New Zealand 2 will deal a massive blow to NZ rugby

[Te Kaha]

You're a classic.

And right, as usual.... sadly can't say the same for you.

 

[Wb1234]

Nz to host a World Cup would be massive

 

[Gobsmacked]

Nz to host a World Cup would be massive

I think staging several games there would be awesome but I'd like to see a " Pacific " world cup. With Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and PNG all playing at least 1 games at home. All of NZ's pool games in NZ and 1 final. We could have a tournament where a majority of games have a host nation playing in the game . Double header Quarters at Eden Park. Final at the SFS.
Double headers at Accor through pool stages.

 

[Perth Red]

Probabky not financially viable but I’d have all the pool games in the Islands except the australia games,
semi at aami, semi at Suncorp,
final at allianz.

 

[Gobsmacked]

Probabky not financially viable but I’d have all the pool games in the Islands except the australia games,
semi at aami, semi at Suncorp,
final at allianz.

We should put the final up for bid.

 

[Matua]

Nz to host a World Cup would be massive

I'd rather NZ go it alone than do it with Australia.

 

[The Great Dane]

Wrong. There`s plenty being done to maintain it, the growth in Tag and Touch League is exponential and is perfect social sport for getting into schools for both boys and girls. An example of the advantages of this :

Titans teenager Kini told he was 'too small' for NRL

Gold Coast have re-signed 19-year-old fullback/half Keano Kini until 2026 after recruitment manager Ezra Howe discovered him playing league tag in Auckland.

thewest.com.au

"I signed Keano when he was 15 after watching him play in a league tag tournament in Auckland," Howe told AAP.

"Kini could step off both feet and was just electric. Put it this way, in the whole tournament I watched him play league tag he never lost a tag. No-one could catch him.

Recruitment manager Ezra Howe said he was looking for a half/fullback on a recruitment trip and hit the jackpot.

Funny enough his mum said, 'Don't you want to see him make a tackle?' I said, 'No, we'll teach him how to tackle'," Howe said.

Made his NRL debut last Sunday after tearing up the Queensland Cup. Say no more.

You're a special kind of delusional if you think that touch and tag will produce pro NRL players at the same rate as full tackle RL.

And guess which numbers were tanking until the NRL stopped reporting them separately because of how embarrassing they were getting; male participation numbers in the full contact versions of the sport... I'm sure that the growth in women's RL and non-contact will fill the gap though LOL!

Those figures are about as useful as the figures fumbleball HQ release. PR nonsense, very likely include any kid who has been forced to participate in basketball in P.E. at school.

Yeah sure, any numbers you don't like must be made up. It's all just a big conspiracy theory isn't it Alex Jones.

Seriously f**k off with that BS.

 

[The Great Dane]

one issue with Basketball which i pointed out many pages back is that unless you are 6'3'' or taller then its going to be incredibly hard to make a professional career out of it, especially NBA where at 6'3'' or shorter you're not going to be anything except a Point Guard.

That doesn't mean that kids won't grow up playing, watching, and supporting basketball, or other sports, instead of RL, and that that won't have an impact on RL.

There're also more fish in the sea than just basketball, and many of them are growing internationally and all of them are looking further and further afield for talent. What sport did Alexander Volkanovski and Jordan Mailata play before they took an interest in MMA and gridiron again?

 

[The Penguin #6.]

That doesn't mean that kids won't grow up playing, watching, and supporting basketball, or other sports, instead of RL, and that that won't have an impact on RL.

There're also more fish in the sea than just basketball, and many of them are growing internationally and all of them are looking further and further afield for talent. What sport did Alexander Volkanovski and Jordan Mailata play before they took an interest in MMA and gridiron again?

You`re crazy, one minute you`re accusing me of hyperbole because I said that Touch and Tag League can be a fertile source of future contact players (I certainly never said all by any means) and now you`re crazy scaremongering (as usual) that " more fish in the sea" are going to steal our "talent", hyperbole , scaremongering, melodramatic, take your pick.
There are enough kids in the world for every sport, the trick is to have them playing, and yes basketball has excellent entry points, but so does League.
If your a talented Touch/Tag player participating in a tournament and a scout approaches you and your family and offer you a scholarship and $20 - $30k a year, you going to say no. There`s enough kids for everyone if you get them playing.

