Autumn Internationals

[SamDrew]

I know a lot has been on the IRL's plate, but I would seriously expect a lot more of them, taking the initiative as a big finger to the Southern Hemisphere, rather than limply leaving it to individual associations to organise ad hoc fixtures between themselves.

 

https://lastwordonsports.com/rugby/2021/08/19/international-rugby-league-is-a-must/

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

1 hour ago, Big Picture said:

Other sports do use just a few heritage players, the Scotland RU team is the only exception to that.  They don't have "over 20 heritage players", 5 of their 23 foreign-born players qualified by residence which leaves 18 out of the 53 players they used in the Six Nations which is only 1/3.

RL is unique in having the embarrassing situation of several national teams being more or less full of heritage players because otherwise those countries couldn't field a team which is anywhere near competitive.

If you are embarrassed by International Rugby League I’d suggest you don’t comment on it and don’t bother watching. Personally I think it’s great and a sleeping giant.

Some teams use mainly heritage players, to the general public and most RL fans that doesn’t matter, here’s the proof.

France, PNG and Wales all have plenty of domestic players, will their attendances at the World Cup to be significantly better than Tonga, Fiji or Ireland? Those teams have mainly heritage players, it’s just not an issue like some people such as yourself love to claim. 

[zylya]

Be good to see double-header games for the women's team alongside the men, at least for any England games.

Hopefully this is the start of something rather than a last minute -around. As a comparison, the England football and rugby union teams play around 10-12 games per year - more for football if it's a major tournament. I'm not saying we have to get to that straightaway - but it's hard to build any real support for a national team when they only really play fixtures once every four years.

[JM2010]

3 hours ago, Route66 said:

As well as autumn internationals how about a county game for Cumbria to support development in a stronghold, would like to see a pack with Amor,Moore,Singleton,Donaldson, Maher and Knowles run out on home turf

I'm going agree with you here and even bring up the origin debate. Yorkshire vs Lancashire and Cumbria vs London/South would be competitive games

[17 stone giant]

4 hours ago, SamDrew said:

I know a lot has been on the IRL's plate, but I would seriously expect a lot more of them, taking the initiative as a big finger to the Southern Hemisphere

Maybe we do need Australia and New Zealand after all.

[Tommygilf]

17 hours ago, Big Picture said:

Other sports do use just a few heritage players, the Scotland RU team is the only exception to that.  They don't have "over 20 heritage players", 5 of their 23 foreign-born players qualified by residence which leaves 18 out of the 53 players they used in the Six Nations which is only 1/3.

RL is unique in having the embarrassing situation of several national teams being more or less full of heritage players because otherwise those countries couldn't field a team which is anywhere near competitive.

RL is unique in having a relatively small professional player pool and still being able to put out a decent amount of relatively competitive international sides made up of professionals.

The CFL world cup? The NFL world cup? The AFL world cup? The GAA world cup? These would be the embarrassing situations - which is why they don't have them.

[ShropshireBull]

On 23/08/2021 at 20:43, 17 stone giant said:

Maybe we do need Australia and New Zealand after all.

No we just need to do it properly post world cup. 4 nations tournament every year, include England. Have england play everyone away (bar jam) and final in Leeds. Four weeks annual tournament, no need for Kiwi´s and Aus. Done. 

[Griff]

On 24/08/2021 at 08:02, Tommygilf said:

RL is unique in having a relatively small professional player pool and still being able to put out a decent amount of relatively competitive international sides made up of professionals.

The CFL world cup? The NFL world cup? The AFL world cup? The GAA world cup? These would be the embarrassing situations - which is why they don't have them.

Aussie Rules does have a world cup, actually.  Albeit they call it the Australian Rules International Cup.

[Cheshire Setter]

On 23/08/2021 at 15:06, SamDrew said:

taking the initiative as a big finger to the Southern Hemisphere

Where's John Hopoate when you need him? I think I once saw him take a big finger to someone's southern hemisphere.

