What to do about NH Rugby League

[Wellsy4HullFC]

There's quite a few issues here, and some people's opinions seem to be missing the point for me.

Do we need to work on development? Absolutely.

Do we need more internationals? Absolutely.

Well having more internationals make these teams more competitive? Some people think no, as without the development it's pointless. My argument would be that without the internationals, development becomes more difficult. Internationals attract interest. They put the sport in that nation more in the spotlight. They also give people a goal to aim for. What kid in Scotland is going to choose league over union if their highlight is likely a move to the north of England to play in SL at best?

Are teams based on just heritage players bad for international development? No. Again, if they give the opportunity to stage international games that you wouldn't have been able to previously, it puts the sport in the spotlight. However, there certainly does need to be a level of development going on in addition to this, otherwise you're spotlighting nothing. 

There should be standards to be eligible to enter the WC, and having some kind of domestic competition should be vital criteria.

 

More meaningful international games are vital for the development of the sport. MEANINGFUL. Not playing B teams. Not ad hoc one-off friendlies. Actual scheduled cyclical competitions. Until then, very few are going to give a sh*t about the international game because the international game lacks meaning.

[Madrileño]

9 hours ago, crashmon said:

 the gulf between the SH and NH teams is vast.

it was a wipeout, and wales, Ireland also even further behind and scotland could not get past Italy.

Agree with everything in your post.

You ask how France (as well as other teams) can get more competitive at international level.

Well, here is a back-of-a-fag-packet look at where the quarter finalists get the majority of their players from:

Fiji (NRL) v Kiwis (NRL)

England (Elite end of Super League) v PNG (Hostplus Cup)

Kangaroos (NRL) v Lebanon (NRL lower end)

Samoa (NRL) v Tonga (NRL)

Of the stronger teams that have been knocked out, France and Ireland were drawn mostly from Super League, with the Kukis and Italy both being a mixed bag from all over. 

To me, this tells you exactly how to improve France : get a cadre of their best guys into the NRL. Les Catalans are normally one of the stronger teams in Super League, and obviously Toulouse were last in the comp, but if they had a core of Catalans/Toulouse pros reinforced by 5 or 6 NRL guys, I am sure they would be far more competitive.  Look at the difference in the England team with a small number of NRL guys adding huge value - they may well go on to win the Cup. 

I know it is a big ask to find a few guys who can get to NRL standard, but perhaps a partnership between the FFR XIII and the NRL regarding placements for young players could be worked out. Only by exposing guys to playing against the best in the world week in week out will things change.

People can disagree all they want: you saw what happened last night when the French with a team of pros from Super League got destroyed by Samoa. They just could not compete. 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

I'll also add, if you have regular meaningful international competitions, you might find more players making themselves eligible for those nations more regularly, thus strengthening them. More competitive internationals, easier it is to spark development.

If you're not going to have any games, few are going to declare for you and few are going to want to take up the sport.

[fighting irish]

9 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

I'll also add, if you have regular meaningful international competitions, you might find more players making themselves eligible for those nations more regularly, thus strengthening them. More competitive internationals, easier it is to spark development.

If you're not going to have any games, few are going to declare for you and few are going to want to take up the sport.

I've made my suggestions in the Wales v PNG thread.

In general, I agree with everything you say. International competition is a vital incentive to draw in and hold young athletes, who opt to play rugby league (because they like it better than all other sports) who might not be as motivated without the possibility of representing their country.

Not being able to play in International competition makes the sport look half-arsed, and second rate.

So if we all accept that International matches is the way to go, then we need to construct a system whereby teams can play a couple of games a season, against similar opposition, in a stratified (ladder) which enables them to gauge their improvement year on year, celebrate success and just as important, see the standards (above) that they need to achieve to get to the top.

Calling for a 4 (home) nations competition run on a league basis, creates (in my opinion) too many games each season (at this early stage). It also ensures that all of the games against England are highly predictable woefully one sided outcomes and worst of all, leaves out the likes of Greece, Serbia, Jamaica et al, whose showing in this World Cup cries out for support from the rest of us. 

[Tre Cool]

4 hours ago, Madrileño said:

Agreed.

In the interests of consistency would you do the same for the Women's World Cup? (No League = no play)

Or does this strategy only apply to men's rugby league?

I don't have enough knowledge of women's rl to have an opinion 

[The British Lion]

For the next 5 to 10 years, id give each SL club 100% salary cap dispensation on any Welsh, Scottish, Irish born player who is in their regular match day squad, and brought through their development pathways.

Play a regular mid season Home Nations + France tournament, call it what you will. NOT England Knights. And on Saturdays for TV exposure. SL Clubs to invest in the concept for the next decade until proper financial benefits can be paid to each club for the benefit of their players playing internationals. SL Clubs take a break during this period of 3 to 4 weeks for the mid season home nations plus France tournament.

