This is all our fault...

[Big Picture]

 

6 minutes ago, Copa said:

It may not bring in the big $ one would get from bigger economies but will definitely squeeze more money out of the TV market in Oceania. Having more competition against Australia and NZ makes for more valuable tv products to sell into the biggest RL tv market.

The TV market in Oceania is trivially small compared to the TV markets in other parts of the world, there's no meaningful money to be made there.

Edited November 12, 2022 by Big Picture

[GUBRATS]

22 minutes ago, Copa said:

Australia has accepted a PNG, Fijian and NZ teams into Australian based RL competitions. They enter the competition that’s at their level of skill and the players improve and develop and are signed by other Australian based clubs.

Even before we had a Fijian team playing in a nsw competition there were very large numbers of Fijian players recruited by regional clubs all over nsw.  This really picked up in the lead up to the 2008 World Cup in Australia and they kept on coming.

So there’s a good reason that Fiji pushed NZ all the way in the quarter final match. They’ve been developing in Australia where they are welcomed by many levels of the game.

Australia has been expanding and developing the game in its region at a rate that leaves the RFL’s rate of development and growth in its region for dead.

Because there's nothing else to do there 

[Big Picture]

8 minutes ago, GUBRATS said:

Because there's nothing else to do there 

Would that be because those countries are so small and poor?

Edited November 12, 2022 by Big Picture

[Copa]

20 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

 

The TV market in Oceania is trivially small compared to the TV markets in other parts of the world, there's no meaningful money to be made there.

But there’s still money to be made, especially in Australia and NZ. That money can be invested into investing into growth and expansion.

[Damien]

23 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

 

The TV market in Oceania is trivially small compared to the TV markets in other parts of the world, there's no meaningful money to be made there.

But we are where we are. We can either work with that and improve it to be the best it can be or moan. It's not like USA being in a World Cup gets us a huge TV deal either.

[Big Picture]

Just now, Damien said:

But we are where we are. We can either work with that and improve it to be the best it can be or moan. It's not like USA being in a World Cup gets us a huge TV deal either.

If there were big time pro franchises in the US in a big time, major pro franchised league then US involvement in a World Cup would be a big deal which would be of serious interest to TV networks.  I have a detailed plan for such a league, all I need to make it happen is a way into the offices of the sort of rich men who might otherwise consider buying into one of the established major pro leagues so I can show them how their investment could be profitable because I've worked out all the relevant details.

[Damien]

3 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

If there were big time pro franchises in the US in a big time, major pro franchised league then US involvement in a World Cup would be a big deal which would be of serious interest to TV networks.  I have a detailed plan for such a league, all I need to make it happen is a way into the offices of the sort of rich men who might otherwise consider buying into one of the established major pro leagues so I can show them how their investment could be profitable because I've worked out all the relevant details.

Yeah fantasy stuff. We are discussing the here and now. Ifs, buts and maybes get the game no where.

[Pie tries]

6 hours ago, Phil said:

We had our chance, a few years ago the RFL had 10 (I think) development officers in London. They didn’t renew their contracts as a cost cutting measure.

False economy of the worst possible kind 

You need the money, if it’s not there it’s not there. We need a strong London club - we need players into our pool from new areas. Plus all clubs need to follow StH Wigan Leeds etc in developing excellent academies 

[Big Picture]

2 hours ago, Damien said:

Yeah fantasy stuff. We are discussing the here and now. Ifs, buts and maybes get the game no where.

Not fantasy at all my friend.  The kind of rich men needed to buy in and own the franchises are out there, the only requirement is to show them how they could profit by buying in.  The sky would truly be the limit then.

[iangidds]

4 hours ago, Pie tries said:

You need the money, if it’s not there it’s not there. We need a strong London club - we need players into our pool from new areas. Plus all clubs need to follow StH Wigan Leeds etc in developing excellent academies 

Was the xxx controller in charge ? Taking 100s of thousands out of the game whilst cutting development officers to the bone

[sam4731]

At the end of the day, the fact that we have more competitive international teams at the top table means absolutely nothing if they are all products of and organisation that essentially runs the (international) game. All of these nations that are pushing there way through is just further proof that the NRL has no incentive to take any notice of us when it comes to internationals.

