adamkungl
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Interesting year coming up!
Some big events and bigger questions. A long time to go before it really kicks off but may as well start the discussion.
State of the Game
The years including and since the last World Cup have seen some major positive shifts - Tonga, Fiji, and PNG have all recorded wins against the big 3. Tonga has beaten all 3 and if they back it up in 2020 could almost claim to be the worlds strongest Rugby League test team. The game is changing and the gap is narrowing. Australia is beatable - the Kangaroos are undoubtedly in a post-superstar lull, and it's not clear who the next batch of "invincibles" will be. If Tonga and NZ can do it, there's no real reason why England can't.
The top 12 or so nations are at least pencilled in for major tournaments 3 of every 4 years now, which can only be a good thing.
More nations than ever are starting up local competitions and many of these are achieving government recognition, slowly getting the sport towards the major goal of international GAISF/Sportaccord recognition.
And there's hope - all the major negatives the international game faces (listed below) - are largely self-inflicted and easily remedied with the right administrative will.
Unfortunately it isn't all positive. There have been a number of disappointments, with the core theme underlying all of them being a failure to capitalise on the above successes.
- Major upsets aren't followed up with timely rematches.
- Delayed and strange scheduling decisions, and poorly chosen locations continue to impact public interest in all the Big 3 nations, a constant since 2017s underwhelming World Cup.
- The Kangaroos are barely seen, not playing enough matches to even respect their rivals.
- England/Great Britain self-sabotage with a misguided and poorly run tour.
- Some nations rely too much on the NRL and RFL to schedule matches for them and otherwise don't play.
- Infighting and politics in at least 5 countries threatened or continues to threaten recent progress.
- Oceania Cup poor format fails to hit the heights of the 3 and 4 Nations tournaments of the last 20 years.
- While the Oceania Cup and European Cup provide this for their regions, there is no pathway for WC-playing nations outside of Europe or the Pacific to get regular games against higher opposition. Jamaica, USA, Lebanon.
- The Pacific Island nations, while impressive on the field, rarely get the chance to impress in front of home crowds and are lacking legitimately home born or developed players.
What's happening in 2020
The main event is the Kangaroo Tour of the UK, a 3 match series Australia vs England taking place in November. Venues have been ambitiously chosen, in particularly Rugby League's debut at the brilliant looking Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
In just 2 weeks though, we have the long awaited announcement of the 2021 World Cup pools and draw, and we can expect tickets to go on sale shortly after - a rare instance of good planning for the game.
The announcement for 2025 hosting is expected this year... but nobody knows when or what to expect.
Back to major tournaments, in the Southern Hemisphere we have the Oceania Cup continuing without Australia, but featuring NZ, Tonga, and Fiji. It should be a cracking event. With both Tonga and Fiji toppling the Kiwis in the last few years, complacency would see them embarrassed in front of home crowds yet again.
On the other side of the world we have the European Cup - no idea of format, participants, or ticket sales yet. Assume France, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but not yet known whether England or England Knights will join the tournament, or Italy or Greece at the other end of the rankings table.
Africa and the Americas will also host regional tournaments, while a number of Asian nations continue to develop the required groundwork.
Across all continents and regions, new nations will continue to join the game or slowly develop the fledgling competitions they have.
Finally, we can expect a handful of mid-year tests, with England likely to visit Sydney and play a Pacific nation, and NZ to host one of their island neighbours. The remaining Pacific nations will probably face off joining one of the above fixtures as a curtain-raiser.
The Big Questions
A lot of questions remain about the 2020 calendar, and i've estimated the best and worst outcomes for each:
Who will the Kangaroos play aside from England?
Best - Wales and France
Worst - a mid-week club fixture but no international tests.
Will we get clarity on the Oceania Cup format going forward?
Best - A final introduced this year, mid-season games kept standalone and separate to the tournament, and a move to 4 Nations in 2022
Worst - An exact re-do of the current format, and 2 teams relegated to make way for Australia in 2022.
Will England play in the European Cup, and will it be a 4 or 6 Nation tournament?
Best - A rebirth and re-energising of the format with a big marketing push: England Knights enter a 4 Nations tournament featuring France, Wales and Ireland. The 2nd tier is also 4 nations, featuring Scotland, Italy, Greece and 1 more. Regional C level tournaments are conducted with the remaining nations.
Worst - 4 Nations but without England, played with little fanfare in front of nothing crowds.
What will happen with the mid-year tests?
Best - England decide to stay home and play their neighbours. The NRL commits to a regular fixture featuring the best 2 Pacific nations for a trophy, with the others playing standalones not connected to the post-season Oceania Cup. All major nations play *someone*.
Worst - England play in front of a poor Sydney crowd and the Pacific tests detract from the Oceania Cup by breaking up the format across the season.
