Origin has killed internationals. It’s a great thing for Australian rl, it brings in sht loads of money and is a good vehicle for promoting the game in non rl states. That doesn’t change the fact that as it has grown the spotlight has moved off the kangaroos and representting your country is no longer the pinnacle in australia,
as for the rest of your rant, whatever.
BS.
Origin and internationals existed in harmony for the better part of 20 years before Internationals started taking a back seat in the late 90s, and there's no reason why they couldn't exist in harmony again.
What actually killed international RL was the formation of the Premier League causing a boom in soccer's popularity in the UK (and large parts of the world frankly), and club RL in the UK going exclusively behind a paywall in 96 and thus destroying the games exposure in the Uk for the next 25 years and counting.
Almost at once the biggest competitor in the market got a massive boost and RL cut it's self off from the broader audience, and within a generation you went from RL (and RU to a lesser extent) in the UK having household names to not being able to get a look in amongst all the soccer coverage.
At the same time as that was happening in the UK, Australian RL was quickly building back up after the SL war, and after about a decade it'd well and truly left UK RL behind in interest and value where a decade ago they were more or less peers.
Those happenings had massive knock on effects for international RL in that it basically murdered the value of the UK market as the only other major market for RL from the NRL's point of view, and thus made international RL an expensive and unpalatable prospect when compared to other local events.
It's basically exactly what killed RU in Australia BTW. It's truly fascinating how English RL's and Australian RU's fortunes mirror each other over the last 25 years.
haha e gland have dominated over france more than australia has over nz.
Yet for the exact same reasons as the NRL, traditionally the RFL have been loath to play them or the Home Nations.
Why? Because they aren't money spinners like playing the Kangaroos and more recently Kiwi's are.
It's the base hypocrisy of the RFL and English RL fans. Always going on and on about the good of the game and international growth, when if it was simply about the good of the game they'd be playing a whole host of annual internationals against British, European, American, and potentially other nations and the WCC would be against (e.g.) Elite 1 and potentially other clubs.
But they don't and won't play those games because it's not actually about "the greater good", it's about what benefits their bank balance the most.
if the myopic Australian RL media gave half as much prominence to the kangaroos as they do origin we wouldn’t have the farcical arlc approach to internationals we currently have.
They'll never do that for the exact same reasons that British media will never give the same prominence to the Socceroos as (e.g.) Brazil and push for more events involving Australia, despite what that would do for Australian soccer; they are for profit businesses and as such they are going to push the product that is the most profitable.
