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Australia and New Zealand Withdraw from RL World Cup


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5 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

Furthermore @DoubleD, it would be difficult to convince many of the safety of participating in the RLWC when SL games are still being cancelled due to COVID.

If the measures set for the RLWC are so safe, why are they not being utilised and/or successful for SL?

Apples and pears. 

It’s been mentioned many times before that SL players are not in a bubble. Also we’re at what is expected to be peak infection rates at the moment, as we’ve opened up, before they’ll fall back, hence why we’re seeing 500-600k people a week having to self isolate due to an over sensitive NHS app. Self isolation is likely to end imminently in favour of daily testing, removing that factor. 

As for your last question, because one is a national competition and the other is international. I wouldn’t expect an Australian to understand this but this underlines our whole point on the value of an international game. International sport and showpiece events gain massive attention - hence the government funding, hence the big sponsors we’ve got on board who wouldn’t ordinarily be associated with RL and hence how we’ve had cities and stadiums bidding to host teams and games. 

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6 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

There may well be some telling statistics there. Then again, there may not be. Is that 75% of Australian and NZ representatives saying they are willing to compete? Your article doesn’t say and I will suggest the answer is no. No doubt, there will be players interested in playing, that’s not my argument.

If Indigenous and Maori want to rally together to enter teams and the organisers allow them to enter, then great. Not sure what governance they will be playing under, maybe IRL, but whatever, if they can draw a team, then great. That still doesn’t dismiss the issues I raised.

To say that the safety protocols are solely down to the government sounds a little wide of the mark to me. You may be right, but if you are, then that means the UK government are organising all the accomodation and transport of players and officials. The government are responsible for the staffing and bio-security measures of match day events. Is that the case? If not, then you cannot say the government is responsible. Funding it is one thing. Delivering it is another.

Regardless of where responsibilities lie between government and RLWC team, everything they have done over the past 4 years has been 1st rate, exceptional in fact, so I have absolute confidence that they’d deliver everything that is required

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47 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

Regardless of where responsibilities lie between government and RLWC team, everything they have done over the past 4 years has been 1st rate, exceptional in fact, so I have absolute confidence that they’d deliver everything that is required

You are probably right, but again, I am not in the inner sanctum of the organisation committee or the NRL (as much as I would be), so I will only make judgements on what I know to be factual and failing that, historical evidence. The RFL don’t paint a good picture on either front.

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1 minute ago, Sports Prophet said:

You are probably right, but again, I am not in the inner sanctum of the organisation committee or the NRL (as much as I would be), so I will only make judgements on what I know to be factual and failing that, historical evidence. The RFL don’t paint a good picture on either front.

And it’s nothing to do with RFL 🙄

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46 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

The 2021 RLWC is nothing to do with the RFL???

I am not going to repeat myself other than to say it has got everything to do with the RFL.

No it doesn’t, the RLWC operating committee is a full time team, completely separate and unrelated to RFL

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58 minutes ago, DoubleD said:

No it doesn’t, the RLWC operating committee is a full time team, completely separate and unrelated to RFL

That’s about as accurate as saying the NRL didn’t organise the 2016 RLWC. By the letter, I concede, you are correct… but I am right.

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Did anyone mention the 75 page document of Covid protocols? Private charter air travel, £500,000 grant for Anzacs quarantine on return etc etc, right down to disinfecting the coin used for the kick off. All dismissed out of hand

This isn't down to Covid worries, it's down to the NRL pre season

"Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice, socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality" - Mikhail Bakunin

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Considering all you Poms regard Australian and NZ participation as neither here nor there, you sure are making a hell of a fuss about this. Some figures that may explain the  A/NZ attitude:

Covid cases in total: A/NZ combined 35, 945      UK  5,722,298 159 times the A/NZ combined figure!

Deaths                       A/NZ combined       944       UK  129,172     137 times the A/BZ combined?

Daily infections         A/NZ combined        169 (mainly in Sydney who are having a "large" spike

                                   UK                           28,985                            172 times the A/NZ combined

You have slightly more than twice the combined A/NZ population (2.26 times to be exact) - so your figures remain alarming! Nobody in their right mind would travel for the sake of another country's economy! Why should we care? England is not the "mother country" and has not been for ages,

George Burgess has said he will go to represent England. Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead are strangely silent - but then both are waiting on Australian citizenship. No word either from Ryan Sutton or Harry Rushton! That would be because Canberra has not had a SINGLE infection in thirteen months!