Lebanon, Jamaica, Italy, Greece, Spain, Serbia, Norway, USA, Canada, South Africa - all countries that have either qualified for the World Cup or went deep into qualification, but are unlikely to be given a game against World Cup opposition before the main event.
Who and when will they play?
Best - For this year, Lebanon, Jamaica, and Italy need to play fellow World Cup nations at least once. A structure is developed for the future that gives all nations a pathway to higher competition, not just Pacific and Euro nations.
Worst - They all miss out, and are no clearer to how this improves in future.
Will the infighting in Lebanon, Tonga, Fiji, France, and Greece be satisfactorily resolved?
Best - yes! And the IRL learns how to prevent the situation in future.
Worst - no! And more nations face the same problems.
Will the GB Lions have a future?
Best - tentative yes. There is a way this can be successful if lessons are learned from the 2019 failure. It needs true engagement from all 4 nations, true separation from England, better planning, and a better reason to exist than nostalgia. But it is possible. I'd like to see it return in 2024, with a view to the future rather than the past.
Worst - We not only pretend it never happened, but learn nothing in the process. Ala Denver...
What is the future of International 9s?
Best - annual Oceania (+Europe, Americas, etc) 9s comp to kick off the post-season, lock in the World 9s again for 2023, start work on an international circuit program
Worst - we don't hear about it again until 2023
Will we ever get the "Continental Cup"?
Best - I think this is pretty simple, forget overblown ideas. In the odd-year between WCs,
Cup: the current top 4 nations who pre-qualified for the next WC (Australia, England, NZ, Tonga)
Shield: the remaining 4 pre-qualifiers (PNG, Samoa, Fiji, Lebanon)
Done. Easy.
Worst - we don't hear about it again until 2023 when it's too late
WHERE WILL THE 2025 WORLD CUP BE HELD?
There's no bigger question than this right now.
Best - The handful of American club backers, headed up by the Wolfpack, succeed in a confident bid to sell international Rugby League in the USA and Canada.
Worst - Australia is announced as hosts due to lack of any realistic options, and we are no closer to popping the Australia-England bubble.
Happy New Year!
There's a lot to think about here and a lot to hope for!
It won't all go our way, or my way or your way. Try to recognise positives even when not every detail is perfect! There's generally more good than bad, and the game is gradually inching closer to the right path.
What are you looking forward to? What are you hoping to see? What have I got completely wrong?
Some big events and bigger questions. A long time to go before it really kicks off but may as well start the discussion.
State of the Game
The years including and since the last World Cup have seen some major positive shifts - Tonga, Fiji, and PNG have all recorded wins against the big 3. Tonga has beaten all 3 and if they back it up in 2020 could almost claim to be the worlds strongest Rugby League test team. The game is changing and the gap is narrowing. Australia is beatable - the Kangaroos are undoubtedly in a post-superstar lull, and it's not clear who the next batch of "invincibles" will be. If Tonga and NZ can do it, there's no real reason why England can't.
The top 12 or so nations are at least pencilled in for major tournaments 3 of every 4 years now, which can only be a good thing.
More nations than ever are starting up local competitions and many of these are achieving government recognition, slowly getting the sport towards the major goal of international GAISF/Sportaccord recognition.
And there's hope - all the major negatives the international game faces (listed below) - are largely self-inflicted and easily remedied with the right administrative will.
Unfortunately it isn't all positive. There have been a number of disappointments, with the core theme underlying all of them being a failure to capitalise on the above successes.
- Major upsets aren't followed up with timely rematches.
- Delayed and strange scheduling decisions, and poorly chosen locations continue to impact public interest in all the Big 3 nations, a constant since 2017s underwhelming World Cup.
- The Kangaroos are barely seen, not playing enough matches to even respect their rivals.
- England/Great Britain self-sabotage with a misguided and poorly run tour.
- Some nations rely too much on the NRL and RFL to schedule matches for them and otherwise don't play.
- Infighting and politics in at least 5 countries threatened or continues to threaten recent progress.
- Oceania Cup poor format fails to hit the heights of the 3 and 4 Nations tournaments of the last 20 years.
- While the Oceania Cup and European Cup provide this for their regions, there is no pathway for WC-playing nations outside of Europe or the Pacific to get regular games against higher opposition. Jamaica, USA, Lebanon.
- The Pacific Island nations, while impressive on the field, rarely get the chance to impress in front of home crowds and are lacking legitimately home born or developed players.
What's happening in 2020
The main event is the Kangaroo Tour of the UK, a 3 match series Australia vs England taking place in November. Venues have been ambitiously chosen, in particularly Rugby League's debut at the brilliant looking Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
In just 2 weeks though, we have the long awaited announcement of the 2021 World Cup pools and draw, and we can expect tickets to go on sale shortly after - a rare instance of good planning for the game.
