New look RLIF

[The Observer]

Which nations should be member nations, and at what level? That should be the most important question. I'd classify the RL nations like this:

TIER 1 - ELITE TEST NATIONS - 4
Australia - 150,000 - 200,000 players
England - 60,000 players
France - 7,000 players
New Zealand - 10,000 - 15,000 players

TIER 2 - DEVELOPING TEST NATIONS -10
Cook Islands
Fiji - about 500 players.
Ireland
Lebanon
Papua New Guinea (probably 10,000 players, perhaps more in unaffiliated Leagues)
Russia - 2500 players
Tonga
Wales - 250 players
Samoa - uncertain if game is still played there.
Scotland - 200 players

TIER 3 - EMERGING NATIONAL TEAMS
Jamaica
Serbia
South Africa (questionable)
USA

TIER 4 - FLEDGLING NATIONAL TEAMS
Organisations trying to develop a grassroots competition in those nations.
Czech Republic
Estonia (both have staged individual matches held)
Germany (Der Kaiser & co have staged matches and played an international match)
Japan (has played a couple of internationals. Are the players from RU? No recent news on domestic comp)
23. Netherlands (seem to have fallen out with Kevin Rudd and split with RLEF)

TIER 5 - EXPAT DEVELOPMENT GROUPS in AUS/UK
These groups are trying to introduce the game in a new country, but are based in Aus or UK. They may have staged exhibition games or tournaments in those countries.

Greece (played one international and one short tournament in Athens).
Italy
Malta (played one international in Malta)
Norway (Justin Ryan is teaching Oztag to group of schoolkids)

TIER 6 - EXILES TEAMS
Australians, NZers, Britons of overseas ancestry.

American Samoa (teams representing American Samoa played in some World Sevens and Auckland based Pacific Cup. They are NZers with American Samoan ancestry. RL has never been played there.)
Niue
Tokelau - teams of NZers representing Niue and Tokelau have played in Pacific Cup in Auckland. Doubt RL has ever been played in these tiny Pacific Islands. Prominent NZers Niuean include Motu Tony, Junior Langi, Dene Halatau. Prominent Tokelauan player is either David Vaealiki or Francis Meli.
Portugal
South Asia Bulls

NON EXISTENT or EXTINCT LEAGUES
Argentina (nothing heard since 2003)
Austria (?)
Canada (the handful of clubs haven't played for years)
Georgia
Ivory Coast (Like Kenya in the past, has it showed any indication of staging RL?)
Morocco (no news for a while)
New Caledonia (I think the 6 former RU clubs don't play RL anymore)
Sweden (?)
Tuvalu (these 3 are tiny Pacific Islands, may have played in Auckland based Pacific Cup comps with NZers of ancestry)

 

[hutch]

Which nations should be member nations, and at what level? That should be the most important question. I'd classify the RL nations like this:

TIER 1 - ELITE TEST NATIONS - 4
Australia - 150,000 - 200,000 players
England - 60,000 players
France - 7,000 players
New Zealand - 10,000 - 15,000 players

i have no figures to prove it, but i remember reading aus having more than 300000, england over 100000 and nz around 30000.

 

[carlnz]

NZ is around 20,000 - 30,000 unconfirmed

 

[bowes]

England is officially 120000 but it's not actually that high, players that play in different areas of the game (BARLA, RLC, Student, Armed Forces...) are counted twice once in each

 

[bowes]

As to Observer move Austria to Tier 4 (they're like Czech Republic/Estonia/Germany) and Morocco to either 5 or 6 (they still have a team made of French players and allegedly have a club in Morocco but not sure if that's the case). Japan may be tier 3 as they do have a league of like 3-4 teams (RU players in the off season) but that may still put them in 4

To be honest I'd consider classing Norway as non-existant as 3-a-side tag is not RL

 

[The Observer]

This is from former NZRL boss Andrew Chalmers .

Figures obtained paint a clear picture of the Kiwis as permanent underdogs against not just Australia but Great Britain, their other opponents in the Tri-Nations.

The number of players of all ages and grades in New Zealand is thought to be around 20,000 but in reality it could be as low as just 15,000.

In contrast, Australia has over ten times as many to pick from: their figures are believed to be between 200,000 and 250,000. The British say they have over 40,000.

New Zealand boasts just 120 rugby league clubs, while Britain claims 450 and Australia has around 2,000.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3876171a1823,00.html

 

[yakstorm]

It would be nice if they could get the figures close to right for Australia and the United Kingdom.

Australia: 2006 Participation:
372,000

Source: NRL.com (I need to find the article again, but trust me its that high)


England: 2005 Particiaption:
126,064

Source: RFL 2005 Annual Review
http://www.rfl.uk.com/ABOUT/annual.php

 

[brendothejet]

i trust you.

