2008 World Cup Details - Terrible News

[YANTO]

So in that "B" Euro cup what are the teams that will be competing:
Holland
Serbia
Gorgia
Lebanon
Morocco
Estonia?
Germany
South Africa

Teams are being invited to enter and have to meet a strict criteria.
At the moment Serbia and Lebanon (IMO) are the only two that have an established domestic competition which is just one of the criteria to be met

Holland:
Played eight "International "games and had five different clubs playing touring teams.Have staged one "All Dutch" game when Rotterdam beat Hoek van Holland in march 2005.
Hoping for a small three or four team tournament in 2006 but its proving difficult to get commitment.
Doubtful they will meet the citeria by the deadline.

Georgia:
Played Holland and Serbia in Euro Nations "B" in 2005 then progressed to get beat heavily by Russia and France in the Euro Nations Championships.
Not really sure if they are running a domestic competition as there was a mention on their website that they train for RL five times a week and play union at the weekends.

Morocco;
To date have no domestic competition and use French based players for their National squad.Have been around a long time without really getting off the ground in their homeland.

Estonia:
A new country who struggle to get 15 players on the field for an international union game.???
Have one club "Talin Tigers" which are basically a union club playing touring sides.
Just cant see it happening in the next few years after the experience that RC Rotterdam faced in Talin when only ten home players turned up for a tour game.

Germany:
Working hard to get clubs together and have formed their first stand alone League club.Have high hopes of meeting the four team criteria in 2006 and are also looking to expand into Austria to make a domestic season.
Done miracles in such a short space of time.
Ready for WC qualifiers??? Doubtful.

South Africa:
Dont know a lot about them as not much information is forthcoming.
Would be very suprised if they enter the WC.

Serbia:
Proberbly the country that are doing it the hard way.
100% Serbian based squad and are looking for their fifth club in 2006.
Lost to Holland and Georgia in Euro "B" 2005 and their best result at International level is a draw with Morocco.
Genuine team and full of enthusiasum.
Long Long way of making the finals but deserve a shot as reward for all their hard work.

Lebanon:
As we all know Lebanon grew out of the Aussie based 2000 WC team.
Have a summer and winter competition and are already using some of their domestic players in the national set up.

So in nutshell.
Lebanon and Serbia are I believe the only two countries from the above list that can satisfy the RLEF rulings (as they stand) regarding WC Entry.

If ,as I believe, France and England do not enter the European nations for 2006 and 2007 (which will be used for WC qualifying games) this gives us:

Wales: Small Domestic comp 2 years old.
Scotland.Small domestic comp @ four years old.
Ireland: Ever growing domestic comp two years old.
Russia: ten years or more playing domestic football.
Lebanon and Serbia.

Other "so called" European teams Malta,Italy,Greece and Portugal have a lot to do in a short space of time.
Out of the four only Malta have been active (in playing a game) in their homeland.

With the RLIF wanting it seems to make the RLWC a "proffesional" event (including the qualifying games) this drastically reduces the amount of teams eligable to enter.

Back to the point I made in an earlier thread.
The IRB know Andora or Azerbejahn or Hondruras or Latvia will NEVER qualify for the finals but they have given them a pathway and are saying to the world "look we have a massive international game that is truly global"

FIFA do the same with allowing even the smallest of nations to enter the soccer world cup.

We on the other hand are saying "league is a small professional sport played in a handful of countries"

Screeny...sorry mate I did miss the point you were trying to make....:?

 

[screeny]

Agree with Yanto's assessment. As for Lebanon, would there be any point in them playing the developing European Nations in this May-June window that was previously mentioned? They'd massacre everyone and it would be dangerous....

 

[Dread]

We on the other hand are saying "league is a small professional sport played in a handful of countries"

Because, compared to the other two, that is exactly what it is.

