, not the first team. We need more youth internationals in Europe. England, France, Wales, Serbia, Ukraine, Czech Republic should all be playing each other in a U20 and U18 Euros every year. But whenever there's a youth tournament, Scotland, Ireland and Italy are always picked, despite having zero youth development. Picking a bunch of union players and playing one game isn't youth development.

I don't know why Wales are always lumped in with Scotland and Ireland, when there's genuine development there. Ireland and Scotland should step back from internationals for a little while, and focus on development and youth development more importantly. If the likes of Serbia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Jamaica, Nigeria etc can do youth development, why can't they? For too long they've been rewarded for no development, simply because they're a union nation. Ronan Michael should be the captain and face of Irish RL, but they picked heritage players over him at the WC, which showed how much they care for development. Wales should be facing France, Jamaica, England regularly and I'd like to see them go down under outside of a WC and face the likes of Fiji, PNG, Tonga etc. I think they do should do u20s tours of the likes of Serbia, Greece, Czech Republic, Netherlands too.

Scotland, Ireland and Italy certainly don't. The likes of Czech Republic, Nigeria and Ghana seen to meet the criteria but are only associate members.