Qualification for 2025 World Cups - IRL update on teams and process

[paulwalker71]

5 hours ago, RP London said:

Its a problem made by the QF qualifiers. Now that the Pacific nations are all stronger they dominate the QFs meaning that all their qualifiers come from it but you need to give the Cooks a chance which is understandable.. so they have to manufacture them a qualifying "group". but its arguably too easy for them, if they had to play a european team would they win? arguably would they beat Jamaica. 

Get rid of the QF qualifiers and either have it as SF or just hosts being automatic and then you can have a nice qualification group in the pacific, bottom doesnt qualify which means you can get another team in Africa or America which would arguably do more good than having the Cook Islands there.. Or the Cooks have to up their game to knock out one of the other island nations, which again is good for development as its another stronger team. 

Same with Lebanon to an extent. How many games will they now play before the next world cup. If they were made to go through the qualifiers at least they are getting more games that they have to play, also means they have to up their game a bit because one slip up in a qualifier and they miss out.. thats not a bad thing. 

Great post. I'd go with that...

[Iceberg Slim]

8 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

I'll repeat, there are just 2 fully professional leagues and only 6 countries in the world with Professional and Semi Professional teams playing in them. The pathways for those nations is ultimately for them to have as many players in those leagues. Playing a qualifying tournament in Summer incidentally would probably mean no players coming from the British leagues either; and the idea of having any nation not be able to call on its strongest possible squad for a for no logical reason is ludicrous.

I'm sure the Greek domestic lads benefited massively from having their non-domestic based players in their squad, likewise the Jamaicans. I'm sure the Serbs would be the same if the Trbojevic brothers and a few others turned out for them too.

"Strengthening the hand of the NRL" is a nice soundbite but it doesn't achieve anything practical. With only 2 Professional leagues to draw on, and arguably the NRL/NSW and QLD Cups being the best quality, to not acknowledge their player pool would be an attempt to live in fantasy land.

They need to either expand super league or created another professional league in Europe that encompasses nations like Serbia Greece etc. it could be spearheaded by France. I’m talking in say 20-30 years time. If the super league can’t expand you need an alternative 

if you could get an American professional league that would cover your jamaicas and your South America. 
 

the last one would be South Africa to have a professional league and that’s pretty much your global footprint. 
 

in 50 years time you would want 4-5 professional rugby league comps that would truly expand the game and provide elite athletes. 

[JM2010]

5 hours ago, MatthewWoody said:

Qualifying process:
In the Europe Qualifying Tournament, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Serbia, Turkey and Wales will play in one group of three and one of four in 2023, with the two highest placed finishers from each group qualifying for RLWC2025.

 

This is very interesting. Italy, with a mix of heritage and homegrown players,can make it. The pandemic stopped the local work on players and coaches but this is the chance to restart 

What about Scotland?

[londonrlfan]

So swap Greece for USA/Canada and it'll be the same teams. It's boring seeing the same teams all the time - heritage nations will dominate in Europe and CI get their usual stroll. I'd love to see Nigeria make it instead of CI and one of Scotland or Ireland to miss out.

[MatthewWoody]

On 30/11/2022 at 00:28, ShropshireBull said:

Be

Because if you don’t incentivize countries to create their own pathways they never will. If you eliminate the ability of nations to import they have no choice but to grow.

Second from a NHRL viewpoint, there is zero benefit in strengthening the hand of NRL.

You're saying there are nations who could grow and don't do it? 

[GeordieSaint]

Not entirely convinced… I’d reduce the automatic qualifiers to the SFs and host nation. 

I am also a bit confused by the European qualifying process as well. Are the B nations playing off in 2023 to challenge the 6 x A nations in 2024? There is conflicting information about another qualifying tournament in 2023 involving 7 teams…? 🫤 

[Tommygilf]

23 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

Not entirely convinced… I’d reduce the automatic qualifiers to the SFs and host nation. 

I am also a bit confused by the European qualifying process as well. Are the B nations playing off in 2023 to challenge the 6 x A nations in 2024? There is conflicting information about another qualifying tournament in 2023 involving 7 teams…? 🫤 

It seems there is a European qualifying tournament involving 2 teams that aren't trying to qualify, England (Knights tbc) and France, and a qualifiying tournament for another qualifying tournament next year.

Its all a bit confused as we are using the European Cup as a qualification tournament for the world cup again. Whilst I can see the practical merits to that its not ideal imo.