 

[Misanthrope]

Where's the rankings page? I can't find it. Just a list of member nations that seems to be in no particular order.

 

[screeny]

rankings seem to have gone.....

Look what you've gone and done, all you who complained!!!!

 

[bowes]

It would be nice if they could get the figures close to right for Australia and the United Kingdom.

Australia: 2006 Participation:
372,000

Source: NRL.com (I need to find the article again, but trust me its that high)


England: 2005 Particiaption:
126,064

Source: RFL 2005 Annual Review
http://www.rfl.uk.com/ABOUT/annual.php

That UK figure's wrong blatant propaganda. Nearer 50-60,000 I'd have thought.

 

[yakstorm]

That UK figure's wrong blatant propaganda. Nearer 50-60,000 I'd have thought.

Whats your justification? Considering the amount of money the RFL has spent on development officers, the amount of work that both paid and unpaid officials have done in the schools, the growth of the summer conference and other leagues, plus the increases in clubs and teams around the UK, the figure the RFL gives is quite realistic.

The RFL had 40K before all this started booming and that was excluding school participation.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

This is a couple of years old, but it shows the growth RL is going through.

I think it was 2003.



http://www.therfl.co.uk/COMMUNITY/champion.php

The Powergen Champion Schools is a national Rugby League competition for secondary schools. The aim is to provide a prestigious schools competition that will reward excellence and also encourage broad participation.
In the last academic year over 1,000 teams and 16,000 players competed in the Powergen Champion Schools, making it the largest Rugby League competition in the world.
The aim of the knockout tournament is to promote Rugby League within the secondary schools around the UK and increase grassroots participation in the game.
The tournament involves all the five secondary school age groups for boys and for the first time in Rugby League history there is a national schools competition for girls. Powergen Champion Schools will pilot a tournament for Year 7 girls with the aim for the girl's tournament to mirror the boys as girls Rugby League develops.

Applications are already being received for next year's Powergen Champion Schools Cups. And the world's largest Rugby League tournament looks set to get even bigger!
A whopping 1,000 teams took part in last year's competition, reaching over 16,000 players and smashing a number of records along the way.
It's fair to say the competition was a smash hit with schools, pupils and parents alike. "The Powergen Champion Schools Tournament was a tremendous success last year," said the RFL's National Development Manager Andy Harland.
"We have already sent out application forms to over 600 schools inviting them to enter teams in the 2004/05 Powergen Champion Schools tournament, and the deadline for entry is about mid September.
"The competition will then be formulated locally, before leading into regional and then national stages of the knockout tournament.
"Every indication is that the competition will be even bigger and better than last year. The boys applications are coming along very well already. By the middle of July we already had about 400 teams entered in next year's tournament."
The Powergen Champion Schools Tournament ran a pilot competition for girls last year at the Year 7 age group only. Such was the success of that venture that this year the Girls Powergen Champion Schools Tournament will run at Year 7 and 8, and RFL Development officials have formulated a long term plan to spread the girls competition across Years 7 to 11, mirroring the huge reach of the boys' tournament.
"We've had over 70 girls teams applying so far," said Harland. "That's a good response and we anticipate record numbers for the girls' competition too."
With the repositioning of the Powergen Challenge Cup Final to August, Year 11 pupils will have left school three months earlier after the completion of their GCSE's.
"The finals will move dates to coincide with the Powergen Challenge Cup Final, with the exception of the Year 11 Boys' final," explained Harland.
"It is necessary that we play that final in early May, repeating when it was held this year. We hope to mirror the success we achieved with last year's competition again this year, although we will have a longer timeline in which the tournament can run because of the later date of the finals.
"We are looking for the competition to keep growing, and we are sure it will do. With the return of Wembley in 2006 we are building up nicely towards what should be a fantastic occasion.
"The Powergen Champion Schools competition is exactly where we need to be as we can target a mass audience. Every child has to go to school, so if we can introduce them to Rugby League while they are there, then that is fantastic news.
"There was some scintillating Rugby League on display last year and the standard was excellent. And I'm confident it will only improve with time."

Former Wigan and Great Britain star and now SKY Sports' regular Super League pundit Phil Clarke also paid tribute to the success and importance of the Powergen Champion Schools Tournament.
"Playing Rugby League in schools is so important for so many reasons," said Clarke.
"You build friendships, improve your communication skills and most importantly develop discipline. You are also learning to act as part of a team, which is an essential part of growing up and maturing for later life.
"The Powergen Champion Schools finals give all players a goal to aim for - the chance of representing your school in a national final is one not to be missed!"
Any schools interested in participating in the world's largest Rugby League competition contact the RFL's National Development Manager:

 

[bowes]

Do you really believe it Yakstorm, most of the growth is through different areas all counting players that play there even if they play in different areas and still you'd be short.

