How to rebuild Scottish RL?

[MatthewWoody]

2 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

That was the 4 nations. The World Cup is supposed to be different but if we can't be assed developing things, just be honest about it. But even that doesn't include bona fide nations like PNG and Wales (now) 

I think people every 4-5 years deserve to watch games and have fun. If it means having "heritage" players, no problem. 

If we want to organize Int tournaments only for "bona fide" be my guest, but I think a World Cup should actually be worth watching and have the best possible teams. 

[The Masked Poster]

Just now, MatthewWoody said:

I think people every 4-5 years deserve to watch games and have fun. If it means having "heritage" players, no problem. 

If we want to organize Int tournaments only for "bona fide" be my guest, but I think a World Cup should actually be worth watching and have the best possible teams. 

The ultimate goal of a World Cup in any sport, surely is to grow that game and generate money for further development. Relying on one or two countries to provide the bulk of the players will not ultimately achieve that.

Maybe that doesn't bother enough people and the majority of RL fans and administration are happy with that, but I don't think it will be good for the long term. 

[MatthewWoody]

Just now, The Masked Poster said:

The ultimate goal of a World Cup in any sport, surely is to grow that game and generate money for further development. Relying on one or two countries to provide the bulk of the players will not ultimately achieve that.

Maybe that doesn't bother enough people and the majority of RL fans and administration are happy with that, but I don't think it will be good for the long term. 

And you generate money with amateur players playing v England and Australia? 

[The Masked Poster]

5 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

And you generate money with amateur players playing v England and Australia? 

No you develop them in any respective countries. Or if not, you accept you can't have international competition, like AFL. 

[MatthewWoody]

Just now, The Masked Poster said:

No you develop them in any respective countries. Or if not, you accept you can't have international competition, like AFL. 

So, you don't think anyone tried to? 

I can introduce you to a lot of people who tried to do it in Italy (I think the same goes with Scotland, etc.), investing their effort, time, money.

Having the best eligible players in World Cups hasn't taken anything away from that work. 

[The Masked Poster]

12 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

So, you don't think anyone tried to? 

I can introduce you to a lot of people who tried to do it in Italy (I think the same goes with Scotland, etc.), investing their effort, time, money.

Having the best eligible players in World Cups hasn't taken anything away from that work. 

It takes more than money, it takes time. Lots of time and not just abandoning it when it doesn't work straight away. 

[londonrlfan]

16 hours ago, Sports Prophet said:

What do you propose then?

You can’t represent the country of your grandparent? That’s a pretty common rule in world sport. 

There's nothing wrong with the rules, but there should be a limit on how many heritage players you can pick. Domestic players must be represented at the WC. And yes that means French/Welsh/PNG/Fijian players playing in England and the NRL. 

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

There's nothing wrong with the rules, but there should be a limit on how many heritage players you can pick. Domestic players must be represented at the WC. And yes that means French/Welsh/PNG/Fijian players playing in England and the NRL. 

So not domestic players then.

[londonrlfan]

9 hours ago, Jughead said:

I wouldn’t look into the Tonga team I I were you. Or the Samoa one. Or the Cook Islands team. Don’t even worry about looking at Greece. Forget Italy, too. Ireland isn’t worth your time, neither is the Jamaicans. Leave Lebanon, too. Wales? You’ll just get upset. 

So, you’ve decimated international rugby league and crushed a load of good stories and interesting players and we now have England, Australia, Fiji, New Zealand and France left. How’s that going to work? 

The tiny island nations who don't contribute anything to the playing numbers does nothing for the sport tbh. It's a foundation built on sand. 

Not sure why the likes of Wales and Fiji are being lumped in with them? And Jamaica and Greece have both made an effort to use domestic players in their first tournament. Scotland are in their fifth consecutive WC and have never bothered and never will. Teams like them make a mockery of growing the sport. Might seem harsh to apologists, but they've had numerous chances and are full of excuses. 

[londonrlfan]

Just now, Damien said:

So not domestic players then.

They are. Edwin Ipape is a domestic product of PNG RL not English RL. 

[Damien]

2 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

They are. Edwin Ipape is a domestic product of PNG RL not English RL. 

