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A World Cup Year! Rugby League 2022

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    Originally posted by The Mighty Trin View Post
    Meanwhile, tickets for an SA v All Blacks August 23 friendly at Twickenham 2 weeks before the RU World Cup are on sale at a minimum 85 quid a pop on Ticketmaster. And they'll get a sellout..
    This was going to feature in my post World Cup round-up (and still will) - we don't even know if and when England RL will play next year but RU can sell games a year in advance. I get adverts for that game every time I go on Facebook.

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      Potential knock on effects of Samoa's success to the State of Origin

      https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...P=share_btn_tw

      Not often you see sentences like "For the privileged, equality feels like oppression" in sport articles

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        Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post

        Today the better team won and I've got no complaints at the outcome, and I'll go to the final and support Samoa. But ultimately it wasn't England vs plucky islander nation Samoa, it was Super League vs NRL and the gulf in class isn't much different from what it was in 1982, 1986 and so on. Until we have 20 players in all positions playing NRL every week we can't compete, cos they are playing the sport at a different level from us.
        This, completely, which gives me hope of a really competitive final on Saturday. The Samoans last weekend had five players in their seventeen from Penrith Panthers, winners of the last two NRL Grand Finals and probably the best club side in Australia for a decade. The rest of the squad were all NRL first choice players apart from Falai and Sao who are arguably the best centre and second rower respectively in Super League. Anyone who believes David beat Goliath last Saturday is well wide of the mark.
        Last edited by Tony C; 18-11-2022, 08:18.

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          Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post

          This was going to feature in my post World Cup round-up (and still will) - we don't even know if and when England RL will play next year but RU can sell games a year in advance. I get adverts for that game every time I go on Facebook.
          Me too, but would you really want to go?

          I’ve always been happy with RL, despite its parochial reputation and inability to expand globally (or even internally in the UK’s case) in relation to union. Given the code’s genesis and history I’m proud to have made my choice.

          As an aside, I went to Twickenham for the first time a couple of years ago for a 6 Nations game against Scotland. I have no intention of going back.

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            Twickenham is very much an outlier in terms of Rugby Union stadiums. Though it has been a fantastic venue for "neutral" matches in events like the Rugby World Cup which bodes well for the friendly mentioned above.

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              Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
              Potential knock on effects of Samoa's success to the State of Origin

              https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...P=share_btn_tw

              Not often you see sentences like "For the privileged, equality feels like oppression" in sport articles
              Another point I was going to make after the final, with the strength of the point being dependent on the outcome (and I was leaving it to then so as not to appear bitchy about them beating England). Samoa are a Tier 2 nation, which means that currently players who are eligible for both Australia and Samoa can continue to play Origin, while playing Tests for Samoa or Australia, and then play for Samoa in the 2025 tournament. Whereas fightin' Victor Radley has had to give up Origin eligibility (and any future eligibility for Australia) by virtue of playing for England (as would any future dual eligibility players).

              Samoa reaching the final is already a cause to consider their Tier 2 status, and winning it would make it even more of an anomaly, given it would mean them beating two Tier 1 nations in quick succession, and would end the tournament ranked the number one national team in the world. Even if they were elevated to Tier 1 now, their players could continue to play Origin and then declare for Samoa on the eve of 2025, provided they didn't play for Australia in the meantime.

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                Dave Woods on League's inability to grow the international game.

                https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/63650965

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                  The Wheelchair final is getting "finals weekend" off to a cracking start.

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                    And England win a brilliantly close game, players in tears at the final whistle. Record crowd for the version of the sport.

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                      Absolutely brilliant game. Sport at its very best.

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                        Yup.

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                          Had a good afternoon at Old Trafford. Women’s final surprisingly one sided but still entertaining. Australia as clinical as ever in the men’s final but Samoa pushed them slightly harder than the final score might indicated. Samoa had plenty of possession twenty or thirty meters from the Australian line but just couldn’t find gaps in the defence - whereas Australia always found the killer pass.

                          Australia also very lucky that the referee only gave second row Angus Crichton ten minutes for what to me looked like a definite red card offence.

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                            I’m still waiting to get the feeling back in my legs from Old Trafford - they don’t believe in legroom there do they?

                            Or based on the food, vegetarianism, either.

                            Felt Samoa started ok, first 10 minutes anyway, maybe if they’d been able to get over to score first it might have been different but the Aussies didn’t seem too stretched once they’d got ahead.

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                              Yes it was quite the gear shift from last week's visit to the Emirates, in terms of legroom, food/drink and ease of getting away afterwards. And the game itself of course, with Samoa being contained by Australia's defence much more effectively than England managed last week. They were unlucky with several refereeing decisions but there was only going to be one winner at the end of the day.