I don't doubt there's been growth from 40000 to maybe 50-60000 but the only significant growth is schools which has 16000 players. There is not 80000 new players in the last few years.

The summer conference has slowed down growth, most of the new clubs were in the heartlands where they were just BARLA players and that trend's stopping and indeed reversing. 90% of the teams are so relient on RU players that they can't expand the season beyond 3 months so it's not even real development. The league only prevented a contraction next season in numbers through adding NL3 and the Scottish League, with the SE being the big contraction area down 6 teams from the start of last season (the SW being a growth area but we'll see how that works, most of the teams were just setup to make up the numbers down there). Anyway 80 teams (not necessarily clubs) hardly has many players 2000-3000 which on the scale of things is not much, most only run one team only a few run juniors and then not in a big range of ages. The BARLA open age figures are decreasing with maybe a slight increase or no change at junior level. There is actually far less clubs than there were 5-10 years ago in BARLA and the RLC is a drop in the ocean in the scheme of things.

The game has grown fast in Wales but not really elsewhere

 

[yakstorm]

Bowes, I do believe there is a lot more than 60K worth of players within the UK.

I do know that when the RFL first announced the 40K figure that they didn't count school players within their total participation figures, similar to what Australia did up to 2002, however with the changes in how Sports England counted 'participation' the RFL changed it as well.

Considering like Australia, England has a lot of schools who have teams in local comps, special gala days/cluster days, tournaments like the Champions Schools and so on, its not hard for those numbers to soon start adding up. Look at the Champions School alone, in 2005, 25,000 children took part in that single tournament (http://www.therfl.co.uk/COMMUNITY/champreport2005.php) in 2006, it was meant to be around 32,000.

Now whilst the quality of the growth may be questionable, that is another debate for another day, League, just like every other sport counts a player as soon as they meet the minimum requirements set by the governing body (in Australia, so long as they play a minimum of 3 games in any competition where the participant has agreed to play in the sport and there has been some sort of transaction, usually monetary, to participate in it).

So in answer to your question Bowes, I do believe there were 120,000 participants in RL in the UK in 2005 under what Sports England defines as a participant.

 

[deluded pom?]

To be honest Yak there's very little RL played in schools in the Hull area, a so called hotbed of the game. I'm not sure what it's like in the rest of the north. The powergen tournament, to me, seems to include a lot of schools that usually play union but turn to league when this tournaent comes along. Whether you can include these players in your census when some of them may only play one game of RL a season is open to debate.

 

[bowes]

Ther are nowhere near 120000 players. The vast majority of players are in BARLA who have about 45000 registered. 16000 schools players and about 10000 forces/students/RLC at absolute best take out all the players that play two forms (a lot) and you'd be nowhere near 120000. Not sure how they've got it even counting players twice.

Excluding the schoolboys the actual number of players in the game has decreased, with every new RLC team replacing about 3 gone from BARLA.

BARLA have a very careful registration set-up whereas the other areas have dubious figures. If you'd like to provide evidence that there are 80,000 players outside of BARLA I'll be inclined to agree with you, but make believing that some highly dubious figures are true is not evidence

 

[flamin]

Is it just me or is there no link to the rlif.org on the nrl or arl webstie. or rfl. or superleague. or at leaguenet. or nzrl.

http://www.australianrugbyleague.com.au/index.cgi?sID=13

http://www.therfl.co.uk/HOME/links.php

http://nzrl.sitesuite.ws/plugins/linksfeed.cgi

Thank goodness for the rlef. theyre the only major website Ive seen with links to the rlif. Really there should be links to the rlif at the top of EVERY main rugby league webstie, but theres not even links down the bottom or on the links page. How is the average fan expected to find out about the rlif if there arent even links on the major websites.

Could someone please point out the links to me? I really do hope im wrong about this.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

Never any French on them sites either.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

http://www.rlif.org/article.php?id=1160

RLIF Website goes Multi-Lingual
Sunday, 21st January 2007

As the game of Rugby League continues to grow around the globe, the Rugby League International Federation has acknowledged the need to cater for the various languages of its new and establishing members.

To help make it easier for players, officials and fans from each of these member nations to keep up to date with the information that those from English speaking nations take for granted, the RLIF has introduced 10 new language formats for its website.

The new language options are:
- Arabic
- Chinese (Simplified)
- French
- German
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Portuguese
- Russian
- Spanish

To translate the page into one of the above language formats, please select from the appropriate flag on the right hand side of the RLIF home page.

The RLIF will look over the next 12 months to continuing to translate all components of the website include rules, laws and other documentation into multi-lingual formats.