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

[RP London]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

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.

Thats why I would look at the whole country set up rather than how they pick the team. Make sure the building blocks are there to take advantage. 

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, RP London said:

Thats why I would look at the whole country set up rather than how they pick the team. Make sure the building blocks are there to take advantage. 

Exactly. If nothing else too, we should be encouraging every QF from this and the 2017 world cup to be playing at least 5 fixtures before France 2025. Ideally against eachother, and for the likes of the competitive tier 2 nations, (on tour) against England and France. That allows a Lebanon or an Ireland to have a big money generating fixture that can really go far to boost RL in that country and is exactly how "heritage" teams should be used.

[Gomersall]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

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.

The Welsh and French players playing in the English leagues learnt the game somewhere, usually in their home country with the odd anomaly.

[Eddie]

41 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

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

In that case they shouldn’t be in it. I’d rather see Serbia, Holland or the Czech Republic in. 

[Eddie]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Exactly. If nothing else too, we should be encouraging every QF from this and the 2017 world cup to be playing at least 5 fixtures before France 2025. Ideally against eachother, and for the likes of the competitive tier 2 nations, (on tour) against England and France. That allows a Lebanon or an Ireland to have a big money generating fixture that can really go far to boost RL in that country and is exactly how "heritage" teams should be used.

Like Brazil are doing. Teams not playing a single game inbetween world cups and being made up entirely of Australians is a tin pot concept that cheapens the competition imho. 

[Gomersall]

Just now, Eddie said:

In that case they shouldn’t be in it. I’d rather see Serbia, Holland or the Czech Republic in. 

Technically Eddie there are quite a few teams involved in this tournament and the qualifying games who don’t/didn’t meet the IRL’s own eligibility criteria.

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Gomersall said:

The Welsh and French players playing in the English leagues learnt the game somewhere, usually in their home country with the odd anomaly.

Is Theo Fages a French product or a Salford one?

I know I'm being picky here but this is the level of pickiness we will be talking about. Does playing a game under the auspices of a given national Federation count? Could see plenty of players ticking that box on the way to a tournament.

I think with where international RL is right now, the best way to strengthen the teams between World Cup years and in Qualifiers. The 4 Nations used to at least mean some tier 2 countries could hold together a squad. Now the Oceania Cup is trying to replicate that in the Pacific. We need something for everyone else.

[Tommygilf]

6 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Like Brazil are doing. Teams not playing a single game inbetween world cups and being made up entirely of Australians is a tin pot concept that cheapens the competition imho. 

The Brazil women's team is made up mostly of women from Brazil iirc, particularly a lot of Women's 7s players.

They have to have the platform to play. This has been created with the Oceania Cup. It was there for 1 team in the 4 nations. It needs something else for the Northern Hemisphere teams. You can only build that from a position of strength, England have to be involved in some way.

I also don't think its fair at all to label teams as "full of Aussies". National identity is now more fluid than ever. 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Tommygilf

[RP London]

16 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Exactly. If nothing else too, we should be encouraging every QF from this and the 2017 world cup to be playing at least 5 fixtures before France 2025. Ideally against eachother, and for the likes of the competitive tier 2 nations, (on tour) against England and France. That allows a Lebanon or an Ireland to have a big money generating fixture that can really go far to boost RL in that country and is exactly how "heritage" teams should be used.

God its depressing that we have to say 5 fixtures before 2025.. 5 in 3 years ffs! and we so rarely even get that.. it should be 5 a year... any other sport would manage that!

[Gomersall]

13 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Is Theo Fages a French product or a Salford one?

I know I'm being picky here but this is the level of pickiness we will be talking about. Does playing a game under the auspices of a given national Federation count? Could see plenty of players ticking that box on the way to a tournament.

I think with where international RL is right now, the best way to strengthen the teams between World Cup years and in Qualifiers. The 4 Nations used to at least mean some tier 2 countries could hold together a squad. Now the Oceania Cup is trying to replicate that in the Pacific. We need something for everyone else.

I realise it’s not just a black and white issue. Fages first learned to play RL in France not Salford.

[Tommygilf]

5 minutes ago, RP London said:

God its depressing that we have to say 5 fixtures before 2025.. 5 in 3 years ffs! and we so rarely even get that.. it should be 5 a year... any other sport would manage that!

Yeah I know! I was working on 2 a year and 1 in 2025 prior to the WC... 

Ideally it would be upwards of that a year, but England don't even manage that.

[Tommygilf]

3 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

I realise it’s not just a black and white issue. Fages first learned to play RL in France not Salford.

So "academy produced" players in England, Australia and NZ are fine to count as "domestic players" then.

As I've said it is a can of worms. The rules are there now to state who can play for whom. Right now our focus should be strengthening the teams between World Cups by making sure the players who play in world cups also feature in the intervening years.

[Damien]

1 hour 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.

Funnily enough I was thinking this earlier. The domestic players debate aside I do think we really need a third professional league to really grow the game internationally. France is the obvious hope.

2 fully professional leagues is a real limiter for the game on several levels and actually makes a World Cup without heritage players practically impossible. Its going to be pretty hard to grow beyond what we have now without one.

[IM2]

6 hours ago, gingerjon said:

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.

i was there. it was a big event. my main point is union fans dont care about blow outs and will turn up. main reason is the international game is their pinnacle and they have built that dna. 

i know that the lions are looking at playing their on their way to the next tour down under. so it can't have been that bad.

 

[MatthewWoody]

4 hours ago, Eddie said:

In that case they shouldn’t be in it. I’d rather see Serbia, Holland or the Czech Republic in. 

Cricket scores.

[IM2]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

Funnily enough I was thinking this earlier. The domestic players debate aside I do think we really need a third professional league to really grow the game internationally. France is the obvious hope.

2 fully professional leagues is a real limiter for the game on several levels and actually makes a World Cup without heritage players practically impossible. Its going to be pretty hard to grow beyond what we have now without one.

agree on France and the easiest to fix. missing link is a two game annual series with england and perhaps a couple of fixtures with lebanon, scotland, wales or Ireland. seems obvious. you see the french matches written off every year due to blow outs way lower than what union doesn't blink an eye at