 

[The Great Dane]

You`re crazy

No you're just clueless. You didn't even understand the criticism I made of your post.

one minute you`re accusing me of hyperbole because I said that Touch and Tag League can be a fertile source of future contact players (I certainly never said all by any means)

I didn't accuse you of hyperbole, I said you're delusional if you think that touch and tag can even come close to filling the gap that is being left by dropping male participation rates in full contact RL.

And you are completely off your head if you truly believe that anything more than the most miniscule minority of purely touch/tag players will be able to be converted into NRL standard RL players in their late teens. That's if their parents will even allow them to play the full contact version of the sport in the first place, which is another issue in of it's self.

You`re crazy, one minute you`re accusing me of hyperbole because I said that Touch and Tag League can be a fertile source of future contact players (I certainly never said all by any means) and now you`re crazy scaremongering (as usual) that " more fish in the sea" are going to steal our "talent", hyperbole , scaremongering, melodramatic, take your pick.
There are enough kids in the world for every sport, the trick is to have them playing, and yes basketball has excellent entry points, but so does League.

That's not what's happening though, and you'd know that if you spent half a second actually researching the subject.

Increasingly what is happening is all the big professional sports in the world are competing for the same top talent on an increasingly global scale. In other words a freak athlete is discovered somewhere, and then a bunch of the major sports leagues/teams get into a sort of bidding war to try and convince that freak athlete to pursue a career in their sport or for their team.

Currently that phenomena is pretty regional, but it's becoming ever increasingly globalised, and already happens in the Australian sports market. The difference between now and e.g. 30 years ago is that 30 years ago it was only RL and RU competing for the services of a kid from Sydney on average, these days it's RL, RU, AFL, soccer, basketball, etc, and more with every passing generation.

If your a talented Touch/Tag player participating in a tournament and a scout approaches you and your family and offer you a scholarship and $20 - $30k a year, you going to say no. There`s enough kids for everyone if you get them playing.

Many families will say no considering that there's good odds that their child is only playing touch/tag because their parents wouldn't let them play tackle in the first place...

Furthermore, most kids whom play touch/tag play other sports as well. If they play another team sport it's most likely that that other sport will be either soccer, basketball, or both... Oh shit LOL, are you seeing the problem yet.

RL and RU's male participation numbers in the full contact versions of the game have been in freefall. The AFL's aren't quite in freefall but they've trending down as well. Meanwhile basketball's are increasing at unprecedented rates and Soccer's are very slowly trending upwards as well (they'd probably have crazy growth as well if they weren't run by morons, but that's a tangent).

In other words, almost whole generations of young boys whom would have grown up almost exclusively playing RL/RU or Aussie Rules if they were born a generation or more a go, are growing up playing soccer or basketball instead.

You have rocks in your head if you truly don't think that that is an issue that will have an impact on the sport going forward.

 

[The Great Dane]

Let me give an example-

Out of 50 athletes that grew up in the RL heartlands in the 80s/90s something like 25 would have gone on to be RL players, 10 cricket players, 10 RU players, and 5 soccer players.

These days out of 50 athletes something like 15 will become RL players, 10 will be come AFL players, 8 cricket players, 7 soccer players, 5 RU players, and 5 basketball players.

Obviously these numbers are made up to demonstrate the point, but the point is that if current trends continue RL will take an even smaller portion of the available local athletic talent each generation, and you'd have to be utterly delusional to think that that will have no significant effects on the sport going forward.

 

[Vibing]

Great Dork
up there with T- loon, Donkey Boy & Perth Dread as the most clueless posters on LU

oh
I forgot Tea Cup or what ever its name is

 

[Wb1234]

No you're just clueless. You didn't even understand the criticism I made of your post.

I didn't accuse you of hyperbole, I said you're delusional if you think that touch and tag can even come close to filling the gap that is being left by dropping male participation rates in full contact RL.