For France, 2 established SL teams - Catalans and Toulouse...and give each club a big salary cap incentive for French born players in their regular matchday squads for the next 5 - 10 years to encourage local development and regular playing in key positions. Limit their import quota, for marquee players.

Yes, its uneven, but long term development it would perhaps be helpful.

GB are end of season vs Southern hemisphere teams. With France involved.

 

Edited October 31, 2022 by The British Lion

[jim_57]

Northern Hemisphere teams should be playing 2-3 mid-season internationals to “get a head start” on the Southern Hemisphere teams who now won’t play at all until the post-season period. England can play CNAS if they still wish and the 2 next best Euro teams in a 3 nations with no final, next best 3 play each other as well.

As for a structure a simple structure like this would be good so everyone knows what they are doing and what they are aiming for.

Year 1: Northern & Southern Hemisphere tournaments, split in to tiers of 4-6.

Year 2: 6 Nations.
Tier 1 - 2 Northern Hemisphere, 4 Southern Hemisphere.
Tier 2 - 4 Northern Hemisphere, 2 Southern Hemisphere.

Year 3: Tours & tournaments organised and World Cup qualifiers as required.

Year 4: World Cup.

 

Obviously the development side of it is separate to this but there definitely needs to be a structure in place for that development to reap rewards at the international level. Last thing we want is countries like Ireland or Italy to start developing players but those players and heritage players aren’t interested in Internationals because they mean nothing outside of World Cup years.

[Londonbornirishbred]

I've said elsewhere that whilst the NRL are paying the wages of the Australian, New Zealand, Tongan, Samoan, Lebanese and Fijian sides, then the frequency of international RL depends on their "release of players"

The reality of that of those 6 sides, the majority of players were born in Australia or NZ, so it's not like England or France are far behind Tonga or Samoa, but in reality Australia B & New Zealand B.

I believe there's a better chance of getting teams North at the end of the season if the tours are sponsored and involve at least one game v France. 

France host in 3 years time and if they don't get regular games between now and then, they'll fail to get out of their pool which may prove fatal for the chances of success in 25.

Whilst England can't do much to help them, I do believe Toulouse going down has set France back a step (or two) and inviting a SH side up in 23 and 24 and getting a test match v France as well as a mid season game of France v England will be of benefit to the NH in general.

George Clarke's VIEW

 

 

[UTK]

10 hours ago, Davo5 said:

In the interest of consistency does that apply to Tonga & Samoa ?

Tonga & Samoa do have domestic competitions despite their heritage-dominance at test level.

Tonga has 20+ clubs across 2 divisions at open age level as well as a secondary schools competition and multiple junior age groups. Tonga's population is around 115k 

Samoa has 10 mens open age clubs, a womens competition (3-4 teams) and an u18s colleges competition. Samoa's population is around 200k. 

Both these nations fall within the <500k population bracket as per IRL membership classifications but nonetheless exceed even the requirements of full membership for IRL countries with >500k population.

When we consider the populations involved there is really no reason to put Tonga/Samoa in the same bracket as the likes of Italy and Scotland despite the similar levels of heritage players.

[jim_57]

35 minutes ago, UTK said:

Tonga & Samoa do have domestic competitions despite their heritage-dominance at test level.

Tonga has 20+ clubs across 2 divisions at open age level as well as a secondary schools competition and multiple junior age groups. Tonga's population is around 115k 

Samoa has 10 mens open age clubs, a womens competition (3-4 teams) and an u18s colleges competition. Samoa's population is around 200k. 

Both these nations fall within the <500k population bracket as per IRL membership classifications but nonetheless exceed even the requirements of full membership for IRL countries with >500k population.

When we consider the populations involved there is really no reason to put Tonga/Samoa in the same bracket as the likes of Italy and Scotland despite the similar levels of heritage players.

Well said. Even though their national teams are mostly heritage born they do have a reasonable representation of Tongan/Samoan born players in professional & semi-professional Rugby League. For countries of their size even if we had comprehensive systems in place they are never going to produce vast numbers of NRL first graders year on year like PNG and to a lesser extent Fiji could.

[UTK]

25 minutes ago, jim_57 said:

Well said. Even though their national teams are mostly heritage born they do have a reasonable representation of Tongan/Samoan born players in professional & semi-professional Rugby League. For countries of their size even if we had comprehensive systems in place they are never going to produce vast numbers of NRL first graders year on year like PNG and to a lesser extent Fiji could.

