Nations Cup/Trophy/Vase

[JM2010]

5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

I think it must take great restraint for the people at European Rugby League to not just reply to so many of these idea threads with, "Oh, you mean that thing we announced and are doing".

I know they're doing it. There's Euro, Americas, MEA and Pacific cup. I think they need to stay as regular tournaments in the calendar and built up to become big tournaments in their own right.

I would just like to see one tournament between WCs that gives England and the best nations from Europe, MEA and Americas the chance to take on the SH teams

[Wellsy4HullFC]

5 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

It absolutely is an issue because it means those games are absolutely commercially worthless and won’t be on TV. 

I don’t blame any non English player at the end of the season who makes his ft living from league saying “You want me to risk injury in a tournament with zero tv coverage, no crowds against a B team? No thanks”. 

If England want to do test series that are commercially beneficial for them in Nov fine but at least then dump combined nations and agree to play top two European nations in mid season.

A thousand times this.

A first team getting tonked by a second team attracts no fans, no supporters, no players (who's going to put their hand up for this?), no coverage, no sponsors. It's an unwanted friendly.

[hw88]

Going on a 4 year cycle:-

1 World Cup

2 GB tour to Australia/NZ. European countries not involved to play a qualifying tournament for the European Championship. Pacific nations to have their own island championship.

3 European Championship / Oceania championship

4 Australia/NZ tour GB. Countries not involved to play in World Cup qualifiers.

This would give regular international competition (for both established and emerging nations alike) and retain financially lucrative tours that are of historic significance - no point throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Should RL develop sufficiently in places like Africa and North America then they could be 'invited' to participate in the European/Pacific competitions rather like Japan and Mexico have competed in South America's football championship in the not too distant past.

It is important for the growth of the game to have an established international fixture list. Virtually every other team sport has this already.

[Madrileño]

4 hours ago, hw88 said:

Going on a 4 year cycle:-

1 World Cup

2 GB tour to Australia/NZ. 

So you have "England" playing in the World Cup, and hardly any other games, with little or no chance to build a brand....

And then the exact same players playing as "GB" the next year, with little or no chance of building a brand. If they toured Australia, the Aussies would just continue to refer to them as England anyway. 

No thanks.

The England League team already has no brand when you compare it to cricket, union or football. Diluting it further with a ridiculous made-up "GB" team is going going to do absolutely nothing to grow the popularity of the team. 

Edited October 20, 2022 by Madrileño

[Wellsy4HullFC]

4 hours ago, hw88 said:

Going on a 4 year cycle:-

1 World Cup

2 GB tour to Australia/NZ. European countries not involved to play a qualifying tournament for the European Championship. Pacific nations to have their own island championship.

3 European Championship / Oceania championship

4 Australia/NZ tour GB. Countries not involved to play in World Cup qualifiers.

 

Tours are not how you build up the international game. It's how you concentrate attention on 2 teams and forget about the rest.

Also, no to GB.

[Just Browny]

I think you can make a multi-nation competition work outside of a World Cup, but World Cup qualification is an important lever for making teams/players make an effort that we don't exploit nearly enough by letting eight teams qualify directly for the WC.

A competition like Wellsy describes would have even more appeal if, as well as a trophy in its own right, it also acted as the means to WC qualification. And there would be far greater consequences to pulling out for no reason a year ahead of time than previous abortive attempts to develop a competition like this.

Edited October 21, 2022 by Just Browny

[Gomersall]

3 hours ago, Just Browny said:

I think you can make a multi-nation competition work outside of a World Cup, but World Cup qualification is an important lever for making teams/players make an effort that we don't exploit nearly enough by letting eight teams qualify directly for the WC.

A competition like Wellsy describes would have even more appeal if, as well as a trophy in its own right, it also acted as the means to WC qualification. And there would be far greater consequences to pulling out for no reason a year ahead of time than previous abortive attempts to develop a competition like this.

Only the semi finalists and the host, if the host isn’t one of the four, should automatically qualify for the next WC IMO. Eight is far too many. If that means that England, Australia or New Zealand may have to play qualifiers then so be it.

[Keith989]

19 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

There were getting absolutely battered in Rigby Championship for years and there team in SR we’re getting tonked but without those games no one would put in any money because they would’ve had zero commercial value, started to be able to compete in Rugby World Cups and get more money for professional era.

 You are missing the point, the results for the first 4-5 years are immaterial, completely irrelevant. It’s the guaranteed TV coverage and games against marketable nations that would allow a Wales or France to attract the money to pay for the infrastructure.

