Next 4 Nations: NZ, Australia, England & Tonga

[Bobby DIGital]

Although the past 2 weeks has shown there's still a clear division between tier 1 and tier 2 nations, Tonga have become the 1st fully viable option for the 4th team in 4N tournaments. The previous tournaments pretty much always had a clear 4th team which was weaker. It did get better in later times with Scotland jagging a draw (thanks Kidwell) and Samoa competing strongly in 2014, but they couldn't draw money like this Tongan team can.

So this is what I propose; if the Kangaroos have got the balls and stop hiding behind the players association, we could do big business next year.

NZ Vs Tonga at Eden Park
Tonga Vs Aus at Eden Park (I wasn't a fan of this being in NZ, but that ship has sailed now. This game would also do well in Sydney I feel)
Tonga Vs England in Wellington
NZ Vs England in Christchurch
Aus Vs Nz in Brisbane
Aus Vs England in Melbourne or Perth

Final location to be determined by who makes it. If Tonga or NZ make it - Auckland. If they don't, Brisbane.

#$$$

 

[titoelcolombiano]

I love it! The four nations worked really well but it has to be a regular thing and an annual pacific cup and euro cup must be played in addition to determine the fourth qualifying nation each year.

Tonga and Australia would fill the new WSS but I wouldn't complain if it was in Auckland.

 

[Springs09]

The Four Nations is a stop gap solution. Yeah they are okay and help out 1 Tier 2 nation but they neither have the consistent quality that 3-test series or the old Tri-Nations used to nor do they help out the other 15 or so tier 2 nations who are stuck with no games against tier 1 opposition and usually no games at all.

Four Nations are better than what we have at the moment since we all keep f**king it up but tours and larger tournaments are the way forward imo. Tours give an opportunity for a team to play a 3-test series as well as other games against tier 2 opposition - NZ and England should really be playing 2 or 3 other tests against France, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Italy etc before and after the Baskerville Shield. Larger tournaments like the proposed 8-team Confederations Cup, as well as an expanded European Championship w/England and an expanded Pacific Championship w/NZ and/or Australia are more beneficial to everyone if we can get the governing bodies to stop pissing about.

 

[Bobby DIGital]

The Four Nations is a stop gap solution. Yeah they are okay and help out 1 Tier 2 nation but they neither have the consistent quality that 3-test series or the old Tri-Nations used to nor do they help out the other 15 or so tier 2 nations who are stuck with no games against tier 1 opposition and usually no games at all.

Four Nations are better than what we have at the moment since we all keep f**king it up but tours and larger tournaments are the way forward imo. Tours give an opportunity for a team to play a 3-test series as well as other games against tier 2 opposition - NZ and England should really be playing 2 or 3 other tests against France, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Italy etc before and after the Baskerville Shield. Larger tournaments like the proposed 8-team Confederations Cup, as well as an expanded European Championship w/England and an expanded Pacific Championship w/NZ and/or Australia are more beneficial to everyone if we can get the governing bodies to stop pissing about.

It's better than nothing though. And in the short-term it would be a good platform to launch into more expansive tournaments. We need to strike while the iron is hot. This Tongan hysteria won't last forever.

 

[Springs09]

It's better than nothing though. And in the short-term it would be a good platform to launch into more expansive tournaments. We need to strike while the iron is hot. This Tongan hysteria won't last forever.

I agree. Since we messed up setting a 4 year calendar for 2018-2021 we should have a Kangaroo Tour of Europe + a Pacific Six Nations w/NZ next year then a 4 Nations (or 3 or 5 or 6 or whatever) in 2020 with Australia, NZ, Tonga and hopefully England, and maybe some of the other Pacific Nations. Or vice versa.

This would give Tonga 2 big tournaments against tier 1 opposition as well as giving Euro Nations a shot at Australia and Pacific Nations a shot at NZ.

 

[Pommy]

A 4 nations wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. If each of the sides played a warm up against a regional tier 2 nation to give more games.
Tonga v Samoa in Auckland would be a huge money maker, PNG and Fiji would provide good warm ups for England NZ.
Now writing this post I’m not sure there’s another local team to provide a credible warm up for Australia but Lebanon is almost entirely based in Sydney and would probably fill out WSS if it was hyped up properly.

 

[Perth Red]

Better we have a NZ v Tonga 3 match series in NZ and an Aus v Eng 3 match series in Australia next year, 3 match PNG v Fiji in PNG. Just leaves Samoa to find someone to play, maybe France who could tour and play Fiji, Smaoa and PNG?

 

[Bobby DIGital]

A year later and I think this would work even better now.

 

[roughyedspud]

Nope..