[MatthewWoody]

Our failure gives the NRL no incentives.

[Damien]

6 hours ago, Big Picture said:

Not fantasy at all my friend.  The kind of rich men needed to buy in and own the franchises are out there, the only requirement is to show them how they could profit by buying in.  The sky would truly be the limit then.

So fantasy then. 

[Gomersall]

I have only read a few responses and the OP. The Australians haven’t developed the PI nations. They have developed heritage players for the NRL. Nothing more, nothing less. Those same players were born and raised in RL territory. It’s only chance that JT and DF put their hands up for Tonga and others followed not just for Tonga but for Samoa too. Let’s not be deceived by any perceived Australian benevolence.

[UTK]

49 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

I have only read a few responses and the OP. The Australians haven’t developed the PI nations. They have developed heritage players for the NRL. Nothing more, nothing less. Those same players were born and raised in RL territory. It’s only chance that JT and DF put their hands up for Tonga and others followed not just for Tonga but for Samoa too. Let’s not be deceived by any perceived Australian benevolence.

This is such a ridiculous concept thrown out in a desperate attempt to deflect from the embarrassment that is the relationship between England RL and the rest of Europe.

Lets look at some facts shall we - in the 2000s the only games that Samoa/Tonga played were either in World Cups, WC Qualifying or Pacific Cups against other minnow Pacific Nations hosted in Auckland in front of family and friends + a handful of locals. Fastforward to the 2010s and we see a distinct change in the proportions of eligible players for these Pacific nations, what happens - the NRL underwrites and takes losses on the mid-season Pacific tests for years to provide a platform for these professionals to represent their nations which elevates these matches from park football to major broadcasting coverage for the first time outside of WCs. Slowly but surely we begin to see the star power of these sides increase as new talent emerges and older heads come back to represent their nations of heritage in these mid-season matches. In the 2017 WC we then have the first real landmark result, Tonga upsets NZ. The very next year Tonga is then guaranteed matches against both NZ and Australia, literally the first match between Australia and Tonga in the history of RL was instantly locked in to capitalise on this newfound popularity and competitiveness. This then translates to the 2019 Oceanic Cup, where the International Calendar is changed to provide each of the Pacific Nations with a pathway to regularly competing with AUS/NZ. Scotland had a similar landmark result in 2016 against NZ and in the same tournament they played England in front of a good crowd (albeit doubleheader). 6 years later and there hasn't been another England/Scotland fixture.

So that's Samoa and Tonga, in a different category you have Fiji and PNG - two countries which have NRL supported teams playing within Australian systems. Now the "they only want more players for the NRL" argument, the PNG Hunters have produced 1 NRL player in 9 years in QCup while the Silktails thus far have 1 player who has played 1 game in the NRL. This player production doesn't exist currently, but the Hunters have significantly raised the standard of the Kumuls by providing a professional environment for PNGs domestic players to develop their talents in. If the sole goal of the NRL/ARLC revolved around the production of NRL players, the PNG Hunters would have been cut from the budget years ago but that simply isn't the case.

As for the "it's only chance that players have stuck their hand up for heritage nations", somewhat understandable if you have no connection to the RL scene in Australia/NZ but I'm happy to enlighten here. Heritage pathways are real and actively fostered in AUS/NZ, there are large NRL-backed Pacific heritage tournaments in NSW and QLD while heritage sides in NZ regularly play games against NZ residents teams and even tour Australia (there's a Samoan junior representative side touring Australia currently). These tournaments in Australia have kids as young as 10 all the way through to opens. Kids grow up representing Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, PNG, CIs in big tournaments against each other - these are kids that become actively contracted to NRL clubs in their later teens and are still pulling on the Samoan jersey and representing RLSamoa against the other pacific nations, but no I'm sure it's entirely a coincidence that they just happen to stick their hands up, has nothing to do with the opportunities they have been consistently afforded in their formative years to build the connection with that national team.