And you are completely off your head if you truly believe that anything more than the most miniscule minority of purely touch/tag players will be able to be converted into NRL standard RL players in their late teens. That's if their parents will even allow them to play the full contact version of the sport in the first place, which is another issue in of it's self.

That's not what's happening though, and you'd know that if you spent half a second actually researching the subject.

Increasingly what is happening is all the big professional sports in the world are competing for the same top talent on an increasingly global scale. In other words a freak athlete is discovered somewhere, and then a bunch of the major sports leagues/teams get into a sort of bidding war to try and convince that freak athlete to pursue a career in their sport or for their team.

Currently that phenomena is pretty regional, but it's becoming ever increasingly globalised, and already happens in the Australian sports market. The difference between now and e.g. 30 years ago is that 30 years ago it was only RL and RU competing for the services of a kid from Sydney on average, these days it's RL, RU, AFL, soccer, basketball, etc, and more with every passing generation.

Many families will say no considering that there's good odds that their child is only playing touch/tag because their parents wouldn't let them play tackle in the first place...

Furthermore, most kids whom play touch/tag play other sports as well. If they play another team sport it's most likely that that other sport will be either soccer, basketball, or both... Oh shit LOL, are you seeing the problem yet.

RL and RU's male participation numbers in the full contact versions of the game have been in freefall. The AFL's aren't quite in freefall but they've trending down as well. Meanwhile basketball's are increasing at unprecedented rates and Soccer's are very slowly trending upwards as well (they'd probably have crazy growth as well if they weren't run by morons, but that's a tangent).

In other words, almost whole generations of young boys whom would have grown up almost exclusively playing RL/RU or Aussie Rules if they were born a generation or more a go, are growing up playing soccer or basketball instead.

You have rocks in your head if you truly don't think that that is an issue that will have an impact on the sport going forward.

Lachie miller

Benji Marshall

 

[Vibing]

heard this crap about basketball 35 years ago from the " its gunna take over " police

the same police who predicted

soccer taking over everything 70 years ago
yawnion taking over league in 1995
the drops & oopsies taking over league in 1982

NFI deluded clowns the lot of em

 

[Canard]

one issue with Basketball which i pointed out many pages back is that unless you are 6'3'' or taller then its going to be incredibly hard to make a professional career out of it, especially NBA where at 6'3'' or shorter you're not going to be anything except a Point Guard.

The same can be said for any professional sport, though. It's not like there is a huge cohort of 5'8" 75kg men playing in the NRL.

If your not physically gifted it's hard to make it in any sport.

 

[mongoose]

The same can be said for any professional sport, though. It's not like there is a huge cohort of 5'8" 75kg men playing in the NRL.

If your not physically gifted it's hard to make it in any sport.

true, but its easier to pack on 20kg of muscle than it is to grow 6 inches taller.

 

[Canard]

true, but its easier to pack on 20kg of muscle than it is to grow 6 inches taller.

It may be easier, but run me through the great gamut of shorties playing professional football codes these days?

 

[mongoose]

It may be easier, but run me through the great gamut of shorties playing professional football codes these days?

Lionel Messi is a midget, NRL has players like Nikorima and Tom Starling who are shorties...

basketball has had shorties (Mugsy Bogues) but its a sport that really puts a lot of importance on one particular physical trait that is 100% determined by genetics.

 

[Wb1234]

Lionel Messi is a midget, NRL has players like Nikorima and Tom Starling who are shorties...

basketball has had shorties (Mugsy Bogues) but its a sport that really puts a lot of importance on one particular physical trait that is 100% determined by genetics.

Matty Bowen was a cowboys star

 

[Canard]

Lionel Messi is a midget, NRL has players like Nikorima and Tom Starling who are shorties...

basketball has had shorties (Mugsy Bogues) but its a sport that really puts a lot of importance on one particular physical trait that is 100% determined by genetics.

Matty Bowen was a cowboys star

You are talking about the exception rather than the rule (for the NRL).

Less than a few % of players have made it to NRL level being shorter than 5'9 or so.