INTERNATIONAL Rugby League really gets my blood flowing, so I’d very much like to hear the powers-that-be talking up Tonga.
England have a really appealing Test series coming up and, with publicity even harder to come by than normal due to the rugby union World Cup, the RFL really needs to put in the hard yards when it comes to promoting the three matches.
We want to see big turn-outs at St Helens on Sunday, October 22, when Tonga coach Kristian Woolf will obviously get a warm welcome, Huddersfield on Saturday 28 and Leeds on Saturday, November 4.
But if we don’t put ourselves out there and let people know what’s going on, that won’t happen.
We’ve banged on about the need for a long-term international calendar for long enough, and now we’ve got it, with Ashes series fixed for 2025 (Down Under) and 2028 (here), a visit from New Zealand in 2027 and World Cups in 2026 and 2030.
But it’s Tonga first up, with all the ingredients to make it both mouth-watering – and marketable.
It will be the first meeting of the sides since the semi-finals of the 2017 World Cup, when England edged it in Auckland before losing to Australia in Brisbane.
Of course Tonga made the quarter-finals last year, only to go down by a couple of points to Samoa. And at the start of the build-up to 2026, Woolfy will want to put down a marker.
After that one-sided meeting with France, it’s the first serious challenge for Shaun Wane since the let-down of losing to Samoa in the World Cup semi-finals.
I’m looking forward to seeing how he approaches it – and what players he selects!