You may be used to living in crowded, dirty, rat infested and highly infectious conditions but we are  NOT.

All figures are from 26 July 2021, from the Covid-19 statistics on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

You are welcome to check my math.

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2 hours ago, Madgicsh said:

You are welcome to check my math.

We don`t say `math` in Australia, that`s what yanks do, we say either `maths` or `mathematics`. So you`re one of these pin-heads who`s impressed by American culture, let`s get that established.

A couple of things on the England covid-19 situation.

1) 50 % fully vaccinated, 70 % one shot;

2) new case numbers have come down from about 40 000 to less than 30 000 in a week BUT importantly in line with such a large percentage of the population having either one or both shots, hospitalisations and deaths are 1/10th of the numbers in the last spike. This is exactly consistent with having a large proportion of your population vaccinated.

People are still catching it, but they are not getting sick enough to either die  or have to go to hospital.

This is probably where the whole world will end up once the vaccine roll-out is complete. You`re still going to catch it but you won`t die.

We can`t relax our lockdown laws because we have about 10 % fully vaccinated, if we did we would be in exactly the same situation as England 6 months ago.

One last thing, we`ve ~940 deaths they`ve had ~130 000 deaths, so there`s a lot of families who are missing someone, so the situation has been far from perfect over there, but moving forward England are probably in a much better position than ourselves. Especially if you factor in all the poor buggers over here who have rent , mortgages and bills to pay and are getting themselves into a deeper and deeper hole, because they can`t go to work, were talking about ruining peoples lives, kids growing up in families who financial situation is much reduced. I feel for those buggers, that`s real stress, that can be life altering.

So as usual mate nothing is black and white. 

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11 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

People are still catching it, but they are not getting sick enough to either die  or have to go to hospital.

This is probably where the whole world will end up once the vaccine roll-out is complete. You`re still going to catch it but you won`t die.

This relates to why I think the Oz/NZ approach is especially irrational.

The virus will eventually spread throughout the population until herd immunity is reached. The only doubt is how quickly. If every time there`s an outbreak, you successfully lock down, and only open back up when cases are at zero, it means moving to herd immunity at a rate of hundreds of infections per year. So if Oz and NZ are intending to fully open up to the rest of the world only when the virus can no longer be spread in Oz and NZ, that would be in thousands of years from now.

I think it`s safe to say this is economically unsustainable. Yet none of these State politicians or advisors are ever asked to explain how they see their policies playing out long-term. They`re not thinking beyond the next few weeks. And of course that myopic short-termism is mirrored in the NRL administration.

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42 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

One last thing, we`ve ~940 deaths they`ve had ~130 000 deaths, so there`s a lot of families who are missing someone, so the situation has been far from perfect over there, but moving forward England are probably in a much better position than ourselves.  

The vast majority of those deaths have been among the very old and those with serious health conditions. i.e. they were already at risk from flu or other viruses and infections.

The chances of fit and healthy young footballers becoming dangerously ill when they contract Covid are miniscule. They are probably at the same or greater risk from complications linked to vaccination.

All this ought to become clear to the Aussie populace later this year when, as we expect, the Wallabies will tour here.

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5 hours ago, Madgicsh said:

Considering all you Poms regard Australian and NZ participation as neither here nor there, you sure are making a hell of a fuss about this. Some figures that may explain the  A/NZ attitude:

Covid cases in total: A/NZ combined 35, 945      UK  5,722,298 159 times the A/NZ combined figure!

Deaths                       A/NZ combined       944       UK  129,172     137 times the A/BZ combined?

Daily infections         A/NZ combined        169 (mainly in Sydney who are having a "large" spike

                                   UK                           28,985                            172 times the A/NZ combined

You have slightly more than twice the combined A/NZ population (2.26 times to be exact) - so your figures remain alarming! Nobody in their right mind would travel for the sake of another country's economy! Why should we care? England is not the "mother country" and has not been for ages,

George Burgess has said he will go to represent England. Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead are strangely silent - but then both are waiting on Australian citizenship. No word either from Ryan Sutton or Harry Rushton! That would be because Canberra has not had a SINGLE infection in thirteen months!

You may be used to living in crowded, dirty, rat infested and highly infectious conditions but we are  NOT.

All figures are from 26 July 2021, from the Covid-19 statistics on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

You are welcome to check my math.