The announcement for 2025 hosting is expected this year... but nobody knows when or what to expect.
Back to major tournaments, in the Southern Hemisphere we have the Oceania Cup continuing without Australia, but featuring NZ, Tonga, and Fiji. It should be a cracking event. With both Tonga and Fiji toppling the Kiwis in the last few years, complacency would see them embarrassed in front of home crowds yet again.
On the other side of the world we have the European Cup - no idea of format, participants, or ticket sales yet. Assume France, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, but not yet known whether England or England Knights will join the tournament, or Italy or Greece at the other end of the rankings table.
Africa and the Americas will also host regional tournaments, while a number of Asian nations continue to develop the required groundwork.
Across all continents and regions, new nations will continue to join the game or slowly develop the fledgling competitions they have.
Finally, we can expect a handful of mid-year tests, with England likely to visit Sydney and play a Pacific nation, and NZ to host one of their island neighbours. The remaining Pacific nations will probably face off joining one of the above fixtures as a curtain-raiser.
The Big Questions
A lot of questions remain about the 2020 calendar, and i've estimated the best and worst outcomes for each:
Who will the Kangaroos play aside from England?
Best - Wales and France
Worst - a mid-week club fixture but no international tests.
Will we get clarity on the Oceania Cup format going forward?
Best - A final introduced this year, mid-season games kept standalone and separate to the tournament, and a move to 4 Nations in 2022
Worst - An exact re-do of the current format, and 2 teams relegated to make way for Australia in 2022.
Will England play in the European Cup, and will it be a 4 or 6 Nation tournament?
Best - A rebirth and re-energising of the format with a big marketing push: England Knights enter a 4 Nations tournament featuring France, Wales and Ireland. The 2nd tier is also 4 nations, featuring Scotland, Italy, Greece and 1 more. Regional C level tournaments are conducted with the remaining nations.
Worst - 4 Nations but without England, played with little fanfare in front of nothing crowds.
What will happen with the mid-year tests?
Best - England decide to stay home and play their neighbours. The NRL commits to a regular fixture featuring the best 2 Pacific nations for a trophy, with the others playing standalones not connected to the post-season Oceania Cup. All major nations play *someone*.
Worst - England play in front of a poor Sydney crowd and the Pacific tests detract from the Oceania Cup by breaking up the format across the season.
Lebanon, Jamaica, Italy, Greece, Spain, Serbia, Norway, USA, Canada, South Africa - all countries that have either qualified for the World Cup or went deep into qualification, but are unlikely to be given a game against World Cup opposition before the main event.
Who and when will they play?
Best - For this year, Lebanon, Jamaica, and Italy need to play fellow World Cup nations at least once. A structure is developed for the future that gives all nations a pathway to higher competition, not just Pacific and Euro nations.
Worst - They all miss out, and are no clearer to how this improves in future.
Will the infighting in Lebanon, Tonga, Fiji, France, and Greece be satisfactorily resolved?
Best - yes! And the IRL learns how to prevent the situation in future.
Worst - no! And more nations face the same problems.
Will the GB Lions have a future?
Best - tentative yes. There is a way this can be successful if lessons are learned from the 2019 failure. It needs true engagement from all 4 nations, true separation from England, better planning, and a better reason to exist than nostalgia. But it is possible. I'd like to see it return in 2024, with a view to the future rather than the past.
Worst - We not only pretend it never happened, but learn nothing in the process. Ala Denver...
What is the future of International 9s?
Best - annual Oceania (+Europe, Americas, etc) 9s comp to kick off the post-season, lock in the World 9s again for 2023, start work on an international circuit program
Worst - we don't hear about it again until 2023
Will we ever get the "Continental Cup"?
Best - I think this is pretty simple, forget overblown ideas. In the odd-year between WCs,
Cup: the current top 4 nations who pre-qualified for the next WC (Australia, England, NZ, Tonga)
Shield: the remaining 4 pre-qualifiers (PNG, Samoa, Fiji, Lebanon)
Done. Easy.
Worst - we don't hear about it again until 2023 when it's too late
WHERE WILL THE 2025 WORLD CUP BE HELD?
There's no bigger question than this right now.
Best - The handful of American club backers, headed up by the Wolfpack, succeed in a confident bid to sell international Rugby League in the USA and Canada.
Worst - Australia is announced as hosts due to lack of any realistic options, and we are no closer to popping the Australia-England bubble.
Happy New Year!
There's a lot to think about here and a lot to hope for!
It won't all go our way, or my way or your way. Try to recognise positives even when not every detail is perfect! There's generally more good than bad, and the game is gradually inching closer to the right path.
What are you looking forward to? What are you hoping to see? What have I got completely wrong?
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