[GeordieSaint]

1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

It seems there is a European qualifying tournament involving 2 teams that aren't trying to qualify, England (Knights tbc) and France, and a qualifiying tournament for another qualifying tournament next year.

Its all a bit confused as we are using the European Cup as a qualification tournament for the world cup again. Whilst I can see the practical merits to that its not ideal imo.

Glad it isn’t just me. Confusing… 

They should have restarted this year. All the Euro B teams plus Scotland (dire in the WC) plus Italy, Spain and Serbia should have gone into qualifying to compete against Ireland and Wales in 2024 for the 4 x qualifying places. 

England - Wales - Ireland - France in a Four Nations tournament separately. 

[JM2010]

24 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

Glad it isn’t just me. Confusing… 

They should have restarted this year. All the Euro B teams plus Scotland (dire in the WC) plus Italy, Spain and Serbia should have gone into qualifying to compete against Ireland and Wales in 2024 for the 4 x qualifying places. 

England - Wales - Ireland - France in a Four Nations tournament separately. 

That sounds like the best format.

I'd also include Lebanon in the four/five nations as they aren't involved in the MEA qualification 

[Tommygilf]

53 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

Glad it isn’t just me. Confusing… 

They should have restarted this year. All the Euro B teams plus Scotland (dire in the WC) plus Italy, Spain and Serbia should have gone into qualifying to compete against Ireland and Wales in 2024 for the 4 x qualifying places. 

England - Wales - Ireland - France in a Four Nations tournament separately. 

 

27 minutes ago, JM2010 said:

That sounds like the best format.

I'd also include Lebanon in the four/five nations as they aren't involved in the MEA qualification 

Totally agree with both these. France and Wales could also have games during the season too. 

[JM2010]

7 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

 

Totally agree with both these. France and Wales could also have games during the season too. 

England are playing France mid season already. Wales could play Ireland and Scotland could play Jamaica at the same time 

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, JM2010 said:

England are playing France mid season already. Wales could play Ireland and Scotland could play Jamaica at the same time 

Sounds great to me. Could do 2 rounds even across the season, followed by the tournament in the Autumn.

[JM2010]

2 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Sounds great to me. Could do 2 rounds even across the season, followed by the tournament in the Autumn.

England vs France at home and away plus a another fixture for the other four nations such as Wales vs Jamaica and Ireland vs Scotland 

[yanto]

4 hours ago, GeordieSaint said:

Not entirely convinced… I’d reduce the automatic qualifiers to the SFs and host nation. 

I am also a bit confused by the European qualifying process as well. Are the B nations playing off in 2023 to challenge the 6 x A nations in 2024? There is conflicting information about another qualifying tournament in 2023 involving 7 teams…? 🫤 

I think you will find the WC qualifiers in 2023 will involve two groups of three in group B with the winners going forward to the next stage in 2024.

Ukraine,Norway and Greece.

Netherlands Germany and Czech.

With only France (hosts) and England and Lebanon(quarter finalists) given places in the 2025 finals the likes of Ireland Scotland and Wales will have to go through the qualifying process. 

So in 2023 the two winners from European B groups will play off and the winner join Scotland, Ireland,Wales,Serbia and Italy for the next round in 2024.

OR both group winners will go through as I forgot Spain...then we have two groups of four with four qualification berths left .Six European sides in total.

As far as I am aware the 2023 Europeans which includes France and England has no bearing on the WC qualification process. 

 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by yanto

[yanto]

On 30/11/2022 at 12:04, MatthewWoody said:

Qualifying process:
In the Europe Qualifying Tournament, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Serbia, Turkey and Wales will play in one group of three and one of four in 2023, with the two highest placed finishers from each group qualifying 

Not sure where you got this from but Turkey and Malta have already been eliminated when the Netherlands won the C championship held in Turkey earlier this year.

Maybe it's the Women ???

[Iceberg Slim]

15 hours ago, londonrlfan said:

So swap Greece for USA/Canada and it'll be the same teams. It's boring seeing the same teams all the time - heritage nations will dominate in Europe and CI get their usual stroll. I'd love to see Nigeria make it instead of CI and one of Scotland or Ireland to miss out.

I agree. I’m hoping for berths from Serbia Brazil Jamaica Greece and South Africa. That would truly reward domestic growth. 

[MatthewWoody]

More and more one sided matches and cricket scores.

[Jim from Oz]

14 hours ago, yanto said:

Not sure where you got this from but Turkey and Malta have already been eliminated when the Netherlands won the C championship held in Turkey earlier this year.

Maybe it's the Women ???

Yes, this is the women’s qualifiers