Ireland to replace France in Quad Nations?

[marv]

Any team would find it hard to overcome losing both of their dummy halves.. Liken it to losing Cameron Smith & Gidley;

we could do, if it were anything like that, If Australia lost Lockyer and Smith I still think they would win this World cup.

If England were missing Burrow, Roby and Price they would still be able to put 40+ on France, so yeah we could liken it to that, but that would be pointless

1,6,7,9 - if you have these covered you'll win the majority of your games.

If we were having a state the obvious competition you would have won today

 

[nadera78]

France - 8-10,000 crowds for internationals, 1 pro team, 1 semi-pro team in England, 10 semi-pro teams in France, a whole set of amateur clubs playing right through the age groups.

Ireland - 800 people for internationals, 18 domestic amateur teams, no juniors, no pro teams, no semi-pro teams.

Yep, lets dump France for Ireland because of two poor results.

 

[marv]

If you look at the results in the qualifying you will find that Lebanon actually drew twice (16-16, 18-18) with Ireland.

........ & would have beat Ireland - if Robbie Farah made himself available for their clash.

Screeny beat me to it here......

Yeah, but Ireland were without Blanche, Richards, Tandy, McIllorum and Platt for those matches too, so Lebanon wouldn't have even gotten a draw IMO.

But he also forgot that In one or both of these games they were also missing Gareth Haggarty, Karl Fitzpatrick, Ben Harrison, Sean Gleeson and Simon Finnigan, so if you had looked at more than just the results in qualifying you would have found that Ireland had a much weakend side just as Lebanon were denied two of their top players.

Lebanon has a decent domestic competition

Lebanon, same as Ireland has an average domestic competition, that is makiong great progress all the time. Of what relevance that is to their full national sides I dont know, as few domestic players make the first grade side, but you felt the need to bring it up. I think you will also find Ireland used more domestic players throughout that qualifying period than Lebanon.

Scotland also won 1 & lost 1 to Wales. On aggregate, Scotland went through to WC08.

So in what way was a home and away, 2 legged fixture weighted in Scotlands favour? they beat wales, they scored more points than them over two games, one in Wales, one in Scotland, fair and square.

Also, the Crusaders will be playing in the ESL next year - hence; you'd envisgae overall that they'd be more ready than Ireland.

So because Wales has a SL club in 2009, you think that makes them "more ready" than Scotland were in 2007 and 2008??

 

[Johnny_L_O]

Now I dont know what happened to France in this World Cup but they would destroy Ireland on any given day in the Northern Hemisphere. I would say France by 20-30.

I also dont think introducing a team full of English players who cant make the England team and Aussies who cant even play NRL will add any plus whatsoever to the tournament. At the moment though stick with the Tri Nations and let France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Russia have thier own for now with a couple of 1 off tests a year to help improve the standard.

Maybe the winners of that and the Pacific cup that they are talking about should play to get the 4th berth in the Tri/Quad Nations.

 

[marv]

Surely not?

How are Ireland going to bring together all the ex-pats again next year to take part in their quad nations team?

Ryan Tandy and Shayne McMenemy were the only Aus based players in Irelands squad, Blanch and Richards are both Australians living in the UK

At least all of France's players seem to live in the Northern hemisphere...

A shame their coach didnt for some of the run up to the WC

 

[marv]

Now I dont know what happened to France in this World Cup but they would destroy Ireland on any given day in the Northern Hemisphere. I would say France by 20-30.

Disagree with you there, France V Ireland would be a good game.

I also dont think introducing a team full of English players who cant make the England team and Aussies who cant even play NRL will add any plus whatsoever to the tournament. At the moment though stick with the Tri Nations and let France, Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Russia have thier own for now with a couple of 1 off tests a year to help improve the standard.

Agree with you there, the 3n should stay as it is without weakening the intensity of the comp, France can still play Aus/NZ and Eng in tests and they will still improve without the intensity of the 3n.
As you say, Ireland wouldnt bring anthing to the comp as the game is barely known in Ireland.

 

[miguel de cervantes]

I'd still favour France for a 4 nations given what Nadera has said, though they really need to play Wales and possibly Ireland more often.

I really don't think Ireland should be included - France is a much, much more genuine option. The Dragons have had a pulling up effect on the standard of play and the game's profile in France, the national team playing some decent opposition would have the same effect in my opinion.

