Four Nations

[JM2010]

We all have slightly different ideas for international tournaments and fixtures but we all agree that we want to see more international RL with games for everyone.

Why aren't the IRL announcing anything?

We need an organised calendar announcing asap 

[headtackle]

Exactly.  This tournament has got a lot of terrestrial tv coverage and has been trending a lot on social media

What international fixtures are scheduled for 2023 across mens womens and wheelchair and how are these going to be promoted to maintain the momentum 

[The Masked Poster]

This was touched upon by James Graham after the Fiji-Scotland game in the after match analysis. "We've got this, great, but what's happening next year?" So the players are obviously aware of the lack of planning. It can't be good for their mindset really.

 

Oh and the 4N was great. 

[jim_57]

4 hours ago, Mathius Hellwege said:

The NRL right now offers four matches (and I pretend I believe them) in the non-WC years.

This would enable

1. 4N with final (like the old one ENG/NZ/AUS are automatically qualified)

2. a three-game series e.g. ENG-NZ or AUS and a fourth game against FRA/ANZAC Test respectively....the not participating Oceanic superpower would play three games against Pacific Islands Nations

3. a regional tournament with four N and a final (Oceania Cup no problem, in Europe UK is too strong and has to search for a tour in the SH)

 

You have three NON-WC-years so you could all of the three or any other combination of these variants

Just curious where you’ve heard this, I must have missed it. Even 4 weeks still enables tournaments with more teams like a 6 nations with 2 pools of 3 and a final.

England isn’t going to get much of a tour while an Oceania Cup is on, especially if the 4 weeks thing is true.

[Madrileño]

20 hours ago, MatthewWoody said:

 

By the way, club ru doesn't stop for the 6N etc. They keep on playing, without the players involved in the Int scene. We just don't have that mentality and depth of players.

 

 

Or depth of supporters.   We rely on the same customer base for club games and internationals. 

[Adelaide Tiger]

9 hours ago, eal said:

 

I don't want to accept it, but I'm not sure how anything will change. I hate the proliferation of T20 franchise leagues in cricket that are weakening the international game, but what can anyone do? Money dictates all.

My comment about ‘just accepting it’ was a generalisation and not aimed at you.

What is happening in cricket is the opposite to what could happen in RL.  Test matches are, or possible were, the pinnacle in cricket.  But test match attendances, UK apart, appear to have diminished requiring a radical change of format i.e. 20/20 to encourage a younger audience to attend.

As I said, RL is in a stronger position as IMHO a stronger international program will not lead to a reduction in numbers attending club games but may well lead to an increase in attendance due to a greater visibility and possibly greater media content.

Also I truly believe that there are many sponsors worldwide willing to invest in sport.  In RL the players and product constantly delivers but what is missing is a long term, fixed plan that gives confidence and assurance to sponsors.  It really is a simple process but it needs the buy in of everyone.

[Adelaide Tiger]

29 minutes ago, Madrileño said:

Or depth of supporters.   We rely on the same customer base for club games and internationals. 

Fair point about the ‘same customer base’.

However the over reliance of relying on the same supporter base can be addressed with sensible planning.  For example - a 4 Nations tournament held in England - it would be sensible to hold the 3 England games in venues across England such as one in the north, the midlands and London.  Have the Aussies v NZ in London and the two other group games in other geographical areas such as south west and north west.  Have the Final at Old Trafford.

P.S. I do realise that due to funding criteria for this WC the organisers could not spread the fixtures more geographically.

[eal]

The lack of regular internationals means the sport will never develop the more casual fans who will support England but not necessarily follow the club game all that closely. Most sports have varying tiers of fans but rugb league is essentially limited to die hard club fans.

[Mathius Hellwege]

9 hours ago, jim_57 said:

Just curious where you’ve heard this, I must have missed it. Even 4 weeks still enables tournaments with more teams like a 6 nations with 2 pools of 3 and a final.

England isn’t going to get much of a tour while an Oceania Cup is on, especially if the 4 weeks thing is true.

They spoke about a "proper international window until Nov"....Probably just a gesture while cancelling the mid-international...

but when you see the Grand Final day on Oct, 1st 2023...you get Oct 8-15-22-29 and even just one nov weekend would even give you five games

[RippinandTearin]

4 hours ago, Adelaide Tiger said:

Fair point about the ‘same customer base’.

