Sports Prophet

My format had 20 nations competing. More than the current formats. I think you need to review the format I suggested if you think I am minimising the number of nations. I am not a fan of contracting the World Cup, just playing it in a non convoluted manner that still sees the best playing the best.

Exactly my point. In the last World Cup out of a potential six different matchups of the top four ranked nations we got just one, Australia v NZ. A whole World Cup went by with just one top 4 matchup! That’s ridiculous. My format sees the top six nations all play each other once for sixteen high quality fixtures.

What is there to ridicule? 16 of the best possible 16 fixtures with the best nations all playing each other. Are you ridiculing the idea?

I’m with you. I hate these unequal groups and farcical seeded and non seeded groups or groups of different sizes. As @Damien said, fans have ridiculed these convoluted formats when we have done them in the past and now this author on The Roar wants to bring it back, albeit as his own unique idea lol. I maintain, the best way to get the most evenly contested and best quality fixtures is to round robin the top nations. Six nations round robin and a final is 16 high quality fixtures. The top four ranked all auto qualify while the next 16 play knockout down to two immediately prior to round robin, for another 14 evenly matched fixtures.

Bar Richard Lewis in my opinion.

God help us for the 2025 WC. I think it is going to be an absolute farce. Enough to keep the Aussies away from the NH for another 8 yrs until the next World Cup is there.

Socceroos hardly disgraced. Had a couple of very good chances late to send it to extra time.

I reckon it hasn’t been updated yet, because that is impossibly accurate. Threadbare organisation forgot one of the basics in I think.

Pardon, my mistake. In which case, there is no “if” about it, no one will stop Lebanon playing internationals at the end of season.

I laughed out loud as well

It’s a reasonably good concept, but would need more than 2 games a week in the group stages to come in less than 7 weeks for the finalists. You are still missing out on more of the best playing the best like a six team round robin with a final. Pre qualify nations 5-20 3 weeks prior with knockout footy to find 2 nations to join the top four. 30 games where the best play the best and the mediocre play the mediocre.

there are plenty of opportunities for juniors to play junior rugby union on a weekend in Sydney. So if the migrants came from ru backgrounds, why isn’t ru blossoming from the migration factor? I think you are over estimating the strength of schoolboy RL as well. From my experience in Sydney, the organisation of it all (apart from about 16 Christian schools) is deplorable. That may have changed in the last 20 years and I hope it has, although unlikely. I attended one of those 16 Christian schools and we played weekly sport against other Christian schools in our competition (MCC). It wasn’t just footy, it was soccer, basketball all sorts of sports, all against the one school and then another school the following week. Five years ago, MCC competition did not have teams at all ages, varying schools, it was a bit of a mess compared to my playing days.

Yep RP, an mid season international window from the NRL is a pipe dream if they are not playing themselves.

Correct. When players improve due to playing experience, that is based on a week to week programme. The club game is the foundation. Internationals are the cherry on top.

I pretty much agree with all of your post except this bit. There is a persistent trend on this forum to think the NRL are an undermining authority on the international game. Any suggestion that the NRL took a deliberate decision to undermine the 2021 WC is frankly ridiculous. There is simply no rationale behind the theory. If the NRL were trying to undermine the WC, then why did the Kangaroos participate in 2022? Because they had to? They didn’t “have to” in 2022, anymore than they “had to” in 2021. So that theory does not stack up. Whether individuals agree with the NRLs validity to skip the 2021 WC due to COVID is simply of no consequence. Nor does the fact that other sports conducted internationals at the same time bare any consequence. The fact is the NRL saw a highly likely threat to the health of its contracted players. If other organisations felt that the health risk to tens of millions of dollars in playing assets was less than the benefit of participation, then that is down to those organisations and their own risk management. I dare not think how an Australian RL population still living in lock down would have viewed the NRL, had they committed to 2021 and as a result, dozens of players contracted COVID. The risk was credible and that is all there is to the matter.

Sorry, maybe Indidnt present it well. What I meant was, let’s play an international game of RL where there are plenty of partying people that could be likely to spend another €10 entry fee to continue the party one night on the weekend. I hope that sounds less horrendous, otherwise you are lost to me on this one.