 

[Loudstrat]

Great idea to dump France. Dump England while we are at it. :roll:

And you can't limit the scope of the second tier internationals. Forget the other 7 in this years cup - you can't ignore Russia, Georgia, Croatia, USA. For various reasons, these 4 join Ireland as being second only to France in importance to focus development on.

 

[deluded pom?]

Great idea to dump France. Dump England while we are at it. :roll:

You beat me to it there strat.

you can't ignore Russia, Georgia, Croatia, USA. For various reasons, these 4 join Ireland as being second only to France in importance to focus development on.

Yes we can strat, Georgia don't play RL anymore and never did domestically.

 

[bulos01]

If you look at the results in the qualifying you will find that Lebanon actually drew twice (16-16, 18-18) with Ireland. Scotland also won 1 & lost 1 to Wales. On aggregate, Scotland went through to WC08. Wales then had to compete during the repechage & lost out to Samoa.

Lebanon has a decent domestic competition & would have beat Ireland - if Robbie Farah made himself available for their clash.

Also, the Crusaders will be playing in the ESL next year - hence; you'd envisgae overall that they'd be more ready than Ireland.

umm wrong. lebanon smashed wales. killed them then lost out to samoa.
lebanon also had zero home games in the lead up to the wc. all their home games were played in england.

 

[marv]

Yes we can strat, Georgia don't play RL anymore and never did domestically.

The jury is out wether or not they play Rugby League in Croatia too, I know a guy who goes to a lot of Eastern European games and he's never once mentioed Croatia AFAIK

 

[>zuzu<]

On the right track imo... but let's not get ahead of ourselves. We have to go from 3 to 4 first before we hit 5 - and in the Pacific we have nothing at the moment.

Play Australian Indigenous v NZ Maori as part of NSW City-Country early in the year.

Pacific mid-year Origin - held in NZ at same time as State of Origin:
Combined Pacific Islands (NRL players) v New Zealand

Mid year England v France test - held in England/France.

Northern Hemisphere end of year Quad Nations - held in England/France:
England
France
New Zealand
Australia

Pacific end of year tournament - held mostly in NZ, until Islands are ready to host an occasional game:
Fiji
Samoa
Tonga
PNG
NZ Maori
(minus one team each year, who will take turns touring Europe)

Europe end of year tournament - held in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, England:
Ireland
Wales
Scotland
+ one touring Pacific team each year


When you want to have a Quad nations hosted in teh southern hemisphere, make it:
Australia
New Zealand
England
best of the five Pacific teams (instead of touring Europe)

And simply tick France back into the Europe end of year tournament to give them a break.

Its alot harder for some teams to travel compared to others, financially that is.

Personally - I really would like to see the Indigenous side taking part in some of these tournaments along with NZ Maori. If you really wanted to stretch it out maybe you can make it..

Nations:

AUS
ENG
NZ
FRA
IRE

Pacific nations:

NZ MAO
AUS INDG
SAM
TONG
PNG

European cup:

SCOT
lebanese
RUS
WAL
GEORG?

 

[pcpp]

RFL Executive Richard Lewis says that France are still going to play in the 4N.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_league/7722770.stm

I would still prefer a qualification process but I would prefer France over Ireland in the 4N anyday.

 

[fightingirish69]

how about a second tri - nations comp with fiji,ireland and france?

 

[East Coast Tiger]

France should still be there. Ireland haven't proven themselves more worthy just yet. They won one game, as did France, and had the better draw of the three in their pool. The game is still tiny there and they only used one born and bred Irishman in their three games and that was for one game and about 15mins game time. They'd probably get crowds of about 2,000 like they did in 2000 and the media would mock us big time. At least France has history, a pro club, semi pro clubs and thousands of players and regular fans. It will get crowds of around 8-10k. Plus I expect France to play a lot better at home. There really is very little between teams 4-10 in this WC. Any one could beat any of the others. France beat Scotland, Scotland beat Fiji, Fiji beat Ireland, Ireland beat Samoa, Samoa beat Tonga, Tonga beat Ireland etc.

 

[nadera78]

The jury is out wether or not they play Rugby League in Croatia too, I know a guy who goes to a lot of Eastern European games and he's never once mentioed Croatia AFAIK

I've never even heard Croatia be mentioned except a comment from Jovan over in the main international forum about Croatian Rugby Union being the most anti-RL people imaginable.

 

[The Tank]

France still in according to Lewis

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_league/7722770.stm