This play the b teams nonsense will never do that so it’s worthless. 

Their super rugby team were always competitive. They only joined super rugby in 2016 and had already made the final by 2019. Argentina were also competitive long before they had professional club sides. They came third in the 2007 world Cup for example.

[Barley Mow]

10 hours ago, Madrileño said:

So you have "England" playing in the World Cup, and hardly any other games, with little or no chance to build a brand....

And then the exact same players playing as "GB" the next year, with little or no chance of building a brand. If they toured Australia, the Aussies would just continue to refer to them as England anyway. 

No thanks.

The England League team already has no brand when you compare it to cricket, union or football. Diluting it further with a ridiculous made-up "GB" team is going going to do absolutely nothing to grow the popularity of the team. 

I agree with your point that sticking with either GB or the separate home nations would be best in terms of brand recognition/building.

I don't understand what you mean by 'made-up' GB team though. What is more made up about it than any other international sports team?

In terms of brand recognition, GB was (probably still is) miles ahead of the individual home nations as far as international rugby league us concerned.

[hw88]

9 hours ago, Madrileño said:

So you have "England" playing in the World Cup, and hardly any other games, with little or no chance to build a brand....

And then the exact same players playing as "GB" the next year, with little or no chance of building a brand. If they toured Australia, the Aussies would just continue to refer to them as England anyway. 

No thanks.

The England League team already has no brand when you compare it to cricket, union or football. Diluting it further with a ridiculous made-up "GB" team is going going to do absolutely nothing to grow the popularity of the team. 

In what way is GB 'ridiculous' and 'made up'? It is the way things were in RL almost from its inception. You might say it is ridiculous to split GB up since we can't beat the Aussies together how do you expect us to beat them apart. GB became England and Wales only when Wales had a good crop of players in the 1970s and later in the 1990s. As seperate teams neither have had as big an impact as when they played together and I certainly don't expect that to change any time soon. Furthermore I don't believe it has done much to expand the game into Ireland or Scotland - listening to the accents of those players will tell you that.

Anyway there are precedents in other sports to play as GB. One example is cricket. Yes it goes down on paper as 'England' but in reality it is England and Wales. Plus even in relatively recent times there have been Irish and Scottish captains of 'England', so although they play as England in reality (at test level at least) they represent the whole of the UK.

Just because they play as England in football doesn't mean we should have to follow suit!

[Gomersall]

7 minutes ago, hw88 said:

In what way is GB 'ridiculous' and 'made up'? It is the way things were in RL almost from its inception. You might say it is ridiculous to split GB up since we can't beat the Aussies together how do you expect us to beat them apart. GB became England and Wales only when Wales had a good crop of players in the 1970s and later in the 1990s. As seperate teams neither have had as big an impact as when they played together and I certainly don't expect that to change any time soon. Furthermore I don't believe it has done much to expand the game into Ireland or Scotland - listening to the accents of those players will tell you that.

Anyway there are precedents in other sports to play as GB. One example is cricket. Yes it goes down on paper as 'England' but in reality it is England and Wales. Plus even in relatively recent times there have been Irish and Scottish captains of 'England', so although they play as England in reality (at test level at least) they represent the whole of the UK.

Just because they play as England in football doesn't mean we should have to follow suit!

GB never came about until after the Second World War. Hardly almost since RL’s inception.

[Madrileño]

4 hours ago, hw88 said:

In what way is GB 'ridiculous' and 'made up'? It is the way things were in RL almost from its inception. You might say it is ridiculous to split GB up since we can't beat the Aussies together how do you expect us to beat them apart. GB became England and Wales only when Wales had a good crop of players in the 1970s and later in the 1990s. As seperate teams neither have had as big an impact as when they played together and I certainly don't expect that to change any time soon. Furthermore I don't believe it has done much to expand the game into Ireland or Scotland - listening to the accents of those players will tell you that.

Anyway there are precedents in other sports to play as GB. One example is cricket. Yes it goes down on paper as 'England' but in reality it is England and Wales. Plus even in relatively recent times there have been Irish and Scottish captains of 'England', so although they play as England in reality (at test level at least) they represent the whole of the UK.

Just because they play as England in football doesn't mean we should have to follow suit!

Sure.  Play as GB then. But then don't split the nations up during a World Cup. Pick 1 team and stick with it. For me, the logical one is England, as it allows the other nations to keep a team as well for World Cups and junior nations stuff. 

The players are effectively the same whether it is England or GB. There might be 1 Welsh guy makes the strongest team on any given year,  but he will almost certainly be England-eligible anyway due to residence as a Super League player. As you say, there are no Irish or Scots who play top level anyway.  

