UTK

Until England gets a win over Australia there is very little utility in Australia hosting an Ashes series. England/GB have not been a drawcard in Australia for many years while Tonga/Samoa are now opponents with much greater support/interest in Oceania at an equal level of competition. In a limited International calendar the choice for Australia to host an Ashes series effectively postpones Kangaroos matches against NZ/Tonga/Samoa and limits England/GB building consistency in matches against those same nations. England coming to Oceania should be as part of a tour to match up against as many nations as possible, not for three moderate-to-poorly supported Tests against the Kangaroos. The same logic is not attributable to an Ashes series in England which would likely be well-supported, give England a competitive advantage and is necessary to give England meaningful home fixtures against top-tier opposition. For this reason the decision to swap hemispheres for the 2025 Ashes is very fortunate as I suspect such a series played in Australia would have killed the possibility of future Ashes altogether.

Attempting to scrub over the lack of competitiveness in International RL is disingenuous to say the least. During that decade of peak competitiveness that you have identified from 2005-2014 Australia won 75% of their matches against the Kiwis with a record of 21-1-6, the cumulative for and against during that period was 716-443, 14 of those 21 wins were by 12 points or more (ie 2 complete scores). Australia's second most competitive opponent during this period was of course England/GB. Australia won 92% of their matches against England/GB during this time (11-1 record), the cumulative F/A was 365-163, 8 of the 11 wins were by 12 points or more. Tournament wins by the Kiwis were great for the game and saw an acute spike in interest subsequently, unfortunately these wins were never backed up with any degree of consistency by the Kiwis. Test football will always be compared to Origin in the Australian context, even with the absolute lowest competitiveness of Origin during QLD's 8-in-a-row (which conveniently aligns mostly with this period of Test football) QLD only won 71% of games. There are simply no rational grounds for reaching a conclusion that the competitiveness of International RL is a 'nonsense' factor in the standing of Test football. I also believe a quadruple header Final is absolutely ridiculous and should not be applauded, that the Pacific Cup is way too small, and of course that cutting the mid-season tests is the worst decision the NRL has made in this space that has had untold negative impacts on the International game. None of these aforementioned failures can whitewash the quintessential problem that nobody has been consistently competitive with the Kangaroos in several decades.

The game gets far more out of an Ashes series in England than it does in Australia, so this would be a good move. England/GB haven't been a drawcard in Australia for years and a Pacific Championship top tier of NZ/Tonga/Samoa no longer needs Australia to give credibility/crowds to that competition. Breaking a 22 year hiatus will certainly be a drawcard in England, while the Kangaroos playing away from home assists England on their search for the elusive win that would be necessary before an Ashes series could be considered relevant in Australia again. A sensible decision in a poorly constructed calendar at least.

Despite turning up every few years with stacked sides Samoa has never really built the culture of consistency that Tonga has. Rather disappointing that this problem has come up again. Admittedly it doesn't help that they have a strong Penrith contingent who have played as many high-level Club/Origin/International games as possible over the last 4 years. Credit to the players who do choose to play in the post-season, every single player would have an injury at this point of the season that they could use to be ruled out medically so all players taking the field have made an active decision to do so.

Yeah this doesn't really add up at all. Lebanon is not a typical NRL heritage side - the vast vast majority of their players are not affiliated with NRL top 30s but rather with 2nd or 3rd tier clubs. There are a few notable exceptions in the likes of Jacob Kiraz, Alex Twal, Adam Doueihi and Mitchell Moses but outside that the rest of their potential squad are either with NSW Cup sides, RMC/Sydney Shield sides (3rd/4th tier) or SL sides. Absolutely I could see for example the Dogs trying to rule out Jacob Kiraz which is rubbish and is where the NRL should step in but I would also be shocked if the NRL was aware of this series even being in the works (not that I think they would step in if they were aware anyway). Moses would not be in calculations with a season-ending injury so that leaves Kiraz/Doueihi/Twal - of which Doueihi has played like 4 games in 2 years so would not be putting his hand up given his career currently hangs on by a thread. Unless the funding was solely predicated on Jacob Kiraz and Alex Twal getting on a plane there simply has to be something else going on, nothing would stop them from fielding a side full of RMC/Shield/SL players of which they have done several times before.

As a sidenote the podcast release was timed nicely with Herbie's performance on the weekend against the Warriors. 2 tries, 1 linebreak, 11 tackle breaks, 20 runs for 284 metres, 4 offloads, and 10 tackles with no misses.

Very interesting podcast that may be of interest to some here. Herbie has such a unique story and I hadn't really heard him speak at length about his journey before (states that this is his first podcast at the beginning). Some fascinating insights into his upbringing, mentality, and challenges he faced on that unique path he took to professional RL. Speaks very well and openly/honestly about his experiences after making his NRL debut as well, really a player that should be held up as one of the faces of the game IMO.

