Question - Euro seedings

[Ari Gold]

A few months ago, The RLEF announced the Official RLEF seedings;

1. England
2. France
3. Wales
4. Lebanon
5. Ireland
6. Scotland
7. Russia
8. Georgia
9. Holland
10. Serbia
11. Morocco
12. Malta
13. Germany
14. Estonia
15. Czech

Now.. where is Italy and to an extent, Greece?

Now the obvious reason is that we mostly operate out of Sydney, but then why was Malta included as well?

- We had a representative at the RLEF meeting

- We've had "domestic" players in our squads in the past 2-3 years (Franchini Brothers)

- We've played games on home soil (Padova Cup, and this year the Venice 9's)

- We've been active in the International scene, playing high profile games against USA and West Tigers in recent years.


What does Malta have that we don't?


Not having a whinge, just wanted to see what everyone else thought about this and could correct me...

 

[THRUM HALL]

Italy are a joke and deserve not to be included in any seedings. What have they done in over 10 years in Italy? NOTHING!:evil:
NO domestic teams in over 10 years! :roll:
NO games at all in Italy since 2003
Italy are Australian not Italian. 2 Brothers have played who are Italian born in 10 years-wheres the rest?
Italy Youth Team 100% Australian!:evil:

Least Malta have played in Malta this year against the England Lionhearts and have somebody actiove there and have used a Maltese player-even still shouldnt have been included in seedings!

What the hell do the RLIF do? Surely they should set some rules/Standards for a team to carry a Nations name

 

[langpark]

Greece opted not to try and qualify. They said they had to pay $200,000 entry fee (which is hard to believe, but anyways) and they said they would rather put all their resources into launching the game in Athens in October this year. Good move i think

 

[otag]

The MRLA has established office within the Maltese islands and engaged a local resident to take charge of the MRLA’s Maltese operations with support from the governing body’s Australian base. Maltese rugby league operations will be helped with the future introduction of a development officer working on the island.

thats from the maltese rl website.

robyalvaro, in 2 or 3 years malta have started up a pretty successful base in australia supporting their maltese base. no one can doubt what theyve done in australia is probably better than any of the other emerging nations. they had a match in malta late last year and had local based players. their game went national through malta on their media from what i read somewhere and they had a good crowd.

i dont think italy have done anything in the last few years in italy.
no use having a rep at the meeting if nothing is/has happened in italy itself.

greece may have established relations in greece, but like langpark said, i dont think they are going for the world cup anyway.

to me, malta and greece must still be considered serious because they havent given up for missing the world cup qaulfiying.

italy are on their last strings with me personally...because surely after the amount of time theyve had, its time to draw the line.

 

[hutch]

i wouldnt include malta, greece or italy just yet. give them a few years and reassess how far they have come. at the moment they arent international teams and shouldnt be ranked, but hopefully in the future they achieve what they set out for.

 

[bowes]

Greece opted not to try and qualify. They said they had to pay $200,000 entry fee (which is hard to believe, but anyways) and they said they would rather put all their resources into launching the game in Athens in October this year. Good move i think

I think the $200,000 was the costs of going to Europe from Australia for a month for ENC B, a month for the first 'round' of ENC A in 2006 and another month for the 2nd 'round' in 2007. They thought they culd finish top 2 of ENC B and make the 2nd round, but struggle there

 

[Costaki]

greece this year will be starting up a domestic comp with 4 teams and also be playing an international against serbia soon after that.

 

[Ari Gold]

Thanks for that post otag, wasn't too sure at what stage Malta was at.

However, don't want to tease you... but there will be some very good news coming out of IRL in the upcoming months.

 

[MRLA]

However, don't want to tease you... but there will be some very good news coming out of IRL in the upcoming months.

It's already out. ITALY A vs MALTA Knights at Marconi Stadium.

 

[Ari Gold]

Nah has nothing to do with that... but that match should be a beauty anyway, i heard it's on October 7 am i correct?

 

[MRLA]

Possibly not.

However October 8 looks to be the right date.

 

[Utey]

Malta isnt qualifying for the world cup are they?

 

[MRLA]

Not the 2008 World Cup.

 

[Utey]

No worries cheers.