Aussies & Kiwis not coming in 2023...

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

9 minutes ago, Iceberg Slim said:

We’ve come along way. We had a 8 year gap between world cups at one stage 3 5 year gaps (one due to Covid) and only one normal cycle. You only have to in a normal cycle plan 3 years of international footy 

considering this next cycle is shorter I would go with

2023 

World Cup 9s - Perth 

Oceania Cup 

England v France 

Euro Cup 

2024

6 Nations - England France Aus NZ Tonga Samoa in England and France  test the waters on a few stadia in France for World Cup 

2025 

World Cup France 

2026

Oceania Cup

2027

6 Nations England France 

Youth  World Cup 

2028 

women’s World Cup 

2029 

Men’s World Cup New Zealand 

It's not very extensive. In 2026 and 2028 England won't play a game! And unfortunately those 6 nations tournaments just aren't going to happen. I can't see Aus, NZ, Samoa and Tonga coming over for a tournament the year before a world cup. The problem England has is that they don't need us for meaningful international competition - they can stay down under and have their own competitions without worrying about the expense and inconvenience of coming over here.

[Madrileño]

43 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

 It would be the equivalent of the Aussies insisting that we beat a prime minister's 13 before we are allowed to play the Kangaroos. 

You are absolutely correct. 

How hilarious would that be if it happened?! 

[eal]

59 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

But if they only get to play England Knights, then that immediately devalues the contest, reducing its commercial value, and increasing the likelihood of the best Welsh and French players not making themselves available. It would be the equivalent of the Aussies insisting that we beat a prime minister's 13 before we are allowed to play the Kangaroos. Why can't it just be marketed as 'England', and the management team pick whatever strength team they want? And play these sorts of games either in France or somewhere in the UK that would reach a new audience that isn't as familiar with who the best English players are anyway.

 Are we sure England is better than the Prime Minister's XIII?

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

3 minutes ago, eal said:

 Are we sure England is better than the Prime Minister's XIII?

 I'm certainly not sure.

[jim_57]

7 hours ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

But if they only get to play England Knights, then that immediately devalues the contest, reducing its commercial value, and increasing the likelihood of the best Welsh and French players not making themselves available. It would be the equivalent of the Aussies insisting that we beat a prime minister's 13 before we are allowed to play the Kangaroos. Why can't it just be marketed as 'England', and the management team pick whatever strength team they want? And play these sorts of games either in France or somewhere in the UK that would reach a new audience that isn't as familiar with who the best English players are anyway.

England Knights only beat France B 18-6 a couple of months ago and France were England’s closest game until the semi final. Going back to having the Knights playing France would be ridiculous and quite frankly arrogant.

Edited November 20, 2022 by jim_57

[Anita Bath]

10 hours ago, Iceberg Slim said:

Do you all want an easy fix to this whole scheduling. Here it is. 
 

play origin after the nrl season. 
 

there’s your 3 weeks free for internationals 

Nz Tonga Samoa and Fiji play a four nations over 3 weeks 

once qld and nsw are done bashing each other and figured out who the kangaroos are then  kiwis tour England and kangaroos plays Tonga samoa and Fiji once then go on holidays. Done. 

You seem to be forgetting that some of the players lighting up the tournament playing for teams other than Australia also play origin. Can you imagine Samoa without Luai?

[JM2010]

7 hours ago, Big Picture said:

Quite true that, but the way things are in the game now that's a tall order.  Other than France, the other countries you listed can only call upon players in the lower tiers of the game for the bulk of their rosters.

I agree. I think that we might not be left with many options outside of WCs though.

If we can at least build France up then it gives us a local rival to play against regularly 

[Iceberg Slim]

36 minutes ago, Anita Bath said:

You seem to be forgetting that some of the players lighting up the tournament playing for teams other than Australia also play origin. Can you imagine Samoa without Luai?

Well the only other option I have is kiwis v England test series as none are impacted by origin. 

[Mojo]

News out that the Samoan players for the Kiwis and Australia will be playing for Samoa in the future. As a Samoan fan I'm happy and I'm also sad because I don't want to see a weak Kiwis team. This will only make them worse

[Exiled Wiganer]

Let’s be clear - if we cannot persuade Oz and NZ to tour again the NH is toast. We will never build a fan base or inspire people.

