2025 Ashes Tour

[Mother Nature's Son]

What would the Kangaroos look like of every eligible Australian picked them over Tonga and Samoa?

I`d suggest that there has been a fair bit of `crowding out` of young Australians of European descent in junior Rugby League due to its` popularity amongst children of Pasifika etc descent.
Therefore we can only speculate what an Australian Rugby League team could look like had not such immigration occured.

 

[The Axe of Druss]

I didnt say it would make or break it, I said if UK had 200,000 Pacific Island immigrants then England RL would be stronger. Half the Australia Islander heritage players dont want to play for them! What would the Kangaroos look like of every eligible Australian picked them over Tonga and Samoa?

But they haven't have they and Australia still dominate. England have no excuses for how shit they are

 

[The Axe of Druss]

I`d suggest that there has been a fair bit of `crowding out` of young Australians of European descent in junior Rugby League due to its` popularity amongst children of Pasifika etc descent.
Therefore we can only speculate what an Australian Rugby League team could look like had not such immigration occured.

My son plays junior RL in Brisbane and while there is indeed a lot of PI kids there are just as many white and indigenous players. The PI "dominance" of junior footy in Australia is overstated

 

[Growthegame]

Difference is there was a lot (a damn lot!) of money in those expansions for NRL. There's no real money, only cost, for RFL to develop the French game. I'm sure if UK govt decided to give RFL $700mill+ to develop the game in France they'd be all over it lol

A comparison between France & PNG is ridiculous to say the least.

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

A comparison between France & PNG is ridiculous to say the least.

You are @AlwaysGreen but without the jokes.

 

[Taking The Two]

But they haven't have they and Australia still dominate. England have no excuses for how shit they are

England have many reasons for being shit. They’ve been acknowledged many times since the series began.

 

[taste2taste]

Let's hope England can score a try tonight.

That will at least give the crowd something to cheer about.

 

[undertaker]

Let's hope England can score a try tonight.

That will at least give the crowd something to cheer about.

I don't know if I can stay up to 3:30am this time around in the hope they can cross the try line!

Last week, England played 20 of the 80 minutes against 12 men, and yet could only manage two penalty goals in the entire match. I'll give credit where credit's due: their defence was a hell of a lot better than the previous week at Wembley. It could've easily been a blowout scoreline of epic proportions once Australia got 14-4 in front. However, England's attack looked completely disjointed and clueless when they were 10-20m out from the tryline.

Interesting stat: since Jermaine McGillvary scored a try in the 5th minute of the 2017 RLWC opener against Australia in Melbourne, England have scored only one try....yes, that's correct.....ONE try in their last 315 minutes of test match football against Australia.

To put that in perspective, the last time Australia played a test match against:

- Tonga (2024 Pacific Championships final), Tonga scored 3 tries
- New Zealand (2024 Pacific Championships), New Zealand scored 2 tries
- Samoa (2023 Pacific Championships), Samoa scored 2 tries
- Fiji (2022 World Cup), Fiji scored 2 tries

 

[Perth Red]

But they haven't have they and Australia still dominate. England have no excuses for how shit they are

whoosh, point missed. Australia got kissed on the dck by PI deciding to move here.

 

[Perth Red]

Let's hope England can score a try tonight.

That will at least give the crowd something to cheer about.

If he's sticking with Williams and leaves Lewis on the bench dont hold your breath!

 

[Taking The Two]

I don't know if I can stay up to 3:30am this time around in the hope they can cross the try line!

Last week, England played 20 of the 80 minutes against 12 men, and yet could only manage two penalty goals in the entire match. I'll give credit where credit's due: their defence was a hell of a lot better than the previous week at Wembley. It could've easily been a blowout scoreline of epic proportions once Australia got 14-4 in front. However, England's attack looked completely disjointed and clueless when they were 10-20m out from the tryline.

Interesting stat: since Jermaine McGillvary scored a try in the 5th minute of the 2017 RLWC opener against Australia in Melbourne, England have scored only one try....yes, that's correct.....ONE try in their last 315 minutes of test match football against Australia.

To put that in perspective, the last time Australia played a test match against:

- Tonga (2024 Pacific Championships final), Tonga scored 3 tries
- New Zealand (2024 Pacific Championships), New Zealand scored 2 tries
- Samoa (2023 Pacific Championships), Samoa scored 2 tries
- Fiji (2022 World Cup), Fiji scored 2 tries

If you throw in Great Britain’s results against New Zealand, as they’re just England in a different shirt, they scored a whopping two tries in two tests against the Kiwis.

