Rework of IRL/RLWC

[gingerjon]

Just now, Harry Stottle said:

Quite Fraudian Tommy, I like that, is it you own?

I think it's quite Freudian to write Freudian as Fraudian.

 

[Tommygilf]

2 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Now you are bringing your football expierence into play Tommy in respect of no tries being scored, I can well imagine that football matches devoid of goals being scored are very sombre affairs but in my expierience over many years I have been witness to a good number of games that have been defence orientated and they have been as good as any games I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

But yes, the Cook Islands was the better game, and the England v Samoa game turned out to be a damp squib as a contest, but there is very much the likelihood that those games could be reversed, would you expect Aus v Scotland, to be any different and the other mismatches that we will probably - no, that will accur - in the next 2 rounds?

Not at all Harry, one team was nilled and the other scored just a single penalty and was otherwise well beaten (I was there). 

Scotland drew with NZ in 2016. 

Anything is possible. Some things are more likely than others. If you don't pin your enjoyment entirely on that expectation then you'll enjoy it more.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Quite Fraudian Tommy, I like that, is it you own?

I hope you meant Freudian H and you weren't calling me a fraud! But yeah I just thought of it now watching Australia vs NZ T20. Not perfect, but good enough to get the point across.

[Keith989]

Not sure why Ireland are always excluded in the guaranteed teams in reduced world cups. Okay we're a heritage team, but it's a fully pro, somewhat competitive one. There is domestic activity here and there were plenty of Irish fans in for the game against Jamaica

[Harry Stottle]

5 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I think it's quite Freudian to write Freudian as Fraudian.

 

I was hoping spell check would help me out but it didn't

[Harry Stottle]

6 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

I hope you meant Freudian H and you weren't calling me a fraud! But yeah I just thought of it now watching Australia vs NZ T20. Not perfect, but good enough to get the point across.

Yeah, spelling was never a strong point and I also didn't leave school with any academic qualifications at 15, but I didn't do to badly as it turned out.

[Mumby Magic]

13 hours ago, SydneyRoosters said:

Tonight has showed us a lot of things.

The World Cup simply has to many teams for there to be regular competitive games: Solution= A 10-12 Team world Cup, This would make the tournament a lot more competitive with less blow out scores and all round more enjoyment.

Heritage filled Nations don’t offer anything.

Having Nations filled with Heritage players, With Little to no Domestic game Offer absolutely nothing to our game.

They have 0 Fans get absolutely Destroyed every week and are simply completely useless.

My Solution. Teams must have a certain number of Domestic players (8 or so players), Primarily in qualifying to disallow nations like Scotland and Italy qualifying over entirely domestic nations such as Serbia or The Netherlands.
Not that Serbia or Netherlands would do a better job, but if a saw a team getting destroyed 84-0 I would at least hope there playing for the country and not all heritage players.

This game was a really poor display of rugby league and hopefully gives the people in charge a wake up call.

16 Teams was never viable nor logical and this shows it.

Heritage Filled Nations offer nothing and shouldn’t be playing against the best.

 

As I've stated in the past, when I started watching we had a 5 team world cup and Wales on hiatus. Now we have 30 plus nations playing the sport and 16 team world cup.

So yes let's retract............

 

[SydneyRoosters]

24 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Probably a good place to start is to just state your credentials then let others decide if you "have more knowledge than 99% of this forum", rather than saying it yourself.

Now that I read It back I sound like an idiot, Not what I is was trying to sound like but can’t really display yourself through text. 

[Harry Stottle]

2 minutes ago, Mumby Magic said:

As I've stated in the past, when I started watching we had a 5 team world cup and Wales on hiatus. Now we have 30 plus nations playing the sport and 16 team world cup.

So yes let's retract............

 

So all these nations should be playing much more than just being brought together for WC's, Football has it's filtering system but done on a regional basis so some minnows still get through, in Rugby League teams are fabricated to take part by the nature of the popularity and the immigration mainly in Australia and some in NZ, there is no reason why the cream of the nations should just play in the WC.