However the over reliance of relying on the same supporter base can be addressed with sensible planning.  For example - a 4 Nations tournament held in England - it would be sensible to hold the 3 England games in venues across England such as one in the north, the midlands and London.  Have the Aussies v NZ in London and the two other group games in other geographical areas such as south west and north west.  Have the Final at Old Trafford.

P.S. I do realise that due to funding criteria for this WC the organisers could not spread the fixtures more geographically.

 

its not the 80s & 90s when London was full of Aussies, the same extended work visa, living & travelling thing isn’t as big now a days, although there’s probably enough along with Northern transplants to generate interest 

Personally I couldn’t care too much about internationals, I’m happy with a big, fat, full NRL season & origin, I’m unapologetic & obviously selfish & I don’t care 

[RippinandTearin]

2 hours ago, eal said:

The lack of regular internationals means the sport will never develop the more casual fans who will support England but not necessarily follow the club game all that closely. Most sports have varying tiers of fans but rugb league is essentially limited to die hard club fans.

where do you want to grow it? The jewel in the crown has always been London & the South & it’s never worked & been mismanaged endlessly 

The introduction of a Canadian club was a good idea & was somewhat mismanaged & fans of super league moaned & groaned 

It’s well enough known in the North but it’s a strange hard market in that you’ll always struggle against berserk football fans everywhere & a media that no matter what you do pander to Football over everything else, even non league football gets more exposure than most minor sports like League 

[Archie Gordon]

14 minutes ago, RippinandTearin said:

where do you want to grow it? The jewel in the crown has always been London & the South & it’s never worked & been mismanaged endlessly 

...

I understand that the Broncos have made a mess of things but the Broncos fanbase and the RL major event fanbase are very separate things. London & South does work for internationals - it has a long record to prove it.

[crashmon]

1 hour ago, Archie Gordon said:

I understand that the Broncos have made a mess of things but the Broncos fanbase and the RL major event fanbase are very separate things. London & South does work for internationals - it has a long record to prove it.

This is true. I struggle to get my work-mates / friends to Broncos games, but I would be able to get them to internationals based in London (based on novelty value).  I can't get them to the game on Sat as it clashes with England v Japan (Japan very rarely come to play at Twickenham), but a midweek France v Greece game, they would have come to (I'm talking 8-10 tickets, and they would have paid the 55 GBP per ticket as well).

Organisers really shot themselves in the foot not having one group game in london, and one in south west with wales in it

[RippinandTearin]

1 hour ago, Archie Gordon said:

I understand that the Broncos have made a mess of things but the Broncos fanbase and the RL major event fanbase are very separate things. London & South does work for internationals - it has a long record to prove it.

True, but you attract many travelling northerners, it’s not like it’s a long way

I guess the idea people are advocating is to attract new fans, I don’t know that you do

Ive been to one Aus vs England game in the 90s at the old Wembley & from memory it didn’t sell out, there were a lot of Antipodeans in London then, probably not so much now 

 

[Iceberg Slim]

Maybe after the nrl releases their schedule you might get a sniff of a tournament for October but highly unlikely. Talks of international comps could be around the old international weekend in may or even as late as august that is how either unorganised the IRL are or that is when the NRL and ESL allow the IRL to start planning

[gingerjon]

5 hours ago, RippinandTearin said:

I’m happy with a big, fat, full NRL season & origin, I’m unapologetic & obviously selfish & I don’t care 

And wrong.

You missed out the bit where you're "unapologetic & obviously selfish &" wrong.

[stookie]

20 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

And wrong.

You missed out the bit where you're "unapologetic & obviously selfish &" wrong.

Why wrong though? I don't agree with RT by any stretch, but surely it's not compulsory to love international RL?

[RippinandTearin]

6 hours ago, gingerjon said:

And wrong.

You missed out the bit where you're "unapologetic & obviously selfish &" wrong.

I can’t be wrong, it’s my opinion, my feelings

It really comes down to the players & their union as to how often they want to add a load to their already full season & how the NRL competition looks with added teams, what type of structure it morphs into etc, there’s a chance that potentially with two conferences there could be less games leaving a greater window for rep footy but it’s incredibly speculative & has to be agreed on by a plethora of stakeholders

Personally, I’m happier & more content, more engaged with the NRL & origin 

[gingerjon]

25 minutes ago, RippinandTearin said:

I can’t be wrong, it’s my opinion, my feelings

 

You were wrong - embarrassingly, laughably so - in your description of southern crowds for rugby league being travelling northerners or antipodeans.

