roopy said:
I think a Maori side would benefit the game as a whole more than many countries.
NZ is one place where we can grow the game significantly in coming years - while it will be a very hard slog to get much worthwhile growth in the Pacific Islands (countries too small and too poor) or europe (too much competition).
A successful Maori side could bring 10's of thousands of fans to the game - who would end up being fans for the Warriors or a new NZ franchise. That is real growth and real potential for the game to make dollars in the future. The Cook Islands or Scotland have far less potential to grow the game.
That's about it in a nutshell.
League in Australia wanted to fix the grassroots before it expanded to include the Gold Coast back into the NRL, how about we do the same Internationally?
As I said in another post, we had the ridiculous situation whereby in the year 2005, New Zealand still can't get it's strongest team on the paddock for every single test match they play. There is no place for them to take concerns about players that need surgery, no place for them to appeal the suspension of a player that rules them out of a game that's not played under the jurisdiction of the NRL, and Kiwi refs are denied opportunities to perform at test match level because the Kangaroo coach doesn't like him.
I know where people are coming from, but what real hope do these countries have when the Tri-Nations champions are still getting screwed?