[Martyn Sadler]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Let me just say when @Martyn Sadlerdelivered his own structure for the whole of the Rugby League in whereas the top clubs in SL would be playing against the bottom teams in League 1 it was treated with repulsion and derision from most people on this site, and especially a lot of those who are championing the present World Cup Format.

But is this format any different in principle to Martyn's suggestion, realistically in this present World Cup we could have 16 teams that resemble our domestic league structure, 5 of SL status, 6 of Championship status and 5 who would be representative of League 1 clubs.

Granted we will see some very good games when teams of equal abillity not of the top status play each other (as we can watching Community clubs compete) but should mismatches such as last night be necessary? to us who are well versed in the sport we know and can see the intracsies of the game, but as a competition that is broadcast on national TV is it really representative of the sport and does it present in the way it should.

As I said very early in the Aus v Scotland thread last night, we should have 6 invitees to a finals series and 2 further qualifiers, so as to make the games more competitive and yes there would be fewer to attend but it should produce more of an appetite to be there.

The difference was that in my proposal for reorganising the league structure, the potential one-sided matches would have been in a very small minority, they wouldn't have been exposed on prime-time television and they were designed to allow lower clubs to draw in new investment and become more competitive over time.

Most people within the game who took the time to understand the logic of that proposal came to appreciate it but there is a natural reluctance to make radical changes. Eventually something like that structure will come into effect.

That rationale, however, is very different from organising a World Cup in which every game is going to be broadcast on the BBC.

The organisers, in my view, made a mistake when they moved away from the underlying logic of the 2017 tournament.

If you remember, 14 nations took part in that tournament, with two seeded groups of four, which included the top eight nations, from which six won through to the quarter-finals, and then two weaker groups of three, from which two teams won through.

If we had followed the same pattern in 2022, we might have had a Group A consisting, for example, of England, Samoa, Australia and Fiji, and a Group B of New Zealand, Lebanon, Tonga and PNG, with three from each qualifying for the quarter-finals.

We might then have had a Group C of France, Greece, Italy and Scotland, and a Group D of Ireland, Jamaica, Wales and the Cook Islands, with the top team from each group going through to the quarter-finals.

In Rugby League we can never guarantee avoiding one-sided games, as England showed against Samoa, but that structure wouldn't have generated as many. Scotland and Jamaica might still have struggled, but they at least wouldn't be expected to turn out against Australia and New Zealand respectively.

But we would have had more big matches in Groups A and B in the pool stages and more interesting matches in Groups C and D, with perhaps Ireland facing the Cook Islands and France facing Italy for the right to progress into the quarter-finals. For France to have played and won three pool games before reaching the quarter-finals would have been a great boost for the game in that country.

[Young Blood]

Greece are going to loose every game by a considerable margin but that's not important what's important is that rugby league is now In the conscience of the Greek population. Hope this garners interest and receives funding. 

[Mumby Magic]

25 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

So all these nations should be playing much more than just being brought together for WC's, Football has it's filtering system but done on a regional basis so some minnows still get through, in Rugby League teams are fabricated to take part by the nature of the popularity and the immigration mainly in Australia and some in NZ, there is no reason why the cream of the nations should just play in the WC.

I agree.

[Jughead]

So, we have the same people who want Super League teams to come into the Challenge Cup far earlier, to play against part-time teams, but these people don’t want part-time players playing against full-time players at a World Cup because big winning margins. The irony. 

[MatthewWoody]

I think this is the right format. 

 

[dealwithit]

Stop trying to change things. We have over 60 nations playing the game. The World Cup is a celebration of our sport and reward for those who are dedicated. There was a 145-0 scoreline in the union WC — it’s still going! I watch Australia score 33 goals against American Samoa in soccer WC quals — it’s still kicking along. 
RL fans have an inferiority complex. Look at fixing yourself before proposing to fix the sport. 

[Barley Mow]

2 hours ago, SydneyRoosters said:

Embarrassing to defend myself, God what has the world come too .

I'll not respond on @Pulga's behalf, beyond saying you've probably picked the person on the forum who has the most experience/involvement in developing nations international rugby league and then claimed you know more about that subject.

It might be worth holding back on such claims when you don't know the background of who you might be engaging with.

