New Zealand not coming in 2023

[Mathius Hellwege]

Rugby league: New Zealand Rugby League set ambitious target for Kiwis tests in 2023 - NZ Herald

 

with two games against AUS in the SH they will not fly for just two games to the NH

[Mathius Hellwege]

but i am happy that they are committed to four test matches

 

This time the rumous about a greater commitment of the NRL to the international game after the Grand Finals seem to be true (be it in four weeks without or in five weeks with a bye)

[Oxford]

Greater commitment to play each other more...... fantastic news.

 

 

The WC legacy will look much the same as it was before then.

 

[Harry Stottle]

Never mind eh, we can have the big draw cards of the French tests and the Welsh to fill in.

[Tommygilf]

9 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Never mind eh, we can have the big draw cards of the French tests and the Welsh to fill in.

We don't appear to have a choice.

Shame this situation wasn't entirely predictable and we couldn't have done anything more to mitigate the problems or improve our non Oz or Kiwi prospects...

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, Oxford said:

Greater commitment to play each other more...... fantastic news.

 

 

The WC legacy will look much the same as it was before then.

 

Aus/NZ don't need England outside of the odd tour. They could have a great Pacific Cup competition every year post season. This is England's fault for not helping to develop the sport in the NH and running the sport into the ground domestically as well.

[Eddie]

58 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Never mind eh, we can have the big draw cards of the French tests and the Welsh to fill in.

Plus the Serbia game in the European Cup  

[Eddie]

Just now, ShropshireBull said:

Also, England already tanked the Euro comp by calling it the knights in time for noone to come to NH. Zero sympathy. 

Have they called it the Knights? 

[JM2010]

Don't blame them to he honest. The Pacific Cup will be a great tournament with high quality games. It could become as prestigious as Origin if they stick with it.

Unfortunately they don't really need to play England anymore outside of WCs.

 

[Davo5]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Never mind eh, we can have the big draw cards of the French tests and the Welsh to fill in.

One was a big enough draw for 24k fans just a few weeks ago.

[Jughead]

Was told otherwise and that The RFL were sounding out venues for England v NZ. I can’t read the NZ paper but they would “they hope…” isn’t concrete and nothing has been announced for definite.

[ATLANTISMAN]

7 minutes ago, Jughead said:

Was told otherwise and that The RFL were sounding out venues for England v NZ. I can’t read the NZ paper but they would “they hope…” isn’t concrete and nothing has been announced for definite.

Cannot blame the RFL for this, and yes they were including London, France also wanted a match v the kiwis however they confirmed a few weeks ago that it was sadly unlikely as the NRL were in the driving seat.

 

Paul

[Harry Stottle]

3 hours ago, Davo5 said:

One was a big enough draw for 24k fans just a few weeks ago.

OK Dav, how very observant of you.

Do you want to bet that the same fixture will not attract 1/3 of that the next time they meet in this country.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Harry Stottle

[Dave T]

4 hours ago, Tommygilf said:

We don't appear to have a choice.

Shame this situation wasn't entirely predictable and we couldn't have done anything more to mitigate the problems or improve our non Oz or Kiwi prospects...

I think that's rather too simplistic. 

If we are being brutally honest, it is going to need millions and millions of quid and years of investment to get France or Wales to be competitive. It is unlikely they will ever get to England's level. 

Let's look honesty, we've never really grown an RL nation. 

The Pacific Nations benefit from the makeup of Australia and NZ, Wales used to be decent because we'd buy a loads of Welsh Union players. 

Nobody has grown to be a strong RL playing nation. 

Edited November 30, 2022 by Dave T

[Tommygilf]

Just now, Dave T said:

I think that's rather too simplistic. 

If we are being brutally honest, it is going to need millions and millions of quid and years of investment to get France or Wales to be competitive. 

Let's look honesty, we've never really grown an RL nation. 

The Pacific Nations benefit from the makeup of Australia and NZ, Wales used to be decent because we'd buy a loads of Welsh Union players. 

Nobody has grown to be a strong RL playing nation. 

I think that is fair. But even if we had the millions, would we have invested them? I don't think so.

And even despite that, the growth in the Pacific Islands has been coming for some time now, and yet the RFL have persisted with the head in the sand strategy. Worse, we're now being beaten by said pacific island teams.

We're neither strategic, or responsive, and now we pay the price.

[Tommygilf]

11 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

OK Dav, how very observant of you.

Do you want to bet that the same fixture will not attract 1/3 of that the next time they meet in this country.

I bet it can't draw half, given the venue already selected for a double header too!

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think that's rather too simplistic. 

If we are being brutally honest, it is going to need millions and millions of quid and years of investment to get France or Wales to be competitive. It is unlikely they will ever get to England's level. 

Let's look honesty, we've never really grown an RL nation. 

The Pacific Nations benefit from the makeup of Australia and NZ, Wales used to be decent because we'd buy a loads of Welsh Union players. 

Nobody has grown to be a strong RL playing nation. 

The situation would have been a lot better if the RFL had actually invested when the sport was at its height. Look how far Jamaica have come in 20 years and on limited funding as well. Dedicated individuals helped grow the sport to have a domestic and school grade comp. They won't beat England anytime soon but the only way is up.

[UTK]

The writing has been on the wall for this since 2017 but it appears the RFL has been pretending it wasn't going to happen. It was very telling that immediately after Tonga's emergence in the 2017 WC the 4N was ditched and Tonga were consequentially guaranteed matches against NZ and Australia, the 2019 Oceanic Cup result was just the final nail in the coffin.