You know what, I love that. Follow the Tour for a fortnight or three weeks if possible, to play evening SL fixtures at venues on end of stage weekends (if suitable) that draws on fans of the tour that want to have a bit of extra carnival fun on a Friday/Saturday/Sunday night. I'm not lycra enough to known if that's even possible, but if you could extend the carnival atmosphere of another event, especially in France, sounds like a bit of fun and a chance to leverage the power of a worldwide event. On consecutive weekends, across the world, you could see hundreds of fans in their SL footy team colours, celebrating the end of a tour stage. Imagine that, a bunch of Rhinos fans and a bunch of Saints fans (or replace either with any other SL club) waving flags in merch around the finish line of a tour stage before a large group head to the local stadium to watch Catalan/Touslouse play a SL match. Sounds like fun to me.

That is a hurdle Dave, but population does not necessarily account for success. Sooner or later, those Welsh and French players will stream regularly into the other SL clubs. In my opinion, it only takes a core of 5-6 very good players and then another 7-8 good players to make a competitive international outfit that can win on the day. I think NZ prove that.

That surprises me little. Australia Day wasn’t much to write home about either until it was turned into a public holiday by the government in the early 80s.

Migration is a very influential factor yes, but that is only an opportunity. The NRL is responsible for the delivery of an attractive product for those communities to participate, enjoy and succeed in. If it was as simple as migration, why hasn’t migration produced the same dramatic improvement for Fiji, Samoa and Tonga in RU? It cannot be denied, a weekly opportunity to make a very worthy living playing NRL is responsible for the growth of the Pacific nations.

I think there is a lot to be said for embracing the national days. Not that St George’s and St David’s Day are either celebrated with the same national fervour as Bastille Day, but perhaps that is a great angle. Turn those dates into something unique to RL in England and Wales that they become big events and dates that RL owns, much in the same way Essendon and Collingwood draw 85-90k a year (a concept the two clubs developed themselves) and Roosters and St George draw 35-40k a year on Anzac Day.

I actually do believe that ring fencing a second French team and a Welsh team will make all the difference. It will take the club game that can offer over 25 competitive games a season to give players in France and Wales the opportunity to fast track their development. Four or five international fixtures every year will achieve sweet FA in growing a competitive European international game.

Careful Dave, I presented a similar argument around the NRL being responsible for the growth in performance of the Pacific nations (as if there was any other organisation responsible anyway), it was met with comments like, “yeah, but the NRL only target Pacific players to improve the NRL, not to improve the Pacific international game”. I know you don’t share that sentiment, but there will be plenty who agree with what you said above, but if the shoe was on the other foot, would only have disdain for the NRL. Unfortunately it will take the millions you say are required to grow the game outside the heartland and with every heartbeat, it will only get even more expensive to bring the likes of Wales and France up to the standard of England. The greatest shame of it all is that there have been opportunities with PSG and Crusaders that had they been persevered with, I expect there would be a very strong France and a Welsh team not too far behind. Instead, both opportunities were squandered by British authorities and the other club bosses.

It is a borough or municipality of Brisbane. We’ve all been through this before. When I ask the odd that says they’re from Brisbane, I like to ask them where Redcliffe is. Overwhelmingly, the answer is it’s North Brisbane or the North of Brisbane.

His kicking and passing will be spot on. He will still be well accustomed to choosing the correct option and creating line breaks with his running and passing game. I think there are many positions other than fullbacks and wingers that have potential to convert in either direction. The sharks made a great signing of RU 7s Lachlan Miller at age 27. He played league until age 22 but not at NRL standard. Spent 5 yrs on the 7s circuit. Now he finds himself on the verge of pushing out Will Kennedy from FB after injury gave Miller his opportunity. A union scrum half should have some good transferable skills to wear the 9 jersey in league. The fly half should be transferable to 6. As chief’s on the RU pitch, any talent comes with a hefty price tag. I also think the lesser paid stars of the 7s circuit should transfer across well into league as well. As a moneyball signing, I would be scouting union 7s players for future cross code NRL stars.