The NRL/ARLC/NZ are far from perfect, I am more than happy to rip them to shreds over plenty of decisions such as the recent cancellation of the mid-season tests or the 2021 postponement. Suggesting that all this is down to chance and that funding teams within the Australian system is only to produce players for the NRL (even though that really hasn't come to fruition but is still maintained anyway) is just laughable. By all means if it makes you feel better about the state of Europe and England's role within that context then feel free to continue pretending this is the truth, sadly it won't help resolve any of the problems that we actually have.

[fighting irish]

9 hours ago, Big Picture said:

If there were big time pro franchises in the US in a big time, major pro franchised league then US involvement in a World Cup would be a big deal which would be of serious interest to TV networks.  I have a detailed plan for such a league, all I need to make it happen is a way into the offices of the sort of rich men who might otherwise consider buying into one of the established major pro leagues so I can show them how their investment could be profitable because I've worked out all the relevant details.

I'm not going to trample on your plan for the game over there but answer this question for me?

What are you doing to get yourself into ''the offices of the sort of rich men ......''?

If you spent as much time writing to your potential target group as you do rubbishing the game in this forum, you'd have had your money years ago.

If you would like to show us your plan, then be my guest but you know, as well as I do, that ''the sort of rich men...'' you need do not frequent this forum. 

How much effort are you making to assemble this elite coterie of would-be investors?

[Pie tries]

48 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

I have only read a few responses and the OP. The Australians haven’t developed the PI nations. They have developed heritage players for the NRL. Nothing more, nothing less. Those same players were born and raised in RL territory. It’s only chance that JT and DF put their hands up for Tonga and others followed not just for Tonga but for Samoa too. Let’s not be deceived by any perceived Australian benevolence.

Yes it’s difficult to say the Aussies have developed the Int game. They have though funded dev officers in the pacific - whilst we’ve cut them.

We need more people playing the game at all levels.

England needs regular games.

Need a rolling four year Int plan - so fans and players know what’s coming.

We need to develop the player pool - London and Newcastle ideally.

Develop the game in Wales.

Take a realistic long term view, not our usual 12 week view.

[Gomersall]

24 minutes ago, UTK said:

This is such a ridiculous concept thrown out in a desperate attempt to deflect from the embarrassment that is the relationship between England RL and the rest of Europe.

Lets look at some facts shall we - in the 2000s the only games that Samoa/Tonga played were either in World Cups, WC Qualifying or Pacific Cups against other minnow Pacific Nations hosted in Auckland in front of family and friends + a handful of locals. Fastforward to the 2010s and we see a distinct change in the proportions of eligible players for these Pacific nations, what happens - the NRL underwrites and takes losses on the mid-season Pacific tests for years to provide a platform for these professionals to represent their nations which elevates these matches from park football to major broadcasting coverage for the first time outside of WCs. Slowly but surely we begin to see the star power of these sides increase as new talent emerges and older heads come back to represent their nations of heritage in these mid-season matches. In the 2017 WC we then have the first real landmark result, Tonga upsets NZ. The very next year Tonga is then guaranteed matches against both NZ and Australia, literally the first match between Australia and Tonga in the history of RL was instantly locked in to capitalise on this newfound popularity and competitiveness. This then translates to the 2019 Oceanic Cup, where the International Calendar is changed to provide each of the Pacific Nations with a pathway to regularly competing with AUS/NZ. Scotland had a similar landmark result in 2016 against NZ and in the same tournament they played England in front of a good crowd (albeit doubleheader). 6 years later and there hasn't been another England/Scotland fixture.