You quite clearly said domestic players. If you didn't mean that thats fine.

[londonrlfan]

Just now, Damien said:

You quite clearly said domestic players. If you didn't mean that thats fine.

That's what a domestic player is. Not sure what you're confused about exactly? Are you saying Casty was no long a French player when he moved to the Roosters?

[Damien]

1 minute ago, londonrlfan said:

That's what a domestic player is. Not sure what you're confused about exactly? Are you saying Casty was no long a French player when he moved to the Roosters?

A domestic player is someone that plays in that country's domestic competition, it's not rocket science.

[londonrlfan]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

A domestic player is someone that plays in that country's domestic competition, it's not rocket science.

No it isn't. A domestic player is a player that was produced by that country's system. Just because you're good enough to move to SL, NRL etc doesn't mean you aren't homegrown. 

[Damien]

4 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

No it isn't. A domestic player is a player that was produced by that country's system. Just because you're good enough to move to SL, NRL etc doesn't mean you aren't homegrown. 

It's odd the way you are trying to conflate a homegrown player with a domestic player.

[londonrlfan]

8 minutes ago, Damien said:

It's odd the way you are trying to conflate a homegrown player with a domestic player.

https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/2199/jamaica-name-24-man-squad-for-rugby-leag...

Lol, even the international website calls them that. 

"Six players from the domestic game are included, all from Duhaney Park Red Sharks who recently won the National Club Championship Grand Final for the fourteenth time in 16 seasons, along with former Excelsior Community College speedster Abevia McDonald, who now plays at London Skolars."

Notice a Jamaican player at London Skolars is called a domestic, because he's a product of their domestic game. 

 

[Damien]

Just now, londonrlfan said:

https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/2199/jamaica-name-24-man-squad-for-rugby-leag...

Lol, even the international website calls them that. 

"Six players from the domestic game are included, all from Duhaney Park Red Sharks who recently won the National Club Championship Grand Final for the fourteenth time in 16 seasons, along with former Excelsior Community College speedster Abevia McDonald, who now plays at London Skolars."

Notice a Jamaican player at London Skolars is called a domestic, because he's a product of their domestic game. 

 

Well no it doesn't. You specifically said domestic players. If you don't know what you mean and actually meant homegrown that's fine.

[The Masked Poster]

45 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

The tiny island nations who don't contribute anything to the playing numbers does nothing for the sport tbh. It's a foundation built on sand. 

Not sure why the likes of Wales and Fiji are being lumped in with them? And Jamaica and Greece have both made an effort to use domestic players in their first tournament. Scotland are in their fifth consecutive WC and have never bothered and never will. Teams like them make a mockery of growing the sport. Might seem harsh to apologists, but they've had numerous chances and are full of excuses. 

Absolutely right. There's nothing wrong with using heritage players to help development, in fact most are dedicated to their cause. Look at the Jamaica team this year as a great example.

But year after year with no real homegrown development? That's just false.

Part of the affection for Jamaica is the home grown ethos and the hard work put in by Romeo Monteith. 

[2blackrooks]

There is a lot of interest in Scotland but our governing body appears useless, I say this because they release zero info about the sport, but I could be wrong. At a base level we have youngsters keen to play, we rely on volunteers and little/no funding from SRL that’s if they have any cash anyway. And where do we get cash, we use to get cash from England RL which payed for development officers, we actually had a reasonable team then the cash stopped and it’s been down hill since. I would start with getting a couple of development officers in place, try and get some funding and support the folk organising and running our ###### poor domestic scene. At present it’s run on fresh air 

Id get our U16/17/18/19 etc playing regular games, at present we have training days and almost no games. We could get home/away representative fixtures against England Wales Ireland even France Yorkshire Lancashire Cumbria which would give a 14 game season developing local lads for the league and the national team. 
 

 

[Sports Prophet]

1 hour ago, londonrlfan said:

There's nothing wrong with the rules, but there should be a limit on how many heritage players you can pick. Domestic players must be represented at the WC. And yes that means French/Welsh/PNG/Fijian players playing in England and the NRL. 