Now we're left with an expansion if the European Championship that was obviously developed with the Knights in mind and a full England side needing games at home. Would've been the perfect time for England to re-enter the the old Euro A structure alongside France/Wales/Ireland but now we've got Serbia/Spain et al in the Euro A picture and that creates problems for the competition.

Even the slightest bit of foresight of a hint of commitment to the wider European RL scene over the last 20 years by England would've prevented this from happening but nonetheless this is the mess we're left with now.

[Tommygilf]

1 minute ago, UTK said:

The writing has been on the wall for this since 2017 but it appears the RFL has been pretending it wasn't going to happen. It was very telling that immediately after Tonga's emergence in the 2017 WC the 4N was ditched and Tonga were consequentially guaranteed matches against NZ and Australia, the 2019 Oceanic Cup result was just the final nail in the coffin.

Now we're left with an expansion if the European Championship that was obviously developed with the Knights in mind and a full England side needing games at home. Would've been the perfect time for England to re-enter the the old Euro A structure alongside France/Wales/Ireland but now we've got Serbia/Spain et al in the Euro A picture and that creates problems for the competition.

Even the slightest bit of foresight of a hint of commitment to the wider European RL scene over the last 20 years by England would've prevented this from happening but nonetheless this is the mess we're left with now.

Oddly though the RFL seem to have been the main driver behind the 4 Nations being dropped. The Wood and Rimmer regimes appeared firmly behind the return of Tours, GB and scrapping the 4 nations as the way forward. Indeed wasn't Wood also head of the RLIF during this time too?

Added onto this the fact that whilst Tonga, Samoa, PNG and Fiji have gotten stronger, Australia and the Kiwis have never appeared more beatable, then it is clear England have regressed too. I almost wouldn't mind the binning off of the rest of NH RL if England were clearly the best team in the world, but they can't even say that was a result of their leadership.

So now we mend the roof whilst we can see the dark storm clouds gathering.

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

5 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Oddly though the RFL seem to have been the main driver behind the 4 Nations being dropped. The Wood and Rimmer regimes appeared firmly behind the return of Tours, GB and scrapping the 4 nations as the way forward. Indeed wasn't Wood also head of the RLIF during this time too?

Added onto this the fact that whilst Tonga, Samoa, PNG and Fiji have gotten stronger, Australia and the Kiwis have never appeared more beatable, then it is clear England have regressed too. I almost wouldn't mind the binning off of the rest of NH RL if England were clearly the best team in the world, but they can't even say that was a result of their leadership.

So now we mend the roof whilst we can see the dark storm clouds gathering.

This ^

As usual, it was Woods and Rimmer incompetence. The Tri- and then Four-Nations had been built into a reliable, regular product. So obviously the RFL came up with a plan to f*** it all up

The Woods/Rimmer decade took us so far backwards it’s almost hard to believe 

[redjonn]

33 minutes ago, UTK said:

The writing has been on the wall for this since 2017 but it appears the RFL has been pretending it wasn't going to happen. It was very telling that immediately after Tonga's emergence in the 2017 WC the 4N was ditched and Tonga were consequentially guaranteed matches against NZ and Australia, the 2019 Oceanic Cup result was just the final nail in the coffin.

Now we're left with an expansion if the European Championship that was obviously developed with the Knights in mind and a full England side needing games at home. Would've been the perfect time for England to re-enter the the old Euro A structure alongside France/Wales/Ireland but now we've got Serbia/Spain et al in the Euro A picture and that creates problems for the competition.

Even the slightest bit of foresight of a hint of commitment to the wider European RL scene over the last 20 years by England would've prevented this from happening but nonetheless this is the mess we're left with now.

And what should that commitment have been to the wider European scene.

[Davo5]

1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

OK Dav, how very observant of you.

Do you want to bet that the same fixture will not attract 1/3 of that the next time they meet in this country.

I’ve no idea what attendance the game will attract but with the Southern Hemisphere doing their own thing we either play the likes of France/Wales or we have another blank year internationally,which following a home WC  we can’t allow to happen surely.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, Tommygilf said:

I think that is fair. But even if we had the millions, would we have invested them? I don't think so.

And even despite that, the growth in the Pacific Islands has been coming for some time now, and yet the RFL have persisted with the head in the sand strategy. Worse, we're now being beaten by said pacific island teams.

We're neither strategic, or responsive, and now we pay the price.

I don't disagree with the principle, however we have brought both Catalans and Toulouse into the UK pyramid and we've regularly played France. 

Of course, in British RL style we haven't done any of it brilliantly, but that isn't exclusive to the French challenge. 

[Tommygilf]

26 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

This ^

As usual, it was Woods and Rimmer incompetence. The Tri- and then Four-Nations had been built into a reliable, regular product. So obviously the RFL came up with a plan to f*** it all up

The Woods/Rimmer decade took us so far backwards it’s almost hard to believe 

Looking back I have to agree.

The 4 Nations was ideal for us. It allowed us to package in a less attractive European fixture with the Aussies and Kiwis, and gave that European side fixtures against the Aussies and Kiwis. It both lessened the pressure on us whilst increasing the exposure. 

[Tommygilf]

14 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I don't disagree with the principle, however we have brought both Catalans and Toulouse into the UK pyramid and we've regularly played France. 

Of course, in British RL style we haven't done any of it brilliantly, but that isn't exclusive to the French challenge. 

But it hasn't been good enough Dave, and now we're not even able to fall back on Kangaroos or Kiwis automatically. Its hard to see where the positives come from.