More people attended yesterday’s games as neutrals than will ever watch any international Down Under. It will (by my reckoning) be the highest grossing international fixture of all time. 
 

We are told (and the players say) that they want to play internationals. Meninga has stated that he wants to play internationals. 
 

Whatever it takes, we need Oz and NZ to come over here. Because without that, we face an existential crisis to end all existential crises, and are on our way to oblivion. 

[Iceberg Slim]

1 minute ago, Mojo said:

News out that the Samoan players for the Kiwis and Australia will be playing for Samoa in the future. As a Samoan fan I'm happy and I'm also sad because I don't want to see a weak Kiwis team. This will only make them worse

Unfortunate as the kiwis were always going to be more heavily impacted by the origin tier 2 system. 
 

it has substantially weakened the kiwis but has done nothing to weaken australia which is extremely sad as their origin pacific boys can still choose to play for aus and Samoa while our kiwi pacific boys will favour Samoa now. 
 

we will loose Leota Mulitalo and any up and coming kiwi pacific players. 
 

I don’t mind it and am excited for the pacific teams but it’s almost getting to the point where the kiwis side is almost completely Māori and the Aussie side is completely white Australian whereas the pacific islands always bolstered them. That has changed which is good but unfortunately this may be the end of a more dominant kiwis era moving forward we may be placed around 4th ranked team behind aus Tonga Samoa 

[Mojo]

20 minutes ago, Iceberg Slim said:

Unfortunate as the kiwis were always going to be more heavily impacted by the origin tier 2 system. 
 

it has substantially weakened the kiwis but has done nothing to weaken australia which is extremely sad as their origin pacific boys can still choose to play for aus and Samoa while our kiwi pacific boys will favour Samoa now. 
 

we will loose Leota Mulitalo and any up and coming kiwi pacific players. 
 

I don’t mind it and am excited for the pacific teams but it’s almost getting to the point where the kiwis side is almost completely Māori and the Aussie side is completely white Australian whereas the pacific islands always bolstered them. That has changed which is good but unfortunately this may be the end of a more dominant kiwis era moving forward we may be placed around 4th ranked team behind aus Tonga Samoa 

Yup looking at the Kiwis team there depth at most of the positions aren't deep like the island teams. It's really gonna hurt them long term and it also doesn't help that the warriors don't pick up many local talent

[Iceberg Slim]

1 hour ago, Mojo said:

Yup looking at the Kiwis team there depth at most of the positions aren't deep like the island teams. It's really gonna hurt them long term and it also doesn't help that the warriors don't pick up many local talent

I don’t have an issue with it. My only concern is that players must declare the country they wish to play for within each 4 year cycle. I’m happy for all players to choose one nation they will represent within a 4 year cycle but none of this chopping and changing. 

[Tosh]

1 hour ago, Mojo said:

News out that the Samoan players for the Kiwis and Australia will be playing for Samoa in the future. As a Samoan fan I'm happy and I'm also sad because I don't want to see a weak Kiwis team. This will only make them worse

NZ don’t really need their Samoan or Tongan players. They are already strong enough now without them.

The big problem NZ will have is with kiwis declaring for Australia in the foreseeable future.

[MatthewWoody]

Is there all this support and appetite for the game in Wales? Do they have the money? 

[Tosh]

5 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

I don’t care about the NRL as a fan of RL because of Australia abandoning the sport last year and I am not old enough to have nostalgic memories of tours. 

Luckily the general public don’t care about the NRL either. We just need to lock in a Welsh team and play them annually on FTA tv. 

I am confident it will do 2million plus on TV and then you have a tri nations you can sell to TV. The same for the women and the wheelchair. If the RFL start planning for this now by the end of the decade we will be wondering why people ever cared about Australia.

Not sure about 2 million but we definitely need to build up both France and wales or we are toast without the Southern Hemisphere nations.

