For me Lebanon v NZ game shows the massive potential for international RL

[IM2]

I was in Washington DC last year when the All Blacks played USA and beat them by 130 on front of 50k+. no one worried about the score. USA union plays regular annual fixtures & loads of prep.

Lebanon havent played a similar game since the last WC and only got beat by 22 points and would have been way less if Manu hadn't had a stormer.

The top 8 - 10 teams should be playing 3 or 4 games a year every year. The next layer down should also be playing tests and maybe with lower level local teams, but long and short we need to invest in this.

Currently, and I love the tournament, a two state competition is our highest level of the game and it stifles everything else. The game has so much potential but it needs investment for a generation. Not all money but mostly conviction.

Edited October 17, 2022 by IM2

[Young Blood]

Lebanon will be up there for years to come there is a large population in Sydney and real passion for the game wont be surpised if in 10 years time Lebanon will field a team full or NRL players.

[SydneyRoosters]

2 hours ago, Young Blood said:

Lebanon will be up there for years to come there is a large population in Sydney and real passion for the game wont be surpised if in 10 years time Lebanon will field a team full or NRL players.

I very much doubt it, Lebanese immigration to Australia has continued to slow down in the last 20 years. The talent pool will only get smaller as Less and less players will be able to qualify through heritage. However it’s not all bad, Rugby league in Lebanon is already the 3rd Most popular sport there, if we put a lot of money and resources into Lebanon Rugby League it could start to produce some players of quality who then could go on to play in Europe Professionally.

[Guest]

I'd like to see Lebanon included in a European competition. The MEA is part of ERL anyway. Lebanon's home stadiums are in Tripoli and Beirut so there should be at least a match held in each. If the NRL kept their midseason window they could still have a a fixture in Sydney for the Lebanese community there. This is all depends on whether the NRL agree to the international window and to release players. Lebanon would be a better inclusion in the A championship than Spain because I think they would be somewhat competitive. I assume England would field the Knights. France v Lebanon in Beirut is something you could sell given the historic links between the two nations.

[gingerjon]

6 hours ago, IM2 said:

I was in Washington DC last year when the All Blacks played USA and beat them by 130 on front of 50k+. no one worried about the score. USA union plays regular annual fixtures & loads of prep.

The crowd was 40,000. That's what the union calculators get it to.

People did care: https://www.rugbypass.com/news/on-the-field-a-total-disaster-off-the-field-a-total-disaster-a-nadir-for-american-rugby/.

What with USA Rugby being actually bankrupt to the extent it even managed to make a loss when hosting the 7s World Cup.

I'll file the "we should copy international union" threads next to the ones saying we should copy what Saracens and Wasps are doing in the club game.

We should definitely invest more internationals but most countries should definitely be playing more matches. But rugby union is not a template we should be looking to copy unless we want to lose money really quickly.

[MrPosh]

3 hours ago, Young Blood said:

Lebanon will be up there for years to come there is a large population in Sydney and real passion for the game wont be surpised if in 10 years time Lebanon will field a team full or NRL players.

What would be the point of that?

Assuming you mean Australians playing under the Lebanese flag.

I'm l for heritage players being used to encourage growth, but I can't see how aiming for it helps long term.

[Eddie]

3 hours ago, Young Blood said:

Lebanon will be up there for years to come there is a large population in Sydney and real passion for the game wont be surpised if in 10 years time Lebanon will field a team full or NRL players.

Not really Lebanon then is it. I’d really like to see a strengthening of the Lebanese domestic game off the back of this, and them start to produce their own domestic players. 

[Gomersall]

IMO WC squads should have a minimum of 2 players in each 24 man squad who have come through the nation’s domestic system. 

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, SydneyRoosters said:

I very much doubt it, Lebanese immigration to Australia has continued to slow down in the last 20 years. The talent pool will only get smaller as Less and less players will be able to qualify through heritage. However it’s not all bad, Rugby league in Lebanon is already the 3rd Most popular sport there, if we put a lot of money and resources into Lebanon Rugby League it could start to produce some players of quality who then could go on to play in Europe Professionally.

Where did you get the stat that it’s the third most popular sport there please? I’d love it if it were true, but according to Wikipedia (admittedly not always current) there are just 8 clubs, and 4 of them are University teams. 

[Eddie]

1 minute ago, Gomersall said:

IMO WC squads should have a minimum of 2 players in each 24 man squad who have come through the nation’s domestic system. 

More than that for me, 8 at least. 

[Gomersall]

1 minute ago, Eddie said:

Not really Lebanon then is it. I’d really like to see a strengthening of the Lebanese domestic game off the back of this, and them start to produce their own domestic players. 

Strangely the Lebanese domestic game only came about because the WC organisers allowed Lebanon into the 2000 WC on the proviso that the game was introduced into the country itself. There now still seems to be too much focus on Australian Lebanese players than actual Lebanese players IMO.

[SydneyRoosters]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Where did you get the stat that it’s the third most popular sport there please? I’d love it if it were true, but according to Wikipedia (admittedly not always current) there are just 8 clubs, and 4 of them are University teams. 

It is definitely true search around on google, However it sounds a lot better than it is, there’s only around 5 or so team sports played in Lebanon so it’s really not that impressive, Also Basketball and Soccer are astronomically bigger than Rugby League there so yeah.

[Gomersall]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

More than that for me, 8 at least. 

Eight is far too many at this point in time IMO. Imagine Jamaica losing a few players to injuries or suspensions and having to throw in four or five domestic players in against the Kiwis!

