Pulga

Hell, the Aus Super Rugby salary cap is $4.8m. I think they're worth more than that. The Qld Women's team have pay parity with the men's. $15,000 per game and we had the same old fashioned thinkers saying the same tired arguments. Women's rugby league is much closer to the entertainment value of men's rugby league compared to other sports. It can't be compared. I think the women's game is being sold very short to TV executives.

Yeah, weird turn of phrase from me there. It's ratings. But the quality of the game is maybe better than any women's sport on earth.

Exactly. If you don't know how much it's worth then how can you claim it's only a case of social injustice? Like I've pointed out, more people are watching it than soccer here and their average wage is apparently $185k. If that's being woke then you're dead asleep.

Please, for the love of god, don't use the word "woke". It's a horrible boomerism that seems to only be a red flag for ignorance and bigotry. As for my opinion, the women's game deserves more than the $800k they're getting. They pull fantastic TV coverage rivalling Super Rugby and beating out both the NBL and A-League soccer. I feel they're undervalued.

I would much rather they target the younger uncapped players. Barring Clarke, I couldn't see any of those you mentioned make an NRL squad. Especially being capped by the ABs they would want decent money to uphold the perception that the ABs are high quality.

Which 4-5? Ardie Savea at a stretch but not sure his fitness would be up to it plus his breakdown strength would be useless in league.

The NRL already does a fantastic job on that front. There are scouts everywhere in the Pacific.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Any population outside of Australia and NZ is extremely poor unfortunately.

80% is without the new number. You're looking at over 90% with the new number. Apart from Australia and PNG the region is not very populated at all.

That's my thinking. It's not actual ownership. But what if the NRL was paying the wage of every English national team player? You could see mid-year tests suddenly open up.

The players aren't paid very well. The majority around $50k a year. Most people who play union over league here in Australia don't watch union. They watch the NRL. This is a very common thing which union fans raise as a problem all over the internet. The Aussie Super Rugby salary cap is $4.8m AUD. It's almost 1/3rd of the NRL salary cap. They also have bigger squads. Fudge the numbers however you want. It may well be. Why would we be targeting the ones that don't even want to play RL? The fact is the NRL is probably THE glamour competition in either code. The Top14 might match the pay but there is nowhere near the celebrity status of the players. If you have skills that mean you could play anywhere in the world then the NRL would be fairly attractive. I get there could be reasons that would keep you elsewhere. The fact is most don't have those skills in union. You're taught low-risk rugby. It's the opposite of the NRL.

They could have a good team. I wouldn't be opposed to Germany knocking out someone like Scotland or even Ireland. It would be unfortunate if Greece missed out because of them though.

The Aussie 7 are quite literally players that couldn't make the NRL. Quite a few had development contracts with NRL clubs but never made first grade. There have been 4 or 5 Fijian 7s players signed by NRL clubs that have never kicked on into first grade also.

I can only speak of the Pacific region. I know the TV ratings here have fallen off a cliff. 5 or 6 years ago Wallabies tests would get a million+ viewers. Now they get anywhere from 300k to 600k which is less than the average NRL game on FTA. Australia and PNG make up 80% of the population of Oceania. Union could be completely dominant in NZ and it wouldn't matter that much. The fact is the NRL is growing there too. Hopefully we see another team for NZ soon.

I think you might be underestimating the shift since then. Rugby League is much, much bigger than union in the Pacific region. The places that it isn't are so small it's not worth talking about.

I honestly don't think you would see any benefit. Nobody in Australia would care to start with and rugby league is huge in Auckland. Doing that to appease a few towns in NZ isn't worth it. NZ is miniscule.

Just spitballing here but maybe if enough English players were in the NRL we might see the men's English squad almost being an NRL property in the same way Samoa and Tonga almost are.

Without starting anything, I don't think there are any Super Rugby players NRL clubs would want that they don't already have. Australian Union players are more and more just guys who aren't good enough for League. NZ has the pull if the All Blacks jersey still but that is fading.

25% increase. Now 3X the Super League salary cap. https://www.nrl.com/news/2022/12/23/nrl-announces-record-high-salary-caps-for-2023-season/ NRLW is now $884,000 (+153%)

49 by my count depending on what you mean by "domestic activity".

My thoughts too. Colombia lost both games so there's no results to overturn. Should a nation only be "punished" if they win though?

Looks like Colombia may have fielded an ineligible player (Andrew Zuluaga who played for the USA earlier in the year). Unless that USA v Canada game was not IRL sanctioned. I'm not sure.

Glad to see Wakefield got a good ROI on those recycled chairs.

Loser has to change their jersey.

I'm not entirely sure but I don't think they are. Even if that were the case imagine how hard it would be to find your regular employment with the stipulation of having the 8 weeks plus pre-season off. Not to mention they played two seasons this year plus the World Cup.