So that's Samoa and Tonga, in a different category you have Fiji and PNG - two countries which have NRL supported teams playing within Australian systems. Now the "they only want more players for the NRL" argument, the PNG Hunters have produced 1 NRL player in 9 years in QCup while the Silktails thus far have 1 player who has played 1 game in the NRL. This player production doesn't exist currently, but the Hunters have significantly raised the standard of the Kumuls by providing a professional environment for PNGs domestic players to develop their talents in. If the sole goal of the NRL/ARLC revolved around the production of NRL players, the PNG Hunters would have been cut from the budget years ago but that simply isn't the case.

As for the "it's only chance that players have stuck their hand up for heritage nations", somewhat understandable if you have no connection to the RL scene in Australia/NZ but I'm happy to enlighten here. Heritage pathways are real and actively fostered in AUS/NZ, there are large NRL-backed Pacific heritage tournaments in NSW and QLD while heritage sides in NZ regularly play games against NZ residents teams and even tour Australia (there's a Samoan junior representative side touring Australia currently). These tournaments in Australia have kids as young as 10 all the way through to opens. Kids grow up representing Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, PNG, CIs in big tournaments against each other - these are kids that become actively contracted to NRL clubs in their later teens and are still pulling on the Samoan jersey and representing RLSamoa against the other pacific nations, but no I'm sure it's entirely a coincidence that they just happen to stick their hands up, has nothing to do with the opportunities they have been consistently afforded in their formative years to build the connection with that national team.

The NRL/ARLC/NZ are far from perfect, I am more than happy to rip them to shreds over plenty of decisions such as the recent cancellation of the mid-season tests or the 2021 postponement. Suggesting that all this is down to chance and that funding teams within the Australian system is only to produce players for the NRL (even though that really hasn't come to fruition but is still maintained anyway) is just laughable. By all means if it makes you feel better about the state of Europe and England's role within that context then feel free to continue pretending this is the truth, sadly it won't help resolve any of the problems that we actually have.

We struggle to develop enough players for England let alone Scotland, Ireland and Wales. We also don’t have the benefit of thousands of heritage Scots, Irish and Welsh kids in the areas where RL is played.

[hw88]

Things go in cycles. Samoa and Tonga at the moment have a group of players who are world class but that won't last forever. Australia have always been near the top of the pile because they have a large pool of players to choose from (rather like Brazil in soccer). It would take a miracle of Biblical proportions for Samoa to remain good for a prolonged period (think the Netherlands and their 'total' football in the 70s).

People seem to be forgetting England stuck 60 points on Samoa only 3 weeks ago. We had an off-day yesterday - the unfortunate thing is that we always seem to have off-days in crucial matches. Had we won yesterday none of this navel-gazing would be happening.

[UTK]

2 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

We struggle to develop enough players for England let alone Scotland, Ireland and Wales. We also don’t have the benefit of thousands of heritage Scots, Irish and Welsh kids in the areas where RL is played.

It's not about creating European nation to rival ENG/AUS/NZ though is it, it's about pursuing opportunities that are presented by the circumstances that are present and affording the bare minimum of respect to developing nations. Wales, France and Scotland have each had their own opportunities to grow and develop since 2000 but outside of a few very specific examples England have treated all of the above with disdain and made very little effort to capitalise on such opportunities where they arise. This is exactly why the SH/NH gap looks to be widening so fast, the SH nations strengthen on a comparable scale to the atrophy that European nations have encountered since 2000.

Wales had the Crusaders pumping out Welsh SL players regularly, then the demise of the club occurs and nothing is done to salvage this fruitful player source. Now that generation of Welsh talent are finishing their careers and the following generation has a single regular SL player that has now gone to RU, leaving the Welsh team without a win in 3 consecutive World Cups.

Scotland had their own Tonga/Samoa moment in that 4N, they possessed a strong enough heritage crop to draw with eventual finalists NZ - as mentioned in my previous post this was completely ignored and no effort was made to exploit another potential competitor.