Pryce was meant to be 18th man but concerns over the fitness of Bradman Best resulted in a late change in plans with Tom Cant becoming 18th to better cover that potential loss.

Pryce was "rested" this week from NSW Cup - all but insinuating that he will make his NRL debut in Round 17. Has really struggled for consistency in NSW Cup but his last three are as close as he has gone to stringing 3 decent games together. Jack Cogger had an irredeemably bad game last week to the extent that we're in the situation of 'how much worse could Pryce really be?'. Really struggles defending in the front line at NSW Cup level so the step up to NRL will be tough but hopefully he'll be protected by stronger defenders either side of him. Offensively he's very much brought the rocks and diamonds that we routinely saw in England, sometimes he can have sublime touches all day, other times he just overplays his hand way too much and ends up in the way - often you get both versions in the same game. Suspect O'Brien is at the end of his tether with Cogger so we might see Pryce in the 6 jersey until Tyson Gamble returns from injury sometime around round 22-23, good opportunity for him and I suspect he's the type of person that will really give his all once at the top level as opposed to bringing week-to-week consistency as reserve-grade level.

Except those 4N have been replaced by competitions that now give Tonga or Samoa (now both in 2024) games against AUS/NZ every single year, as opposed to the once every cycle if you're lucky enough to qualify of the 4N. I certainly wouldn't claim that AUS/NZ has been a supporter of the International game as a whole but there is a persistent myth that England isn't cut from the same cloth. Lack of accessibility to AUS/NZ is the ultimate reason for that tier 2 nation number with France making up the majority of those tests, and even that fixture hasn't been a permanent fixture despite the proximity of France. I wasn't intending to be derogatory to the North but I accept such a reference is often utilised as such so should've framed it better - readjusting the statement to address with what I intended to get at: A full house for Tonga v Samoa in front of Tongan/Samoan fans does far more for the International game (and for those nations) than 3 poorly attended matches that are played within 100km of each other - the scope within which that could be seen as 'growing the game by playing International matches across the world' is extremely limited. As is consistent with that top 20 crowds statistic, the only place that test matches involving tier 2 nations have received any sort of support outside WCs is AUS/NZ, that is not controversial statement that purports to rewrite history. This tour was the opportunity to break that stat and it failed rather miserably, on the opposite side of the world Samoa averaged 20k across their matches in front of their own fans across both AUS/NZ. Why would Samoa opt to forego playing in front of their own fans, to play in front of much smaller crowds, halfway across the world? How would that provide the International game more value than Samoa participating in the Pacific 4N - a competition that takes place across multiple competing nations? Theoretically it gives England closer competition - which is a genuine benefit for the game, but it's not as if such a move precludes England from playing altogether and it prevents Samoa from continuing to build upon their own support for zero additional benefit.

The International game gets far more out a full house for Tonga v Samoa in front of Tongan and Samoan fans than it does for 3x 11-15k in the North of England. If England cared about growing the game they would've engaged with the European Championships at some point over the last 20 years and perhaps promoted some actual growth that would've helped in the precarious situation they find themselves in. Instead they're spent years inventing pretend teams to avoid playing actual tests against developing nations, England care solely about what's best for England and are reaping the rewards of that stance right now.

There's no reason that England couldn't join the top tier of a Euro A competition next year, there are structures that could be utilised allowing a Euro A comp to double as the WCQ they are currently intended to be. What is likely to preclude it from happening is that England believe the European Championships are beneath them, hence why they have ignored the competition for 2 decades. Unfortunately a golden opportunity had been handed to secure future SH post-season competition and it has subsequently been bottled. Everybody knew this situation was only a matter of time post-2017, there are no surprises that teams prefer to play in front of their home fans rather than halfway across the World in entirely incompatible timezones, this is an unfortunate geographic reality of our sport. The notion that Samoa should regret this decision is quite hilarious, the onus was on England to establish an appealing opportunity with the Tonga series - both financially and otherwise, this did not occur as has been well-discussed on this forum. The notion of England being positioned as some form of altruistic body offering potential independence from the NRL is a very fanciful interpretation of the circumstances, as if Samoa or Tonga won't be treated as the distant 3rd option after AUS/NZ every year.

Biggest Kangaroos loss in history, first time held scoreless since 2005, first international tournament lost since the 2014 4N. Was very deflated after last week as I really thought this NZ side should've beaten us in the WC Semi so to back that up with the Melbourne performance was disappointing. So glad they turned it around and proved how good they really are.

Hesitant to comment before the end of the game but thank **** for the Kiwis performance here, exactly what International RL needed after Samoa's poor performances.

Capacity is something like 25K I'm pretty sure, will have to see how it fills out and it looks worse because there's more empty spots on camera side. Would take scraping 10k at this point.