                              We had a good day out, daughter was staying in Manchester so we met at Altrincham for lunch and got the tram in. We were intending to make the start of the women's final but got distracted by when we realised the merch stands were punting remaining stock at discounted prices and picked up a few bargains (the tournament website is doing the same by the way). After the Old Trafford stewards insisted my daughter on emptying absolutely everything from her tote bag for inspection, causing her to spill tampons on the ground, we began our long ascent to our seats and got in with 15 minutes in the first half remaining.

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                                So where does it all leave us - we've had unprecedented (and maybe never to be beaten) TV exposure for the sport, we've had (what appears to have been) a tournament that at least broke even and put money into the coffers of the IRL, so there's money available to fund the international programme, we've now got six nations who can produce high quality competitive games against each other at the top level of the sport, we've got a lot of emerging nations with ambition to play at the next World Cup, we've massively increased the profile of the women's and wheelchair games.... so how are we building on that legacy, what's next for this exciting new era for the international sport?

                                England are playing France in Warrington in April, in front of probably 4,000 people and probably putting 60 points on them.

                                And that's it, that's all that in the diary for the international game.

                                The issue of course is the dominance of the NRL and in turn the dominance of Origin over the international game in Australia. Australia isn't interested in providing the space in the calendar, the release of players and the hosting of games which are all required for the international game to thrive. They have already abolished the annual mid season game vs NZ, which in turn replaced the annual three test series.

                                Origin is reverting to only midweek games next year, which nixes the chances of a proper mid season international break, meaning the only window will be post-season, and still dependent on the clubs and players association to co-operate. It'll be difficult to get Australia to commit to any post season series or tournament which isn't the World Cup, so we'll be left with one-offs in the Southern Hemisphere, to which England may or may not be invited.

                                On the plus side its only three years to the next World Cup in France, on the down side with only two international windows before then, there's a danger that the international game will crater in the meantime and we'll be sitting here in 2025 after hopefully another successful World Cup saying "international RL's great isn't it, we should have more of it".

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                                  Yes, we were in Stratford End upper and it was a bit of a climb up - really narrow legroom as you say which I can now just about get away with but if it had been this time last year (as it was supposed to be) I would have struggled post knee replacement. We hung around for an hour in Lowry centre and had a drink and getting away from the car park wasn’t too bad. Sixteen quid for a day’s parking was ridiculous though.

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                                    We were high up on the halfway line and had presumably the Kangaroo offical supporters touring party all around us. I've never known a group of fans to be so collectively quiet like they couldn't be arsed being at a game. However, we did have Tim Sheens and Blocker Roach sat in front of us and saw Alfie Langer as we had our Bovril under the stand.

                                    The Aussie ladies were playing a different game to NZ. With the men's game the only way I could see a Samoa victory was if they scored first. By half-time it was game over. Pleased to see the applause for Kevin Sinfield and found the booing of the Kangaroos unnecessary. It didn't feel like they got out of second gear. Old Trafford really needs a rebuild. I don't understand why they built it in such a compact way with all the land around. It was a shame for Samoa as I got the feeling that the very narrow in-goals hampered their kicking game on the last and they couldn't adjust.

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                                      Somewhat surprisingly, the European federation has announced there will be an eight team European Championships, featuring England*, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Italy, Serbia and Spain, but not clear when (but the England v France game is additional to it, not part of it), where, and in what format, but looks like it will all be contained within 2023 and not spread over two years, as there are separate World Cup qualifiers in 2024. *This may yet be the second string / emerging players team England Knights.

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                                        *It is indeed the England Knights, with the full team potentially hosting NZ in an autumn series in 2023 and Australia in autumn 2024. "Potentially" doing a lot of the lifting there.

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                                          I guess that makes sense as a full England team would (in theory smash them), which would be no good for anybody. Perhaps a Knights team also would, but we are where we are. Will there be much TV and spectator interest for the Knights, though?

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                                            No, there won't be, and the other teams will see it as devaluing the tournament generally, even though it produces a more level playing field. The Knights' last game was against Scotland, serving as the latter's World Cup warm up match, in front of what I'd assume to be a couple of hundred people in Edinburgh, and they beat Scotland 28-4. I'd guess the tournament will be held in one location over two weeks, probably in Italy or France, streamed free on YouTube.

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                                              As a not really league person, I kind of drifted away from the world cup as most of the games I had on seemed to be far too one sided. I did really enjoy the closer games that I saw though.

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                                                As soon as one campaign finishes another begins - the weekend saw Brazil win the men's South American Championship, a three way tournament with Chile and Colombia, staged in the latter (with games staged over three consecutive days). This served as the first step in the qualifiers for 2025, with Brazil now joining USA, Canada and Jamaica in the Americas qualifiers next year, to determine two countries going through to France 2025.

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