How many nations could realistically have a chance of winning this year’s Rugby League World Cup?
I was reading an article in the Australian media over the weekend, in which Troy Grant, the Chairman of the International Rugby League governing body, claimed that there are now five nations that could realistically take home the trophy.
“We used to get mocked that only two nations, maybe three, could ever win anything,” Grant said.
“We now have five countries that could win the trophy and another two, in Fiji and PNG, that could cause a boilover on their day. If the players who could play for Samoa do play, that could follow the Tongan rise very quickly.”
So I assume that the five countries he’s thinking of are Australia, England, New Zealand, Tonga and Samoa.
In this week’s issue of League Express we’ve begun the countdown to the World Cup by looking at the claims of Samoa, who have a remarkable number of players to choose from for their World Cup squad this year.
If you turn to page 19, you’ll see our preview of their campaign. They probably have more players to select from than Shaun Wane has potential England players.
So anyone who thinks that England will coast to an easy win against the Samoans in the opening game of the World Cup at St James’ Park in Newcastle will surely suffer a rude awakening.
I suspect that many people would have the Samoans as the favourites to win that game.
On the other hand, there does seem to be a considerable degree of dissatisfaction among many Samoan players about their coach Matt Parish, who had a brief spell coaching Salford in 2011.
Many Samoan players have taken note of the achievements of Tonga and have seen the route followed by the Tongans under their coach Kristian Woolf, which has seen the squad focus on Tongan culture, linking it to their performances on the field, while of course being tactically astute in using the strengths of the players in that squad.
It seems that Parish isn’t big on the cultural identity of the squad and he isn’t a strong disciplinarian.
It will be interesting to see whether that can work to England’s advantage.
Meanwhile, talking of Kristian Woolf, it now looks increasingly likely that he will return to Australia at the end of this season to take up a role with the Dolphins, the new club that will enter the NRL next year with Wayne Bennett as its initial head coach.
Wayne is now well into his seventies and the deal seems to be that he will have two seasons at the helm before stepping back to let Kristian take over.
I may be getting this wrong, but it strikes me that Kristian is a Queenslander and, like most people from that state, he has a strong attachment to it. The chance to eventually be an NRL head coach in his home state could be too tempting to turn down and it will also probably be attractive for his family.
I’ll be delighted to be proved wrong, but it looks as though Saints could be looking for a new coach in 2023.
A big weekend in Australia
Whether or not Matt Parish is the right man to coach Samoa, we may get some inkling of that on Saturday, when the Samoans play the Cook Islands as part of the double-header at Campbelltown Stadium in a game that will be broadcast live by Sky Sports.
That game will kick off at 8.40am, following the clash between New Zealand and Tonga, which itself follows the game between the women’s sides of New Zealand and Tonga.
The final game on Saturday will be the game between Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
It seems ridiculous to me that the two organisations that administer Rugby League in the two hemispheres couldn’t agree on a common weekend for representative Rugby League.
By not doing so, it means that there will only be one player travelling from this country to play for his country in Australia this weekend. That will be Tinirau Arona, who will play for the Cook Islands against Samoa.
And of course it means that Kristian Woolf won’t be heading back to Australia to coach Tonga, which is a great shame.
And I would have thought that Edwin Ipape and Nene Macdonald of Leigh Centurions might have been strong candidates to play for Papua New Guinea. In fact I’m slightly surprised that those two players, alongside John Asiata and Blake Ferguson, didn’t gain selection in the All Stars squad that played England on Saturday.
I’m sure that individually or collectively they would have made great contributions, especially when we remember that some of the potential All Stars from the top four Super League clubs were conspicuous by their absence.
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