It’s 5 games on the trot against Australia and NZ where England have failed to register double figures on the scoreboard.

 

[Perth Red]

On one hand Id love an England win just to put the smug Aussie commentators and social media types in their box, on the other I dont mind a bad loss so we can get rid of Wane. Its a dilemma for sure lol

 

[Perth Red]

If you throw in Great Britain’s results against New Zealand, as they’re just England in a different shirt, they scored a whopping two tries in two tests against the Kiwis.

It’s 5 games on the trot against Australia and NZ where England have failed to register double figures on the scoreboard.

Feels like this England approached crept in with Bennett coaching them and has stuck.
Also not helped by Wigan and Hull KR putting emphasis on defence and that bringing success which seems to have become the blueprint in SL to win trophies.
Speeding up the ruck next season will help, needs a bit of a retrain of refs and some club buy in to speed the game up again. Spending 5mins every try reviewing it so the teams can get a good breather and be fresh for defence isnt helping open the game up either.

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

I said if UK had 200,000 Pacific Island immigrants then England RL would be stronger.

Yes it would be stronger, but short-sightedness and mismanagement for over a hundred years have to take much more of the responsibility. Both England and France should be League behemoths by now. Let`s not kid ourselves.

 

[Perth Red]

Yes it would be stronger, but short-sightedness and mismanagement for over a hundred years have to take much more of the responsibility. Both England and France should be League behemoths by now. Let`s not kid ourselves.

Both countries have football as behemoths. Way beyond anything the NRL faces in Australia and NZ. France had Vichy screw them.
England has a very economic-political-class hostile sports environment its trying to grow in. Sure theres been plenty of mismanagement but itd be very naive to think thats the only issue thats stopped the game growing in UK.
Good example today. The Telegraph sports pull out has 4 pages of Union and not a single mention of the Ashes match. thats the sort of barriers RL faces in England.

 

[Mother Nature's Son]

Good example today. The Telegraph sports pull out has 4 pages of Union and not a single mention of the Ashes match. thats the sort of barriers RL faces in England.

That`s just an example of where they got themselves.
I`ve seen copies of the newspaper articles nearly 100 years old where clubs from Scotland and Wales were rejected from joining the English Rugby League. That`s why they`ve ended up where they are today, we`re not talking taking over those countries, just where there should have been teams turning out players and growing for a long-time. That`s all.

 

[Taking The Two]

It’s always someone else’s fault here. “Some journalists didn’t write about us”, “there’s a class divide” blah blah blah. The self deprecation in this sport is what holds the sport back more than some journalists.

 

[Perth Red]

That`s just an example of where they got themselves.
I`ve seen copies of the newspaper articles nearly 100 years old where clubs from Scotland and Wales were rejected from joining the English Rugby League. That`s why they`ve ended up where they are today, we`re not talking taking over those countries, just where there should have been teams turning out players and growing for a long-time. That`s all.

Sure, if you totally ignore the north - south money and media divide in England, totally ignore the class system in England, totally ignore the behemoth of football in England and pretend none of that exists and its all been bad decisions by the RFL!

 

[Perth Red]

It’s always someone else’s fault here. “Some journalists didn’t write about us”, “there’s a class divide” blah blah blah. The self deprecation in this sport is what holds the sport back more than some journalists.

yeh lets pretend the real world doesnt exist lol

 

[Taking The Two]

yeh lets pretend the real world doesnt exist lol

What on earth are you on about?

We’re self depreciating, have a long history of it and are a long line of little bitches that push the woe is me lines over and over and over again. It’s always someone else’s fault, it’s always someone not doing something for us and always “yeah but…[insert excuse]”. It’s boring, it’s false and it’s the most one-eyed, small time, backwards thinking.

It’s never “what value do we give?”, it’s not the sport living in the modern age and working with technology and social media, it’s not clubs, players and governing bodies working with marketing and PR companies, it’s never players using their platforms to build personal brands and instead it’s them saying “should just play tag rugby”, it’s never doing something different and instead just doing what we’ve always done and magically expecting different results now, just because.

Nobody owes us anything. Cry-arseing and stamping our feet isn’t going to get it. We aren’t deserving of anything without our own hard work and investment to get us where we should be. It’s not up to others to do the work for English Rugby League, it’s up to The RFL, Super League and the players to get the sport where many feel it should be. Until there’s an attitude shift, nothing changes.