The team (England or GB) currently has almost zero brand visibility anyway. Can you imagine the utter stupidity of trying to create social media channels, content etc around a GB (or England) team only for them to never play again for 4 years?

Some people seem to be complete dreamers. Detached from the real world. 

[Madrileño]

4 hours ago, Barley Mow said:

I agree with your point that sticking with either GB or the separate home nations would be best in terms of brand recognition/building.

I don't understand what you mean by 'made-up' GB team though. What is more made up about it than any other international sports team?

In terms of brand recognition, GB was (probably still is) miles ahead of the individual home nations as far as international rugby league us concerned.

I meant made up in that it has been England for about 15 years and then the same team gets inexplicably rebadged as GB to go and play some games in Australia, where all the media (and NRL pundits, vox pops etc) continued to refer to them as "England". They then returned home after a disastrous series (only beating PNG if I remember right?) before reverting straight back to being known as England for their next game. 

 

[Gerrumonside ref]

If England can lift this World Cup and defeat a string of respected Southern Hemisphere teams along the way then I would expect that would give more leverage to getting more Northern Hemisphere-South Hemisphere clashes.

The NRL clubs are powerful no doubt, but everyone likes money and it can be extremely motivating for some who might see the potential.  It will lend weight to our friends down there lobbying for greater international action. 

England need to start beating Australia, when it matters, to really start opening doors for the International game 

[Gomersall]

33 minutes ago, Madrileño said:

I meant made up in that it has been England for about 15 years and then the same team gets inexplicably rebadged as GB to go and play some games in Australia, where all the media (and NRL pundits, vox pops etc) continued to refer to them as "England". They then returned home after a disastrous series (only beating PNG if I remember right?) before reverting straight back to being known as England for their next game. 

 

They couldn’t even beat PNG. Played four, lost four.

[hw88]

48 minutes ago, Madrileño said:

Sure.  Play as GB then. But then don't split the nations up during a World Cup. Pick 1 team and stick with it. For me, the logical one is England, as it allows the other nations to keep a team as well for World Cups and junior nations stuff. 

The players are effectively the same whether it is England or GB. There might be 1 Welsh guy makes the strongest team on any given year,  but he will almost certainly be England-eligible anyway due to residence as a Super League player. As you say, there are no Irish or Scots who play top level anyway.  

The team (England or GB) currently has almost zero brand visibility anyway. Can you imagine the utter stupidity of trying to create social media channels, content etc around a GB (or England) team only for them to never play again for 4 years?

Some people seem to be complete dreamers. Detached from the real world. 

I agree go with one or the other but not both.

Personally I would go with GB but I know that won't be a popular view point on here. 

[welshmagpie]

Year 4

- World Cup (top 16 nations)

- Continental Qualifiers (the rest)

Year 1

- Continentals e.g Euro Cup, Euro Shield, Americas Cup, Oceania Cup, Oceania Shield, MEA Cup (groups of 4)

- Preliminary World Cup Qualifiers (for the minnows)

Year 2

- 4 Nations (Euro Cup 1, Oceania Cup 1,2,3)

- Federation Shield (Euro Cup 2, Oceania Shield 1, MEA Cup 1, Americas Cup 1)

- World Cup Qualifiers (for the rest)

Year 3

- World Series (tours between the 4 Nations, Federation Shield and World Cup qualified nations)

- World Cup Qualifiers-Repechage (to determine last 2 spaces)

[Madrileño]

9 hours ago, Gomersall said:

They couldn’t even beat PNG. Played four, lost four.

Brilliant!!!

Thanks for clearing that up!

[Keith989]

4 hours ago, ShropshireBull said:

They weren’t conpetitive when they were put in SR or Rugby Championship, they got smashed. But it was the expoure to competitions someone could sell and market (plus their national) team effectively playing together every week that means they had the money to invest.

Saying focus on youth and play knights for Wales is nonsense because any lads who could be game changers would just ###### off to union.

Why do you keep saying this? The Jaguarese made the SR final in 2019 and had an over all record of played 66, wins 33, losses 33 in super rugby. In their first rugby championship season Argentina drew against South Africa and ran Aus extremely close both home and away. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Keith989

[Madrileño]

8 hours ago, Keith989 said:

Why do you keep saying this? The Jaguarese made the SR final in 2019 and had an over all record of played 66, wins 33, losses 33 in super rugby. In their first rugby championship season Argentina drew against South Africa and ran Aus extremely close both home and away. 

Sorry: 

Is this rugby union you are talking about?