theswanmcr

Good to have you back Ralph, we’ve missed you as our leader.

France are going to play Kenya, At Rugby League. In Kenya. How anyone can find this anything other than amazing in the current s***show state of international rugby league is beyond me.

Hopefully they'll take notice when sponsors pull out due to lack of social engagement and a poor on-field product that gets nilled when they actually bother to play

I tell you once and I tell you flatly, I don't ever wanna go to Gatley I don't even wanna go to Batley... where is that place exactly?

If only... we could have had a World Four Nations based off the last World Cup... World Series: Four semi-finalists from World Cup - Australia, Samoa, England, New Zealand World Championship: Other four from Quarter Finals - PNG, Tonga, Lebanon, Fiji Two of those series played before next World Cup. World Cup of 12 teams - 3 groups of four. Top two plus two best runners up make quarters and then the next set of Four Nations starts. Gives even more added incentive to make the quarters and can justify having those 8 pre-qualify for next world cup. If only... oh well.

You beat me to it trawling through the IntRL website Looks like we got the same countries and shows how crazy this currently is.

There's 18 full members according to this https://www.intrl.sport/member-nations/ With those already qualified that leaves... Americas: Jamaica Asia-Pacific: Cook Islands Europe: France, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Ukraine, Russia MEA: South Africa There'll need to be some seriously quick form-filling going on by the likes of Brazil, Ghana, USA etc by March 2023 to actually create qualifiers outside of Europe.

This whole thing is rubbish but Wales do get a chance to qualify - they are full members and so should take part in the European qualifying tournament (with the winner going through to the World Series bit).

A farce would be the highest level of professional Rugby League in this country playing each other 2.5 times (plus play-offs).

It’s brilliant that there will a big rematch in an arena - but yeah there really should have been a game in London too (we never learn).

Why can’t we ever just make life clear and simple? You would think the SH would have 2 x tri-nations - allowing one of the ‘top’ nations to tour over here each year. Instead we have the Aus coach saying they will have a four nations next year… when it should be Samoa over here. Unless he’s talking rubbish of course?

That pretty much sums international rugby league brilliantly (sadly).

True - interesting that the 10 team world cup isn’t mentioned in the Int RL official page… almost like they’re trying to keep it quiet. Talk of a ‘world series’ seems a way to keep the minnows quiet while the big boys get on with the ‘proper’ big games. Need to ensure France is part of the incoming tours to create a North Hemisphere tri-nations (it won’t happen but it should). Mid season international between Eng and Fra could form part of this.

No hurry eh Troy

I expect we’ll see a couple of headlines but with lots of fudge. • New Zealand to be confirmed as next world cup hosts but no decision on number of teams or even the year it will take place • Pacific tri-nations 99% confirmed for this year but nothing in concrete for future • Ashes tour to take place in whatever made up year they can come up after the next world cup • The mythical 10-year plan due ‘before 2030’