France is the best attempt, having Catalans and Toulouse in the system is no doubt an undertaking that benefits the French National side. As for Internationals these aren't an annual fixture as they should be but nonetheless are regular enough by International RL standards, the execution of such matches often lacks a level of respect (infamous wednesday night at Leigh) but the fact they happen shouldn't be looked down upon. Unfortunately it's still clear the priorities are not with France however as now we have England inventing made up teams of expat Aussies/Kiwis so that they don't have to play actual Internationals. Then proceeding to name the Captain of France in the aforementioned teams squad despite the fact that France are playing their own actual test match on the same weekend. 

[Gomersall]

58 minutes ago, UTK said:

It's not about creating European nation to rival ENG/AUS/NZ though is it, it's about pursuing opportunities that are presented by the circumstances that are present and affording the bare minimum of respect to developing nations. Wales, France and Scotland have each had their own opportunities to grow and develop since 2000 but outside of a few very specific examples England have treated all of the above with disdain and made very little effort to capitalise on such opportunities where they arise. This is exactly why the SH/NH gap looks to be widening so fast, the SH nations strengthen on a comparable scale to the atrophy that European nations have encountered since 2000.

Wales had the Crusaders pumping out Welsh SL players regularly, then the demise of the club occurs and nothing is done to salvage this fruitful player source. Now that generation of Welsh talent are finishing their careers and the following generation has a single regular SL player that has now gone to RU, leaving the Welsh team without a win in 3 consecutive World Cups.

Scotland had their own Tonga/Samoa moment in that 4N, they possessed a strong enough heritage crop to draw with eventual finalists NZ - as mentioned in my previous post this was completely ignored and no effort was made to exploit another potential competitor.

France is the best attempt, having Catalans and Toulouse in the system is no doubt an undertaking that benefits the French National side. As for Internationals these aren't an annual fixture as they should be but nonetheless are regular enough by International RL standards, the execution of such matches often lacks a level of respect (infamous wednesday night at Leigh) but the fact they happen shouldn't be looked down upon. Unfortunately it's still clear the priorities are not with France however as now we have England inventing made up teams of expat Aussies/Kiwis so that they don't have to play actual Internationals. Then proceeding to name the Captain of France in the aforementioned teams squad despite the fact that France are playing their own actual test match on the same weekend. 

I don’t disagree with most of what you say but there was never a genuine opportunity to exploit Scotland to the same extent as Samoa can exploit their moment in the spotlight. Samoa and Tonga have plenty of heritage players already in a strong RL system. Scotland don’t, never have and probably never will, have/had that same advantage.

[Tommygilf]

When, where, and against who are England Rugby League playing next.

The fact nobody can answer this for the next 6 months, let alone the next 2 years, is a major problem.

[The Masked Poster]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

When, where, and against who are England Rugby League playing next.

The fact nobody can answer this for the next 6 months, let alone the next 2 years, is a major problem.

Yes. The crowd yesterday can't think "well that was great despite losing, when can I watch them again?". Even if you can't name the opposition, you should be able to advertise that "England will be playing in X tournament next year, tickets available from ......" 

[Gomersall]

37 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

Yes. The crowd yesterday can't think "well that was great despite losing, when can I watch them again?". Even if you can't name the opposition, you should be able to advertise that "England will be playing in X tournament next year, tickets available from ......" 

RL administration has always been reactive rather than proactive.

[EggFace]

5 hours ago, hw88 said:

Things go in cycles. Samoa and Tonga at the moment have a group of players who are world class but that won't last forever. Australia have always been near the top of the pile because they have a large pool of players to choose from (rather like Brazil in soccer). It would take a miracle of Biblical proportions for Samoa to remain good for a prolonged period (think the Netherlands and their 'total' football in the 70s).

People seem to be forgetting England stuck 60 points on Samoa only 3 weeks ago. We had an off-day yesterday - the unfortunate thing is that we always seem to have off-days in crucial matches. Had we won yesterday none of this navel-gazing would be happening.

By meaning Biblical like the scene with Charlton Heston parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandants ?