WC 10 Teams, structure going bad

[BladeHearts]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

Well don't have Scotland then. That doesn't mean we need to scrap England.

True, that is definitely another option... lol.

But realistically Wales are only ever going to be making up the numbers at international level as well and at some point in the future a couple of players from either Wales or Scotland could be the difference between England not winning the World Cup and GB succeeding.

[Spidey]

There’s a big assumption England world be in the Super Group. Could quite easily be Aus, NZ, Sam, Ton.  Now I’d get behind that

Edited October 10, 2023 by Spidey

[crashmon]

5 minutes ago, Damien said:

Well don't have Scotland then. That doesn't mean we need to scrap England.

Thats not what I said.  What I said was only have GB if its representitive of GB.  If its all english players then make it England.

Lions works in Union as you have representitives from all the contributing countries.  (Alhough you would be hard pressed to select more than a couple of English or welsh for the next team, seeing the gulf between Ireland, then Scotland then England and wales a long way behind right now).

OFC next tour is Australia, who in Union are in real trouble, so you could have the most lopsided Lions tour ever coming up

[Damien]

12 minutes ago, crashmon said:

Thats not what I said.  What I said was only have GB if its representitive of GB.  If its all english players then make it England.

Lions works in Union as you have representitives from all the contributing countries.  (Alhough you would be hard pressed to select more than a couple of English or welsh for the next team, seeing the gulf between Ireland, then Scotland then England and wales a long way behind right now).

OFC next tour is Australia, who in Union are in real trouble, so you could have the most lopsided Lions tour ever coming up

I never said you did and I never quoted you.

[crashmon]

1 minute ago, Damien said:

I never said you did and I never quoted you.

apoligies, did not mean to imply otherwise

[Damien]

17 minutes ago, BladeHearts said:

True, that is definitely another option... lol.

But realistically Wales are only ever going to be making up the numbers at international level as well and at some point in the future a couple of players from either Wales or Scotland could be the difference between England not winning the World Cup and GB succeeding.

We have played as England in World Cups for 30 odd years. Its a retrograde step for no benefit.

[BladeHearts]

14 minutes ago, Damien said:

We have played as England in World Cups for 30 odd years. Its a retrograde step for no benefit.

How many World Cups have England won in that period?

Were England a better team without the likes of Kieran Cunningham and Iestyn Harris for example.

Edited October 10, 2023 by BladeHearts

[Dave T]

The biggest problem here is that we are now seeing the outcome of the NRL fully controlling the IRL agenda. And it ain't pretty, no matter how much people try to look on the positive side of things. I'm not one to mindlessly bash the Aussies, but I see little to be positive about here. 

The biggest outcome here is fewer games. This has always been the challenge with the Australian's being in charge and it is now happening. And it is important to remember that the Aussies already have three representative games per year (origin), plus the PNG XIII match. So they serve their market with alternatives to their weekly comp, and they make plenty of money from Origin. They aren't interested, and don't need a further 6 games or so for their Test team each year. 

This year we have a Tri Nations that is a backward step on the Tri and Four Nations concept that started properly back in 2004 - back then these tournaments had 6 group games - the Aussie 2023 version has 3. The previous World Cup's had increased to up to 31 games, the new Aussie-led version has 18 games. The number of qualifiers has been heavily culled. 

I can understand this approach for 2026 to an extent. Not unlike 2008, it's a bit of a recovery World Cup following two host countries failing to deliver. However, we are in a different place. The actual WC in 2000 was a disaster, so the whole concept of RLWC's was at risk, so being risk-averse in 2008 was necessary, and people accepted shortcomings with the structure against that backdrop. However, it is different in 2026. Whilst the 2022 WC had issues, it wasn't the car crash that 2000 was, and in reality, it probably needed tweaking rather than ripping it up and starting again. The challenge here is around high costs and struggling to get hosts to stump up the funds to cover these. So a cost cutting exercise was needed. But the RLWC in 2022 looked like it did because of the huge funding it got - the UK hosting the triple World Cup was brilliant - but maybe prohibitive for other nations - we should have an element of freedom to create a World Cup that works for individual nations. That is what we have done so far.

Finally - I just don't see why the 2030 tender doc is so prescriptive on the 5 week, 18 matches point. Well, we do know why, it comes back to the core point here. 

[Dave T]

39 minutes ago, Spidey said:

There’s a big assumption England world be in the Super Group. Could quite easily be Aus, NZ, Sam, Ton.  Now I’d get behind that

Actually, yes, I'm in!  

[Damien]

7 minutes ago, BladeHearts said:

How many World Cups have England won in that period?

Were England a better team without the likes of Kieran Cunningham and Iestyn Harris for example.

This is a boring discussion that's been done to death on multiple threads.

If Scotland can't get their act together over decades and are still reliant on heritage players then I have no interest in going back to GB just so the odd heritage player, and I'm being generous there, can get a game for GB. Scotland need to up their game to actually develop the game in Scotland to be in a position to qualify instead of continually going for the easy option.

Kieran Cunningham and Iestyn Harris were heritage players that were born, bred and developed in England and chose to play for Wales. If they choose to play for Wales then so be it, that really doesn't bother me.

[Mathius Hellwege]

2 hours ago, crashmon said:

Neutrals would only tune in for games which have the Home nations.  So yes if only England are playing from the UK, and no Wales or Ireland, then I don't think there would be much difference if the WC was 10 teams, 12 teams or 6 teams if the only UK representitives would be England.

So let GB play

[crashmon]

TBH I'm now guilty of diverting a thread away from its original purpose, which is the joke of the format of the next world cup and the fact the sport is again going backwards.

Whether its Eng or GB does not stop the fact that a 10 team WC which is 4-3-3 is a Joke.
 

[Eddie]

30 minutes ago, BladeHearts said:

How many World Cups have England won in that period?

Were England a better team without the likes of Kieran Cunningham and Iestyn Harris for example.

If there has been no GB in those days, only England and Wales, I suspect both of those two would have gone with England, certainly Cunningham.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

We have played as England in World Cups for 30 odd years. Its a retrograde step for no benefit.

Nonsense!  It's only 28 years.

[Griff]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

If there has been no GB in those days, only England and Wales, I suspect both of those two would have gone with England, certainly Cunningham.

Kieron Cunningham never played for England. 

He played in the 1995 and 2000 World Cups for Wales.

https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/playersummary.php?tselect=4163

No need to make stuff up.

[17 stone giant]

2 minutes ago, Griff said:

Kieron Cunningham never played for England. 

He played in the 1995 and 2000 World Cups for Wales.

https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/playersummary.php?tselect=4163

No need to make stuff up.

His suggestion was that Cunningham and Harris wouldn't have chosen Wales (in 1995) had there not also been a GB team at the time. They were able to choose Wales for the World Cup, knowing that they could still play for GB in the Ashes, Tri-Nations, etc.

Obviously only they will know that for sure, but I agree with Eddie. I don't believe either of them would have chosen Wales if they were playing today.

[Griff]

1 minute ago, 17 stone giant said:

His suggestion was that Cunningham and Harris wouldn't have chosen Wales (in 1995) had there not also been a GB team at the time. They were able to choose Wales for the World Cup, knowing that they could still play for GB in the Ashes, Tri-Nations, etc.

Obviously only they will know that for sure, but I agree with Eddie. I don't believe either of them would have chosen Wales if they were playing today.

That's not true either.  You can change horses.

Robbie Mulhern played for Ireland in last year's (or was it the year before's?) World Cup. 

Picked for the England squad last week.

[Eddie]

17 minutes ago, Griff said:

Kieron Cunningham never played for England. 

He played in the 1995 and 2000 World Cups for Wales.

https://stats.rugbyleaguerecords.com/playersummary.php?tselect=4163

No need to make stuff up.