[Damien]

3 hours ago, Iceberg Slim said:

Unfortunate as the kiwis were always going to be more heavily impacted by the origin tier 2 system. 
 

it has substantially weakened the kiwis but has done nothing to weaken australia which is extremely sad as their origin pacific boys can still choose to play for aus and Samoa while our kiwi pacific boys will favour Samoa now. 

Many said at the time that to weaken NZ was the intention.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

3 hours ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Let’s be clear - if we cannot persuade Oz and NZ to tour again the NH is toast. We will never build a fan base or inspire people.

More people attended yesterday’s games as neutrals than will ever watch any international Down Under. It will (by my reckoning) be the highest grossing international fixture of all time. 
 

We are told (and the players say) that they want to play internationals. Meninga has stated that he wants to play internationals. 
 

Whatever it takes, we need Oz and NZ to come over here. Because without that, we face an existential crisis to end all existential crises, and are on our way to oblivion. 

Not sure I agree we want or need Aussies....they'll just batter us 

I'd rather have Tonga, Samoa, PNG or NZ regularly ......competitive games to get everyones juices flowing just like our semi final 

[Jughead]

A lot of doom mongering and the sky is falling down talk, here. There’ll be international rugby league in 2023 and beyond. 

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

13 minutes ago, Jughead said:

A lot of doom mongering and the sky is falling down talk, here. There’ll be international rugby league in 2023 and beyond. 

I think it's more pragmatism than doom mongering to be honest. We need to develop a European competition because we need to be masters of our own destiny, rather than relying on whether or not the NRL decides to allow teams to come over and play us.

[Jughead]

Just now, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

I think it's more pragmatism than doom mongering to be honest. We need to develop a European competition because we need to be masters of our own destiny, rather than relying on whether or not the NRL decides to allow teams to come over and play us.

We have had SH nations here in 2018, 2016, 2015, 2011 with two World Cup’s in that period and had a planned Ashes series in 2020. England have been to the Southern Hemisphere in 2010, 2014 and GB went in 2019. 

Let’s not act like it’s a rarity that SH nations come here. We need more variety in those nations but we’ve now a landscape where Tonga and Samoa are much improved from seven or eight years ago, so it’s more possible now. 

[Tosh]

Pre the RLWC21 tournament I was under the impression that the kiwis were touring England with a 3 match test series.

what’s happened since then? Is there definitely a 2023 Oceania cup taking place now?

[MatthewWoody]

41 minutes ago, ShropshireBull said:

Money no but if you guarantee them two annual games on tv vs France and England they can get sponsors. When crusaders were in SL last they got decent crowds but the money (in fact the only money in growing the sport up here) is going to be internationals.

on support, I am not looking at this from tragics like us. People watching England vs Wales don’t need to be fans. They just need to be casuals who watch Wales play a few times a year on the Telly , including vs England so sponsors and commercial partners can see value for relatively little money in sport.

Money? SL clubs get central funding  money, why can’t the RFL just lock them in and build it so it does the job we want? (Grow Wales enough to have a Full Time Welsh team England can play annually on TV) If that means booting a current SL club to fund it so be it.

 

This World Cup crowds are not encouraging. I'm not so sure a Wales team - made of Championship and League one players - struggling against England would be an event. Tough to capitalise from that.

[Jughead]

1 minute ago, Tosh said:

Pre the RLWC21 tournament I was under the impression that the kiwis were touring England with a 3 match test series.

what’s happened since then? Is there definitely a 2023 Oceania cup taking place now?

Rumours for much of this year said it would be New Zealand here for a three match series. There was then this draft which suggests it’s not happening, though it’s a draft and New Zealand are pretty receptive to coming here. 

I wouldn’t be upset if New Zealand didn’t want to come in 2023. Elite level rugby league has barely been played in New Zealand so if they get a home series or home games in a competition format, good luck to them. 

[MatthewWoody]

14 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

I think it's more pragmatism than doom mongering to be honest. We need to develop a European competition because we need to be masters of our own destiny, rather than relying on whether or not the NRL decides to allow teams to come over and play us.

How do you develop anything in Europe if they're producing players only in England and France? 

The only option in with heritage players but even with that I'm not sure they'd give England a test.