Yeah this is true, ultimately the scope of professional production is much more limited vs other nations. In saying that the NRL absolutely do need to be continuing work into comprehensive systems like they have with PNG and Fiji, relatively speaking Tonga has been fairly successful in producing genuine born and bred first-graders (often via RU to NZ Schools Scholarships) in recent times - we've had Konrad Hurrell, Solomone Kata, Eliesa Katoa and Viliami Vailea. If we can start getting more kids playing RL and convert that pipeline from Tongan RU/RL juniors to NRL club juniors then we could get a consistent enough stream despite that population.

 

[UTK]

17 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

You'd think they'd look at expanding the Oceania Cup into the Confederations Cup that was previously proposed. There's 6 teams already. England would be a great addition and bring in some crowds, and Lebanon's squad are pretty much already over there.

Problem solved.

While a Confederations Cup would theoretically be a good expansion to include England/France/Cook Islands/Lebanon it makes it a lot more expensive to hold which becomes a problem.

England/GB aren't a draw in Aus/NZ/England anymore, as we saw in 2017 and 2019 Tonga and Samoa are bigger drawcards in Aus/NZ while PNG obviously packs out Port Moresby and can now be considered a relatively safe financial proposition given the implications of the political situation surrounding Aus/NZ and consequential government support.

Fiji is really the only one that struggles to draw crowds anywhere in the region but that's fine when they're only 1 team out of 6 involved but when that stretches to 3/8 financial things become a bit more difficult. Ultimately that wouldn't entice the NRL if they were footing the bill while it may become prohibitive for the IRL if they were to fully control the competition. A WC win could potentially change the attractiveness of England for crowds in the region but Baskerville Shield wins haven't translated to good crowds for England when playing in NZ so I would say this is no guarantee.

Edited November 1, 2022 by UTK

[gingerjon]

8 hours ago, fighting irish said:

then we need to construct a system whereby teams can play a couple of games a season, against similar opposition, in a stratified (ladder) which enables them to gauge their improvement year on year, celebrate success and just as important, see the standards (above) that they need to achieve to get to the top.

Like the one that's already been put in place?

See here: 

 

 

[Davo5]

2 hours ago, UTK said:

Tonga & Samoa do have domestic competitions despite their heritage-dominance at test level.

Tonga has 20+ clubs across 2 divisions at open age level as well as a secondary schools competition and multiple junior age groups. Tonga's population is around 115k 

Samoa has 10 mens open age clubs, a womens competition (3-4 teams) and an u18s colleges competition. Samoa's population is around 200k. 

Both these nations fall within the <500k population bracket as per IRL membership classifications but nonetheless exceed even the requirements of full membership for IRL countries with >500k population.

When we consider the populations involved there is really no reason to put Tonga/Samoa in the same bracket as the likes of Italy and Scotland despite the similar levels of heritage players.

Fair enough,but if that’s the case maybe a quota for homegrown/first generation players should be introduced for World Cups,starting low say 4 with a gradual increase for subsequent tournaments.

[Harry Stottle]

10 hours ago, Madrileño said:

Agree with everything in your post.

You ask how France (as well as other teams) can get more competitive at international level.

Well, here is a back-of-a-fag-packet look at where the quarter finalists get the majority of their players from:

Fiji (NRL) v Kiwis (NRL)

England (Elite end of Super League) v PNG (Hostplus Cup)

Kangaroos (NRL) v Lebanon (NRL lower end)

Samoa (NRL) v Tonga (NRL)

Of the stronger teams that have been knocked out, France and Ireland were drawn mostly from Super League, with the Kukis and Italy both being a mixed bag from all over. 

To me, this tells you exactly how to improve France : get a cadre of their best guys into the NRL. Les Catalans are normally one of the stronger teams in Super League, and obviously Toulouse were last in the comp, but if they had a core of Catalans/Toulouse pros reinforced by 5 or 6 NRL guys, I am sure they would be far more competitive.  Look at the difference in the England team with a small number of NRL guys adding huge value - they may well go on to win the Cup. 

I know it is a big ask to find a few guys who can get to NRL standard, but perhaps a partnership between the FFR XIII and the NRL regarding placements for young players could be worked out. Only by exposing guys to playing against the best in the world week in week out will things change.

People can disagree all they want: you saw what happened last night when the French with a team of pros from Super League got destroyed by Samoa. They just could not compete. 

All makes sense but the "England team with a small number of NRL guys"?

Farnworth, Young, Whitehead, Burgess, Radley, Thompson, and if we add those with NRL experience who on your theory must be better for the expierence of playing there with Hall, Tomkins, Bateman, Cooper, Watkins and Williams that is a total of 12 not really a small number, and if I was a betting man I would say at least 10 of those would be in Mr Wane's first team and most definitely the first 6 who presently reside in Australia and play in the NRL.

Just saying.

[MatthewWoody]

1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

Fair enough,but if that’s the case maybe a quota for homegrown/first generation players should be introduced for World Cups,starting low say 4 with a gradual increase for subsequent tournaments.

