Keith989

Those concerns would've been justified though. The success of the 90s led to an obsession with the premier league and now the league of Ireland is booming, whilst Gaelic football attendances are in a steep decline.

NZ union fans make up tons of excuses as to why their teams play in half empty stadiums, only for the warriors to blow all those excuses out of the water. It's fun pulling them up on it.

Would people from NZ support any of the Aussie sides? Or do they only support the Warriors?

Do you mind explaining how this contributes to Australia's security and prosperity? I ask this genuinely as I know nothing of the situation over there. I also think a PNG team in the NRL is fantastic.

I'm not sure, I know that my club in 2B were offering perks such as cushy paid jobs to south Africans believe it or not. But you'd imagine most Leinster and Munster academy lads would end up in 1A or 1B.

But they get good deals with their AIL clubs, good job, apartment etc. They aren't just gonna leave that.

The Top 14 plays league games during internationals and the URC plays a little while internationals are on. I wouldn't necessarily see it as a good thing.

Why not have a mid season test and it could maybe be used to test depth in the squads? You wouldn't necessarily have to have all the NRL stars involved.

Scotland?

It's clear that the PI nations improve the more games they play. Bringing back mid season internationals is a must.

I don't know how they didn't get a 2nd try, so frustrating.

Incredible PNG!

Just woke up, were Tonga really good or were Aus poor?

Looks like NZ have this now.

Having domestic quotas for Tonga and Samoa would be completely ridiculous and needless. They are tiny impoverished nations, heritage teams is all they will ever be and that is completely fine, there's a big market there. Other nations like us (Ireland), Italy and Scotland can and should be held to a higher standard, as fully heritage sides does absolutely nothing for those nations. As has been proven time and time again.

International rugby is really good, they should this more.

What exactly is there to be loyal to though? It's not a competition, it's not on TV, it's being playing in a neutral ground etc etc. It's completely understandable if a professional athlete doesn't want to turn up for a game like this. This game should be used to promote local talent. Which is fine, having local talent pull on the Irish jersey is very important.

Oh no Hurling is a different beast altogether, the skill levels on show from the likes of the Limerick and Clare hurlers is aw inspiring. I say that as somebody who doesn't come from a hurling county. There's a reason Limerick hurling has the best attendances in the country by a country mile (they averaged approx 30k for home games last season)

Off the ground I meant

Fair comment. The only thing is that a gaelic football is a lot different to a soccer ball. It's actually an incredible skill to kick a gaelic ball off the crowd from the 45 over the bar.

Yeah it's awful, I'm surprised to see positive reviews of it on here. Hurling on the other hand is comfortable one of the best sports in the world to watch. You basically never get a bad game when the All Ireland knockouts come round.

Frustrating that this is on when some of us are in work! I don't get to see Tonga much.

Well it attracted me, the first league matches I watched were the Pacific series in Australia, so I'm sure there are plenty of others. I'm sure if the 4 nations kept going it would have grown and grown, having sporadic international games does absolutely nothing to promote the international game.

Why? I guess to appeal to a wider audience as high profile internationals undoubtedly do. Just look at the Wallabies getting 68k last week in attendance, despite union being on its knees down there.

It's easy to do more when you've the resources behind you. Are they really doing much or is it just the bare minimum to avoid backlash from all quarters?