@unapologetic pedantand @The Rockethave corrected your grossly misinformed post but what I would also add is that both Elliot Whitehead and Josh Hodgson have been quite vocal about the decision of ARLC/NZRL - criticising it and saying the players want to play

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On 27/07/2021 at 01:38, Madgicsh said:

Considering all you Poms regard Australian and NZ participation as neither here nor there, you sure are making a hell of a fuss about this. Some figures that may explain the  A/NZ attitude:

Covid cases in total: A/NZ combined 35, 945      UK  5,722,298 159 times the A/NZ combined figure!

Deaths                       A/NZ combined       944       UK  129,172     137 times the A/BZ combined?

Daily infections         A/NZ combined        169 (mainly in Sydney who are having a "large" spike

                                   UK                           28,985                            172 times the A/NZ combined

You have slightly more than twice the combined A/NZ population (2.26 times to be exact) - so your figures remain alarming! Nobody in their right mind would travel for the sake of another country's economy! Why should we care? England is not the "mother country" and has not been for ages,

George Burgess has said he will go to represent England. Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead are strangely silent - but then both are waiting on Australian citizenship. No word either from Ryan Sutton or Harry Rushton! That would be because Canberra has not had a SINGLE infection in thirteen months!

You may be used to living in crowded, dirty, rat infested and highly infectious conditions but we are  NOT.

All figures are from 26 July 2021, from the Covid-19 statistics on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

You are welcome to check my math.

But, when the Aussies' withdrawal from the World Cup eventually leads to a huge hole in the RFL's balance sheet, and then the UK government and broadcasters ask for their money back... when this happens, and the English game has to go back to being semi pro.... where are the Raiders going to get all their decent forwards from? That's the big question.

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On 29/07/2021 at 19:34, Graham said:

I’ve a feeling the NRL has lost some British followers through this move.

It may not matter to the NRL Graham but it really has obliterated it's following and future growth here

During Covid I tripled my NRL watching in terms of time watching games / NRL news / podcasts. I used to just watch the Sky broadcasts but since Covid I have bought WatchNRL etc

There has even been my little daughters walking around Bedfordshire wearing Canberra tops and explianing to anyone who asks what they are

Unless they do a U-turn then me and I suspect the majority of us here are done with the NRL

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4 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

It may not matter to the NRL Graham but it really has obliterated it's following and future growth here

During Covid I tripled my NRL watching in terms of time watching games / NRL news / podcasts. I used to just watch the Sky broadcasts but since Covid I have bought WatchNRL etc

There has even been my little daughters walking around Bedfordshire wearing Canberra tops and explianing to anyone who asks what they are

Unless they do a U-turn then me and I suspect the majority of us here are done with the NRL

Agree with the sentiments here.  I'll finish out this Seasons Tipping Competition and that will be it for me for the NRL for the forseeable future.

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2 hours ago, Cameron Highlander said:

Agree with the sentiments here.  I'll finish out this Seasons Tipping Competition and that will be it for me for the NRL for the forseeable future.

Thanks for that CH.

I hope others will do the same. 

I don't know if it's a coincidence but fewer people have taken part in the tipping comp this week than is usual. 😢

 

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On 27/07/2021 at 01:38, Madgicsh said:

Considering all you Poms regard Australian and NZ participation as neither here nor there, you sure are making a hell of a fuss about this. Some figures that may explain the  A/NZ attitude:

Covid cases in total: A/NZ combined 35, 945      UK  5,722,298 159 times the A/NZ combined figure!

Deaths                       A/NZ combined       944       UK  129,172     137 times the A/BZ combined?

Daily infections         A/NZ combined        169 (mainly in Sydney who are having a "large" spike

                                   UK                           28,985                            172 times the A/NZ combined

You have slightly more than twice the combined A/NZ population (2.26 times to be exact) - so your figures remain alarming! Nobody in their right mind would travel for the sake of another country's economy! Why should we care? England is not the "mother country" and has not been for ages,

George Burgess has said he will go to represent England. Josh Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead are strangely silent - but then both are waiting on Australian citizenship. No word either from Ryan Sutton or Harry Rushton! That would be because Canberra has not had a SINGLE infection in thirteen months!

You may be used to living in crowded, dirty, rat infested and highly infectious conditions but we are  NOT.

All figures are from 26 July 2021, from the Covid-19 statistics on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

You are welcome to check my math.

Don't worry about Hodgson mate - he's not even in the top 5 English players in his position so won't be anywhere near the final England squad.

Edit to say - its Maths....

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