[SydneyRoosters]

2 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Strangely the Lebanese domestic game only came about because the WC organisers allowed Lebanon into the 2000 WC on the proviso that the game was introduced into the country itself. There now still seems to be too much focus on Australian Lebanese players than actual Lebanese players IMO.

Like I said i think this will have to change whether they want too or not as Aussie heritage players aren’t to be around for much longer.

I could be wrong but I think the have started to poke more interest at the domestic game but it has been very hard because of obvious reasons. On a positive they’ve gone from one Lebanese born player in 2017 to 2 which is a small improvement but it is still an improvement so if they actually are trying to grow the domestic game Good work.

[SydneyRoosters]

5 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Eight is far too many at this point in time IMO. Imagine Jamaica losing a few players to injuries or suspensions and having to throw in four or five domestic players in against the Kiwis!

I agree 5-6 is the perfect amount. However Greece did end up selecting 8, 2 of which do play in England/France so that’s why.

[Damien]

12 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Eight is far too many at this point in time IMO. Imagine Jamaica losing a few players to injuries or suspensions and having to throw in four or five domestic players in against the Kiwis!

Indeed. As noble as the intention is 8 just isn't going to work in a 16 team World Cup. We probably have 6 teams dependent on heritage players to be reasonably competitive. At best some of these have maybe 10 very low level domestic clubs and at worst some have barely any domestic activity.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Damien

[Gomersall]

6 minutes ago, Damien said:

Indeed. As noble as the intention is 8 just isn't going to work in a 16 team World Cup. We probably have 6 teams dependent on heritage players to be reasonably competitive. At best some of these have maybe 10 very low level domestic clubs and at worst some have barely any domestic activity.

Scotland and Italy would really struggle to find eight players of a high enough quality to play at a WC.

[Young Blood]

1 hour ago, SydneyRoosters said:

I very much doubt it, Lebanese immigration to Australia has continued to slow down in the last 20 years. The talent pool will only get smaller as Less and less players will be able to qualify through heritage. However it’s not all bad, Rugby league in Lebanon is already the 3rd Most popular sport there, if we put a lot of money and resources into Lebanon Rugby League it could start to produce some players of quality who then could go on to play in Europe Professionally.

I went to a school with lots of Lebanese people and most of all them had a parent born in Lebanon they are my age of 25. So thier kids will  eligible, so they will be plenty of eligible players for 20-30 years by then the domestic game hopefully is stronger. 

[MrPosh]

29 minutes ago, Eddie said:

More than that for me, 8 at least. 

That will stymie the likes of Tonga and Samoa, who may then lose access to their superstars - who aren't just joining to honour their heritage, but also to win.

I agree with the sentiment, but it's delicate.

[Tommygilf]

Lebanon really are another good example of where England haven't made use of the "heritage" teams anything like how they have down under. A clearly competitive team, especially so at the last world cup, yet our natural reaction is to fall back on a GB tour down under, Kiwis here and the Aussies here. They should be another option but are barely considered if at all. 

Perhaps the best outcome of the upcoming 2025 world cup is that France will begin to regularly host touring countries. Given their competitiveness, this may open the door for the likes of Lebanon and the PIs, and by extension lead to England waking up to the possibilities too.

FWIW, playing internationals in Lebanon, particularly for England, would require England Cricket in Pakistan levels of security and planning. Does the RFL have that sort of money? Probably not.

[SydneyRoosters]

3 minutes ago, Young Blood said:

I went to a school with lots of Lebanese people and most of all them had a parent born in Lebanon they are my age of 25. So thier kids will  eligible, so they will be plenty of eligible players for 20-30 years by then the domestic game hopefully is stronger. 

Yeah I think I worded It wrong, there probably set for the next 20 odd years but after that they won’t exist unless they have a domestic game.

[Tommygilf]

Discussions over minimum numbers of "domestic system" (what are they?) players to be in squads have to be shadowed by the fact that we have just 2 fully professional leagues in the entire world.

[RP London]

9 minutes ago, SydneyRoosters said:

Yeah I think I worded It wrong, there probably set for the next 20 odd years but after that they won’t exist unless they have a domestic game.

which is where this type of thing CAN work... use the heritage players to increase the interest in the country itself and build it, but it will take a concerted effort in country. Then when they have to hand over to the domestic league as heritage players disappear there will be a small drop off, so again, a concerted effort to not lose that interest.. but it COULD work.

What does definitely need to happen is that we play more internationals against more teams, the NRL and QRL/NSWRL players along with Super League players who put their hands up need to keep them up and continue to play for those nations outside of a world cup otherwise it is pointless. 

Every nation in the world cup also MUST have a domestic league to some level (whatever it is it has to be stuck with) ie 8 teams, juniors etc.. That gives something to build to at least. If that means someone like Scotland miss out then so be it.

Edited October 18, 2022 by RP London

[Gomersall]

9 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Discussions over minimum numbers of "domestic system" (what are they?) players to be in squads have to be shadowed by the fact that we have just 2 fully professional leagues in the entire world.

Players who have come through their nation’s system, even if they are playing abroad, rather than exclusively using players produced by England, New Zealand or Australia regardless of heritage.

[Tommygilf]

4 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Players who have come through their nation’s system, even if they are playing abroad, rather than exclusively using players produced by England, New Zealand or Australia regardless of heritage.

What if you were born somewhere but raised in England, Australia or New Zealand?

How many years do you have to play in a country to count as going through their "system"?

Are Welsh or French players brought through at Welsh or French clubs in the English Leagues treated the same as their domestic only set ups? And what about when those players play for English clubs?

I appreciate the sentiment, but practically it is a can of worms to set strict limits on and doesn't help. Let each nation decide who it is going to pick and why, some will do better than others.