You're right. I should have been clearer that you were factually wrong rather than it being an opinion I disagreed with.

Happy to correct the record.

 

[RippinandTearin]

15 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

You were wrong - embarrassingly, laughably so - in your description of southern crowds for rugby league being travelling northerners or antipodeans.

You're right. I should have been clearer that you were factually wrong rather than it being an opinion I disagreed with.

Happy to correct the record.

 

Ive never seen a breakdown of crowd statistics from games, primarily internationals at Wembley or the like, granted that London is a big diverse population but I’d have thought that most people interested in it in the capital would have some kind of past association with the game, especially when on any given weekend most people who follow sport are happily surrounded by enough football to make your eyes water

[Madrileño]

5 hours ago, gingerjon said:

You were wrong - embarrassingly, laughably so - in your description of southern crowds for rugby league being travelling northerners or antipodeans.

 

He really isn't.

Any Wembley test I have been at is a sea of northern accents. 

Of course it is not 100% like that, but the overwhelming majority are. 

At the 2011 double header for example, there were virtually no Welsh people, a few Kiwis, a load of Aussies, and a massive contingent of northerners.  Almost every accent you heard in bars, tube stations and the ground, was northern.

[The Masked Poster]

29 minutes ago, Madrileño said:

He really isn't.

Any Wembley test I have been at is a sea of northern accents. 

Of course it is not 100% like that, but the overwhelming majority are. 

At the 2011 double header for example, there were virtually no Welsh people, a few Kiwis, a load of Aussies, and a massive contingent of northerners.  Almost every accent you heard in bars, tube stations and the ground, was northern.

I went to that game in 2011 at Wembley. I was chatting with some Welsh guys in the pub at Baker Street. Ok there weren't loads and loads but definitely some. 

And after the game, we went in a pub near Wembley and there was quite an animated discussion going on about the game - between Southerners who had never been to a game before. I mean a loud pub debate that you could hear from across the room too, not a few mumbled words. 

It depends where you sit or go I suppose. 

[Madrileño]

2 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

I went to that game in 2011 at Wembley. I was chatting with some Welsh guys in the pub at Baker Street. Ok there weren't loads and loads but definitely some. 

And after the game, we went in a pub near Wembley and there was quite an animated discussion going on about the game - between Southerners who had never been to a game before. I mean a loud pub debate that you could hear from across the room too, not a few mumbled words. 

It depends where you sit or go I suppose. 

Fair shout mate - but I reckon you would agree with me - I said 'virtually no welsh' because when their anthem was played, there was hardly anybody singing. I don't think they scored any points so I didn't see anybody cheering.

And as I said above, it is not 100% northern, but the crowd was overwhelmingly northern in the majority. No?

[Anita Bath]

9 hours ago, RippinandTearin said:

I can’t be wrong, it’s my opinion, my feelings

It really comes down to the players & their union as to how often they want to add a load to their already full season & how the NRL competition looks with added teams, what type of structure it morphs into etc, there’s a chance that potentially with two conferences there could be less games leaving a greater window for rep footy but it’s incredibly speculative & has to be agreed on by a plethora of stakeholders

Personally, I’m happier & more content, more engaged with the NRL & origin 

It really comes down to TV contracts.  Origin is back to all midweek games next year which frees up a weekend. Playing fewer games means less money…clubs will never agree to that.

[The Masked Poster]

25 minutes ago, Madrileño said:

Fair shout mate - but I reckon you would agree with me - I said 'virtually no welsh' because when their anthem was played, there was hardly anybody singing. I don't think they scored any points so I didn't see anybody cheering.

And as I said above, it is not 100% northern, but the crowd was overwhelmingly northern in the majority. No?

At that game, possibly/probably. But by the 2013 Semi final, the number of locals (local being southern of any variety) had definitely increased as I was pretty much surrounded by them. And chatted with many others in the bar queue etc. 

IIRC that Welsh side qualified by beating France in France and featured Gareth Thomas. He was supposed to be playing in the tournament but retired (I think). He would possibly have generated more Welsh interest alone.