[gingerjon]

13 hours ago, Griff said:

Aussie Rules does have a world cup, actually.  Albeit they call it the Australian Rules International Cup.

And Australia don't play in it.

Which rather gives the game away.

[roughyed8]

13 hours ago, Griff said:

Aussie Rules does have a world cup, actually.  Albeit they call it the Australian Rules International Cup.

And Australia dont play in it! , its basically a bunch of park players from various countries having a holiday in Melbourne and playing a few games on surburban park fields.

[Tommygilf]

14 hours ago, Griff said:

Aussie Rules does have a world cup, actually.  Albeit they call it the Australian Rules International Cup.

Without the Aussies. Like having a CFL world cup without Canada, or GAA world cup without Ireland...

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

If England are playing away in France it could do with been officially announced ASAP to give people the best chance they can to sort travel etc. The same is true for French fans travelling to England tbf, let’s get the date and venue announcement out. 

[Tippingsarmswarrior]

54 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

If England are playing away in France it could do with been officially announced ASAP to give people the best chance they can to sort travel etc. The same is true for French fans travelling to England tbf, let’s get the date and venue announcement out. 

I’ve already booked flights and hotel. Couldnt resist at £25return direct to Perpignan. And get 2 free flight changes included in the price aswell so not losing out on anything if it don’t go ahead. 

[Griff]

5 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

Without the Aussies. 

Yeah - bit like us then, eh ?

The assertion was that only Rugby League could put together teams from a boat load of countries.

Obviously not true.

But if you want to change the parameters, let me know.

[Big Picture]

On 27/08/2021 at 03:07, roughyed8 said:

And Australia dont play in it! , its basically a bunch of park players from various countries having a holiday in Melbourne and playing a few games on surburban park fields.

Australia don't play in it for the simple reason that their suburban and country league players are still a lot better than the best of the players who spent their formative years in other countries.  Even with a team of players from that level they'd thrash the best of the other teams with ease.

[paulwalker71]

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Given that the largest concentration of Jamaicans in the UK is around Tottenham, is there any mileage in taking the game to the New River Stadium. So it's not exactly a fantastic stadium but since it won't be on TV (I assume) that doesn't really matter.

With really good and well-targeted publicity is it conceivable that the RFL could sell out the game? The stadium holds 5K according to Wiki, which is only 2% of the total number of Jamaican heritage people in London.

You could even give every person through the gate a voucher to get a half-priced ticket for next years Challenge Cup final, just literally down the road.

Or we could just take the 'let's do the minimum' and hold it in Featherstone for absolutely no discernible reason

[paulwalker71]

Just now, paulwalker71 said:

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Given that the largest concentration of Jamaicans in the UK is around Tottenham, is there any mileage in taking the game to the New River Stadium. So it's not exactly a fantastic stadium but since it won't be on TV (I assume) that doesn't really matter.

With really good and well-targeted publicity is it conceivable that the RFL could sell out the game? The stadium holds 5K according to Wiki, which is only 2% of the total number of Jamaican heritage people in London. Imagine what an occasion it could be with packed stadium! You could have a street food area with Jamaican food, steel bands etc. What an atmosphere it could be...

You could even give every person through the gate a voucher to get a half-priced ticket for next years Challenge Cup final, just literally down the road.

Or we could just take the 'let's do the minimum' and hold it in Featherstone for absolutely no discernible reason

 

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

10 hours ago, paulwalker71 said:

A little research might illuminate. 

I googled to find out where the majority of Jamaican heritage people lived in the UK. By far the majority live in North London (250K) followed by Birmingham (35K), Bristol (20K). The much vaunted Leeds trails in 7th at around 5K, albeit most oft them live in environs of Headingley. Oddly enough the list didn't go down far enough to include Featherstone.

Perhaps Featherstone has been selected because it’s half way between North London and Scotland, giving both the Jamaican supporters and Scottish fans a similar distance to travel to a neutral venue. 