I haven’t made anything up chief. 

[Griff]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I haven’t made anything up chief. 

"Certainly Cunningham."

[Hull Kingston Bronco]

The 4/3/3 format with a doomed 4th team in the "supergroup" and daft 7/8 and 9/10 meaningless play-offs was absolutely awful last time. Who in their right mind would repeat it?

I totally get that two groups of 5, with its 7-week duration, isn't realistic in the window we have. Probably isn't even sensible anyway, the current Union WC feels like it's gone on forever.

But in the 1995 10-team World Cup's 4/3/3 format worked fine, 15 games over 5 weeks. Yes you get less matches, but you only lose the meaningless ones nobody wants anyway. Why on earth wouldn't you do that?

The proposed 'supergroup' model's extra 3 games are of no value, at all. I was at the 2008 Fiji/Ireland "quarter final" in the Gold Coast, there were only about 4,000 rattling around in Robina... and the 7/8 and 9/10 playoffs were watched by two men and a dog too, one of them almost literally having been organised on a park pitch in Rockhampton.  

[Eddie]

18 minutes ago, Griff said:

"Certainly Cunningham."

‘I suspect’ 

[HawkMan]

UEFA have announced England, Scotland, Wales and Northern and Republican Ireland will host 2028 Euros. This will be a ten team tournament. The five hosts will be in a super group , top three qualify for semis, the other 5 teams in another group of 5 where Europe's riff raff,  sorry,  welcome guests to The British Isles will battle for one semi final place. All players to be from Premier League clubs only to maximise sustainability,  and because UEFA do what the Premier League say. I may have got this a bit wrong.

Edited October 10, 2023 by HawkMan

[Damien]

12 minutes ago, Hull Kingston Bronco said:

The 4/3/3 format with a doomed 4th team in the "supergroup" and daft 7/8 and 9/10 meaningless play-offs was absolutely awful last time. Who in their right mind would repeat it?

I totally get that two groups of 5, with its 7-week duration, isn't realistic in the window we have. Probably isn't even sensible anyway, the current Union WC feels like it's gone on forever.

But in the 1995 10-team World Cup's 4/3/3 format worked fine, 15 games over 5 weeks. Yes you get less matches, but you only lose the meaningless ones nobody wants anyway. Why on earth wouldn't you do that?

The proposed 'supergroup' model's extra 3 games are of no value, at all. I was at the 2008 Fiji/Ireland "quarter final" in the Gold Coast, there were only about 4,000 rattling around in Robina... and the 7/8 and 9/10 playoffs were watched by two men and a dog too, one of them almost literally having been organised on a park pitch in Rockhampton.  

2 x 5 teams doesn't mean it needs to be 7 weeks, it would be 6. Just as the 2008 World Cup had the finalists playing 5 games in exactly 4 weeks and RLWC2021 had the finalists playing 6 games in 5 weeks. I mean you could even have 2 groups of 5 and have the winners of each in the final and have it done in 5 weeks if you really wanted.

[Griff]

10 minutes ago, Damien said:

2 x 5 teams doesn't mean it needs to be 7 weeks, it would be 6. Just as the 2008 World Cup had the finalists playing 5 games in exactly 4 weeks and RLWC2021 had the finalists playing 6 games in 5 weeks. I mean you could even have 2 groups of 5 and have the winners of each in the final and have it done in 5 weeks if you really wanted.

Why are we talking about formats which clearly won't happen?

[17 stone giant]

42 minutes ago, Griff said:

That's not true either.  You can change horses.

Robbie Mulhern played for Ireland in last year's (or was it the year before's?) World Cup. 

Picked for the England squad last week.

Yes, I take your point. I was meaning that I don't think they would commit long term to playing for Wales, it it meant forgoing the opportunities that playing for England would have given them.

I'm happy to accept that Harris and Cunningham would choose to play for Wales, in the knowledge that they could still switch to England.