Why. I simply do not understand the rational.

When you say domestic players, I assume you mean domestic born players.

The challenge should not be which domestic players to select in order to meet a quota. The challenge must be to develop the sport to a point that domestic players are good enough to be selected on their own merit.

[londonrlfan]

2 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

Why. I simply do not understand the rational.

When you say domestic players, I assume you mean domestic born players.

The challenge should not be which domestic players to select in order to meet a quota. The challenge must be to develop the sport to a point that domestic players are good enough to be selected on their own merit.

Because international sport should be about authenticity. People can blame union etc all they like, but I'd guess the reason why RL aren't accepted by GAISF, Commonwealth Games, IOC etc is due to the lack of authentic teams. They won't be fooled by a bunch of Aussies in kilts. RL has always gone for the short term option, rather than putting down solid foundations, and as always the short term ends up being the wrong one. So what happens when migration to Australia stops? Will we not bother with internationals?

[Jughead]

1 hour ago, londonrlfan said:

The tiny island nations who don't contribute anything to the playing numbers does nothing for the sport tbh. It's a foundation built on sand. 

Not sure why the likes of Wales and Fiji are being lumped in with them? And Jamaica and Greece have both made an effort to use domestic players in their first tournament. Scotland are in their fifth consecutive WC and have never bothered and never will. Teams like them make a mockery of growing the sport. Might seem harsh to apologists, but they've had numerous chances and are full of excuses. 

Look at Jamaica scoring that try tonight.  They were never going to win from that position. Tell me it doesn’t mean the same because they’re born in the UK and not downtown Kingston. It’s akin to scenes we see of match winning tries once the hooter has gone like Jack Welsby in the 2020 Grand Final. Get in the bin if you think rugby league shouldn’t be played. We need more rugby league, not less of it. 

International rugby league has deep emotive reasoning behind it, far deeper than you or I could probably comprehend, I’d rather watch that in many cases than twenty-seven drudgery rounds of box ticking Super League games to satisfy club chairmen.

Becoming Border Force does plenty for the game of rugby league and none of it good. 

Edited October 22, 2022 by Jughead

[Sports Prophet]

2 minutes ago, londonrlfan said:

Because international sport should be about authenticity. People can blame union etc all they like, but I'd guess the reason why RL aren't accepted by GAISF, Commonwealth Games, IOC etc is due to the lack of authentic teams. They won't be fooled by a bunch of Aussies in kilts. RL has always gone for the short term option, rather than putting down solid foundations, and as always the short term ends up being the wrong one. So what happens when migration to Australia stops? Will we not bother with internationals?

If your guess as to why RL is not a member of GAISF is due to the number of heritage players representing nations at the WC, then I can immediately confirm for you that your guess is wide of the mark.

I have said it many times, the playing standard of the born and bred player needs improving and selecting the home grown player against FT professionals once in their career is not going to develop anything but a bruised and battered body.

[EggFace]

35 minutes ago, 2blackrooks said:

There is a lot of interest in Scotland but our governing body appears useless, I say this because they release zero info about the sport, but I could be wrong. At a base level we have youngsters keen to play, we rely on volunteers and little/no funding from SRL that’s if they have any cash anyway. And where do we get cash, we use to get cash from England RL which payed for development officers, we actually had a reasonable team then the cash stopped and it’s been down hill since. I would start with getting a couple of development officers in place, try and get some funding and support the folk organising and running our ###### poor domestic scene. At present it’s run on fresh air 

Id get our U16/17/18/19 etc playing regular games, at present we have training days and almost no games. We could get home/away representative fixtures against England Wales Ireland even France Yorkshire Lancashire Cumbria which would give a 14 game season developing local lads for the league and the national team. 
 

 

You sir sound like a SRU fan...but really Scottish Rugby League will never happen and just ask there Shinty teams.

[EggFace]

23 minutes ago, EggFace said:

You sir sound like a SRU fan...but really Scottish Rugby League will never happen and just ask there Shinty teams.

Its not going to happen ...end of and the same with Wales and the North East but I want to se the purists pf the Scottish Borders do the sport well.

Edited October 22, 2022 by EggFace