[paulwalker71]

1 hour ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Perhaps Featherstone has been selected because it’s half way between North London and Scotland, giving both the Jamaican supporters and Scottish fans a similar distance to travel to a neutral venue. 

I take it that was meant to be ironic?

Of course there are no Jamaican ‘supporters’ or Scottish ‘fans’. At least not yet. My guess is 99.99% of Scottish people have zero idea what RL is, so the idea that they’d travel to some West Yorkshire ex-pit village is fanciful at best.

To be fair, having the game at New River (or in the middle of Glasgow for that matter) isn’t going to be much better unless the RFL put some marketing budget behind it.

The point of my idea was to start the long term work of creating NEW fans, something that we have pitifully failed to do in Rugby League. Well, Toronto created a few thousand, but how did that end?

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, paulwalker71 said:

I take it that was meant to be ironic?

Of course there are no Jamaican ‘supporters’ or Scottish ‘fans’. At least not yet. My guess is 99.99% of Scottish people have zero idea what RL is, so the idea that they’d travel to some West Yorkshire ex-pit village is fanciful at best.

To be fair, having the game at New River (or in the middle of Glasgow for that matter) isn’t going to be much better unless the RFL put some marketing budget behind it.

The point of my idea was to start the long term work of creating NEW fans, something that we have pitifully failed to do in Rugby League. Well, Toronto created a few thousand, but how did that end?

7k at Headingley for Jamaica's game there. Its not just because there is a relatively strong Jamaican presence in the city, but because Leeds and London consistently deliver our best crowds and support for international RL.

Jamaica in RL can also potentially be a (a bit crudely) seen as stand in for a wide range of Caribbean/West Indian nationalities. Growing up in Leeds that I had a fair few friends with West Indian heritage, but actually Jamaican was a minority amongst them.

[Ray Cashmere]

I think in an ideal world we could have had an England v France headline game preceded by Jamaica v Wales/Scotland at the new Spurs ground. That really would've been a statement of intent by the sport.

 

 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

9 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Perhaps Featherstone has been selected because it’s half way between North London and Scotland, giving both the Jamaican supporters and Scottish fans a similar distance to travel to a neutral venue. 

Obviously you made me curious with this comment and so I had to actually look up where the midpoint was.

So using an online distance calculator. I found that the distance between Tottenham and Gretna Green is 265.8 miles as the crow flies and the midpoint, at 132.9 miles, is closest to the town of Dronfield in Derbyshire which is just a little bit south of Sheffield. It gives the driving distance as 315 miles and the midpoint is just west of Stoke-on-Trent. 

According to wiki, Sheffield FC play in Dronfield at a stadium with a capacity of 2,000 so there is an option to play in that town. Apparently there is also a rugby league club in the town and so is probably an established RL field somewhere that the game could be played on as well. Problem solved!

Edited August 29, 2021 by The Hallucinating Goose

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Obviously you made me curious with this comment and so I had to actually look up where the midpoint was.

So using an online distance calculator. I found that the distance between Tottenham and Gretna Green is 265.8 miles as the crow flies and the midpoint, at 132.9 miles, is closest to the town of Dronfield in Derbyshire which is just a little bit south of Sheffield. It gives the driving distance as 315 miles and the midpoint is just west of Stoke-on-Trent. 

According to wiki, Sheffield FC play in Dronfield at a stadium with a capacity of 2,000 so there is an option to play in that town. Apparently there is also a rugby league club in the town and so is probably an established RL field somewhere that the game could be played on as well. Problem solved!

One of the fellas who owns the Eagles lives in Dronfield and has a really big back garden, have it there!

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

One of the fellas who owns the Eagles lives in Dronfield and has a really big back garden, have it there!

Now you're thinking, we won't have anymore of this small time thinking with places like Featherstone, we need to branch out into new markets! Dronfield here we come!