 

[Mr_Ugly]

Georgia:
Played Holland and Serbia in Euro Nations "B" in 2005 then progressed to get beat heavily by Russia and France in the Euro Nations Championships.
Not really sure if they are running a domestic competition as there was a mention on their website that they train for RL five times a week and play union at the weekends.

Morocco;
To date have no domestic competition and use French based players for their National squad.Have been around a long time without really getting off the ground in their homeland.

Estonia:
A new country who struggle to get 15 players on the field for an international union game.???
Have one club "Talin Tigers" which are basically a union club playing touring sides.
Just cant see it happening in the next few years after the experience that RC Rotterdam faced in Talin when only ten home players turned up for a tour game.

South Africa:
Dont know a lot about them as not much information is forthcoming.
Would be very suprised if they enter the WC.

Yanto,

You are correct - the Georgians do not have a domestic league competition, and have only been playing union domestically (after their ENC losses, the RLEF website had a comment about them needing to get serious about playing league if they want to be competitive). Wouldn't be surprised if something gets off the ground soon, but then again would be even less surprised if it doesn't.

Although Morocco play exclusively French-based players, there have been some hints that there is a limited competition there, at least at junior level. There was a post recently - from Roopy???? - in which someone from the Moroccan league claimed that there was a small comp, but was copping trouble from RU. There was also a Moroccan based web page link pasted recently. In conjunction with the occassional tour match that takes place there, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some league in Morocco, and with the upcoming WC, it may be that they are able to scrape together a valid team. Having said that, all of my knowledge on the matter comes from the web - I have no personal dealings with anyone involved, so I may well be wrong.

Estonia doesn't really have a league as such [edit - they just play a few games of league now and again]. I think union is played by both the Tallin Tigers and the Tartu Military College, who seem to put a team together from time to time (they also put a league team together earlier this year). They have played a few games of league, but as I see it they are basically a very small union nation that happily also plays a bit of league now and again [edit - I don't think they really care too much which code they play, but they obviously get more opposition teams for games of Union rather than League].
They are a poor country, apparently with some big social problems (eg HIV and drugs), and their rugby programme seems to be driven more by a desire to give young people a positive drug-free path than any union or league agenda. I am in occassional contact with them, so have a bit more of a first-hand feel for what is going on there. Incidentally, their latest drug sniffing dog is called "13", reportedly because this is the number of players on a league team (http://www.rugby.ee/?op=body&id=10&art=592&PHPSESSID=7067c6991b51fe02c1bc7194a4852cbf).

I would be very surprised if South Africa don't attempt to make the world cup, given that they always have in the past. There appears to be at least a semi-national youth competition, and given their national union pedigree they may well give qualifying a shake.


While the qualifying criteria will exclude countries such as the Netherlands, which have made terrific progress to expand the game, it is clearly designed to prevent "artificial" national teams from making the cut, and also to consolidate the game in those areas where it has been established but is still on somewhat shaky ground. I see this as a very positive thing.

While I greatly respect your opinion given what you have done for the game over there, I think you should look towards the positives as well. The 7s and World Cups have probably been greater triggers for international growth in the game than any other factors, and the fact that we are having world cup in a bit over 2 years time is tremendously positive.

Had the Super League disaster not sucked the best part of a decade of funding out of the game, I have no doubt that international league would be well ahead of its current position. As it is, international league (at least beyond the "big 3") has really just started picking up the pieces over the last few years. As such, league is looking to establish some credibility with an often hostile press and public, at least in the Australian market. Barring another superleage style disaster, and particularly if the next couple of Trinations and the 2008 World Cup are financially successful, then I think you will see increasing amounts of money flowing into international (and domestic) development. I am not sure when the ARL will pay off its "debt" to News Ltd, but when this happens it will also free up millions ($10M??) annually.

So for what it is worth, my suggestion would be to try not to get too down on the whole world cup thing - league has just recently recovered from a very tough time in terms of funding for development (among other things), and should grow (including maturing in terms of management and organisation) over years to come.