[Gerrumonside ref]

1 hour ago, SydneyRoosters said:

Now that I read It back I sound like an idiot, Not what I is was trying to sound like but can’t really display yourself through text. 

Don’t worry too much - things can get heated and things can get said during disagreements.

It’d be boring if we all thought the same.

Everybody can have a bad day, but I also think everyone on here has got interesting things to contribute even if I don’t always agree with them.

 

[Gerrumonside ref]

41 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

I think this is the right format. 

 

I agree and if we want to build history and extra prestige around it then continuity will help.

I don’t want less international teams and rugby league to watch.

We have a format that sporting fans will be familiar with and can understand.

[gingerjon]

48 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

I think this is the right format. 

 

It is.

Not least because there is simply no point changing it for yet another different one.

[Maximus Decimus]

13 hours ago, londonrlfan said:

But Tonga and Samoa are heritage teams as well

Competitive heritage nations that bring something to the tournament.

This essentially is my point: we should stop worrying so much about fairness and concentrate on making the best and most beneficial tournament we can. This means picking and choosing who we want. 

The pool of RL nations is vanishingly small and every time we try to expand it, we just end up filling it with less competitive largely false nations.

 

[Harry Stottle]

2 hours ago, Jughead said:

So, we have the same people who want Super League teams to come into the Challenge Cup far earlier, to play against part-time teams, but these people don’t want part-time players playing against full-time players at a World Cup because big winning margins. The irony. 

Who are these people Juggy?

[Harry Stottle]

3 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:

The difference was that in my proposal for reorganising the league structure, the potential one-sided matches would have been in a very small minority, they wouldn't have been exposed on prime-time television and they were designed to allow lower clubs to draw in new investment and become more competitive over time.

Most people within the game who took the time to understand the logic of that proposal came to appreciate it but there is a natural reluctance to make radical changes. Eventually something like that structure will come into effect.

That rationale, however, is very different from organising a World Cup in which every game is going to be broadcast on the BBC.

The organisers, in my view, made a mistake when they moved away from the underlying logic of the 2017 tournament.

If you remember, 14 nations took part in that tournament, with two seeded groups of four, which included the top eight nations, from which six won through to the quarter-finals, and then two weaker groups of three, from which two teams won through.

If we had followed the same pattern in 2022, we might have had a Group A consisting, for example, of England, Samoa, Australia and Fiji, and a Group B of New Zealand, Lebanon, Tonga and PNG, with three from each qualifying for the quarter-finals.

We might then have had a Group C of France, Greece, Italy and Scotland, and a Group D of Ireland, Jamaica, Wales and the Cook Islands, with the top team from each group going through to the quarter-finals.

In Rugby League we can never guarantee avoiding one-sided games, as England showed against Samoa, but that structure wouldn't have generated as many. Scotland and Jamaica might still have struggled, but they at least wouldn't be expected to turn out against Australia and New Zealand respectively.

But we would have had more big matches in Groups A and B in the pool stages and more interesting matches in Groups C and D, with perhaps Ireland facing the Cook Islands and France facing Italy for the right to progress into the quarter-finals. For France to have played and won three pool games before reaching the quarter-finals would have been a great boost for the game in that country.

Yes that was a far better format.

[bobbruce]

16 hours ago, Ragingbull said:

Wales in the same tier as Tonga?  Thats laughable. 

Going off the opening post would kick Tonga and Samoa out of the World Cup and keep Wales in. 

[GeordieSaint]

21 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Yes that was a far better format.

It’s not really. In theory, the 3rd team in Pools A and B could qualify without winning a game - a draw against 4th with a better points difference. That would do wonders for the competition’s integrity. 

This format is absolutely fine. The only group without 3 good/decent sides is the Australian pool. Every game can’t be close. We should stop trying to manufacture that with poor formats lacking integrity and instead invest in developing the sport with a long term view; not quick fix short termism.

[Harry Stottle]

And this game on now Fiji v Italy could be the first of 3 complete mismatches TODAY. Which in not good for the viewing public and indeed the competition as an whole, there are those on this site who for some reason dismiss that the public will not be influenced by bad contests and will just return, the format as described by Martyn in '17 is far better than this.