This would weaken these teams. It seemed to me we were all happy about the WC not being a 3 team race 

[Davo5]

7 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:

This would weaken these teams. It seemed to me we were all happy about the WC not being a 3 team race 

Having 4-6 homegrown players in a squad of 24 would significantly weaken Tonga / Samoa ?

If we don’t have a player development plan for the likes of Tonga/Samoa what is the point ?

[MatthewWoody]

1 minute ago, Davo5 said:

Having 4-6 homegrown players in a squad of 24 would significantly weaken Tonga / Samoa ?

If we don’t have a player development plan for the likes of Tonga/Samoa what is the point ?

It would. 

The point is competing with the best.

They can develop too and if the players they develop are good enough they will play.

The same goes for those who propose to abolish the players switching allegiance: it would weaken the non top 3 teams' competitiveness

[fighting irish]

3 hours ago, gingerjon said:

Like the one that's already been put in place?

See here: 

 

 

Well no, what I'm proposing is quite different. I thought I'd explained it well enough but perhaps not. 

[gingerjon]

11 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

Well no, what I'm proposing is quite different. I thought I'd explained it well enough but perhaps not. 

In the one that exists, it looks like countries get a minimum number of games per year against opposition at their level and then move up and down the levels depending.

Really not sure how it's that different TBH.

[Niels]

2 hours ago, MatthewWoody said:

This would weaken these teams. It seemed to me we were all happy about the WC not being a 3 team race 

That was exactly my thought.

It would favour the countries with larger populations such as France, 67 million, compared with Tonga 106,000.

The smaller Pacific nations shouldn't be penalised for failures of others. 

[fighting irish]

9 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

In the one that exists, it looks like countries get a minimum number of games per year against opposition at their level and then move up and down the levels depending.

Really not sure how it's that different TBH.

Fair enough.

Those things you mentioned are the similarities.

One of the differences I think, is that the top tier has 4 or 5 teams in it (too many games) and pitches all of the Nations in against England, where as I was advocating England play only the team immediately below them in the ladder and perhaps an All Stars and/or Southern Hemisphere team.

Some argue that not playing England makes the whole thing non-commercial, but I think that belief needs to be tested and worked through.

Insisting that they all play England just makes them predictable and uninteresting mis-matches, (for the foreseeable future at least) and puts an unwanted burden of playing 4 or 5 games each season (which the Super League clubs may object to) on each of the participating Nations.

I think, my proposal answers some of those concerns, and creates a more gentle ramp-up to a full International (5 or 6 nations like) tournament somewhere in the future. All the games should be reasonably competitive, with regular and real opportunities to celebrate success, they should provide the incentive for players to commit to the sport and show each Nation where they reside in the grand scheme of things and a clear path to the top. 

[gingerjon]

1 minute ago, fighting irish said:

Fair enough.

Those things you mentioned are the similarities.

One of the differences I think, is that the top tier has 4 or 5 teams in it (too many games) and pitches all of the Nations in against England, where as I was advocating England play only the team immediately below them in the ladder and perhaps an All Stars and/or Southern Hemisphere team.

Some argue that not playing England makes the whole thing non-commercial, but I think that belief needs to be tested and worked through.

Insisting that they all play England just makes them predictable and uninteresting mis-matches, (for the foreseeable future at least) and puts an unwanted burden of playing 4 or 5 games each season (which the Super League clubs may object to) on each of the participating Nations.

I think, my proposal answers some of those concerns, and creates a more gentle ramp-up to a full International (5 or 6 nations like) tournament somewhere in the future. All the games should be reasonably competitive, with regular and real opportunities to celebrate success, they should provide the incentive for players to commit to the sport and show each Nation where they reside in the grand scheme of things and a clear path to the top. 

It is likely to be England Knights as England are expecting to be hosting New Zealand or Australia in a test series at the same time.

[Madrileño]

5 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

All makes sense but the "England team with a small number of NRL guys"?

Farnworth, Young, Whitehead, Burgess, Radley, Thompson, and if we add those with NRL experience who on your theory must be better for the expierence of playing there with Hall, Tomkins, Bateman, Cooper, Watkins and Williams that is a total of 12 not really a small number, and if I was a betting man I would say at least 10 of those would be in Mr Wane's first team and most definitely the first 6 who presently reside in Australia and play in the NRL.

Just saying.

I agree. There is a big NRL influence in the England team as well.

I was probably being a tactful and trying to underplay just how big it is. 

[JM2010]

1 hour ago, Madrileño said:

I agree. There is a big NRL influence in the England team as well.

I was probably being a tactful and trying to underplay just how big it is. 

There is a big NRL influence but that's not why they're playing well. They're not good players because they are in NRL they are in the NRL because they're good players