Release of International Calendar..

[RedVee_8]

10 teams? I thought the press release a week or two ago was 14 teams ?

 

[Llangennech]

10 teams? I thought the press release a week or two ago was 14 teams ?

read again.

 

[Brian potter]

10 teams? I thought the press release a week or two ago was 14 teams ?

14 teams would be even more complicated than having 10 teams.

 

[Last Week]

Given the competitiveness of Samoa, Tonga and, to a lesser extent, Fiji, I hope that they don't just shaft some poor nation into a pool of death. Rather, just split the top teams into the pools of 3.

Pool A
Australia
England
Tonga

Pool B
New Zealand
Samoa
PNG

Cross Pool matches;
Australia vs New Zealand
Tonga vs Samoa
England vs PNG

Pool C
Lebanon
Fiji
Qualifier 1
Qualifier 2

1C vs 2A - Winner vs 1B in semi final.
2C vs 2B - Winner vs 1A in semi final.

Final.

20 matches total.

 

[Brian potter]

Given the competitiveness of Samoa, Tonga and, to a lesser extent, Fiji, I hope that they don't just shaft some poor nation into a pool of death. Rather, just split the top teams into the pools of 3.

Pool A
Australia
England
Tonga

Pool B
New Zealand
Samoa
PNG

Cross Pool matches;
Australia vs New Zealand
Tonga vs Samoa
England vs PNG

Pool C
Lebanon
Fiji
Qualifier 1
Qualifier 2

1C vs 2A - Winner vs 1B in semi final.
2C vs 2B - Winner vs 1A in semi final.

Final.

20 matches total.

Dear god no!!!

 

[Last Week]

Dear god no!!!

Good chat.

 

[RedVee_8]

read again.

Brain fade.

 

[Ruby Roundhouse]

just give us aus v nz anzac day tests

 

[Nealo 12]

just give us aus v nz anzac day tests

Why ?

 

[Ruby Roundhouse]

Why ?

why not ?

 

[Nealo 12]

why not ?

To grow the game why a no from you, weird take

 

[Ruby Roundhouse]

To grow the game why a no from you, weird take

are you smoking meth?

 

[Last Week]

Just realised that unless something happens next year, by the time Australia tours England, they wouldn't have played against each other since the 2017 WC final. 8 years since they faced each other.

And unless something happens next year, or they face each other at the 2026 world cup, England won't play NZ until 2027! They last played in 2018. Potentially a 9 year gap.

 

[Coastbloke]

Just realised that unless something happens next year, by the time Australia tours England, they wouldn't have played against each other since the 2017 WC final. 8 years since they faced each other.

And unless something happens next year, or they face each other at the 2026 world cup, England won't play NZ until 2027! They last played in 2018. Potentially a 9 year gap.

Hence the return of Tours. Someone finally realised (Probably the Intern, the Administrators are too stupid) that the top 3 reguarly playing each other is a no brainer.

Hopefully this sort of blindness won’t be repeated ever again..

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Somewhat concerning is that only full member nations will be eligible for the world cup, and there's only 18 full members.

With 8 of them already qualifying that means that any other qualifying, that means the other 2 spots will be two of Jamaica, South Africa, Cook Islands, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Ukraine and Wales.

It's pretty clear that of those nations, Jamaica, South Africa, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine will not be getting passed the rest.

It also means the likes of Greece and the USA aren't able to play. Funny considering if this happened two world cups ago, the USA would automatically qualify, but now they aren't eligible to qualify.

France will be strong enough to take one of those two spots, so there will be one spot left for the teams you listed

 

[titoelcolombiano]

Well at least they got the ARLC to meet, thats something! Dont agree with a 10 team WC, dont agree with splitting the WC's. the media profile works best when at same time imo. Byummer about World 9's, thats a great pre season tournament opportunity.

Rest is very light on in any detail. Good to see touring coming back but as said these calendars have been agreed on before and rarley see out their duration.

So looks like we have:

2023
Eng v Tonga 3 match series
Aus,NZ&Samoa tri series
PNG,Fiji, Cook Is tri series

2024 ?
2025 ?
2026
Mens Womens and Wheelchair RLWC
2027?
2028 Womens RLWC, Mens?
2029?
2030 Mens RLWC

Still a lot of unknowns. Likely ARLC will continue wanting to runt he tri nations series in 2024 and 2025 I suspect but maybe bring Eng into it. Not sure where any of this leaves France, Lebanon etc

England touring Australia in 2025

 

[yakstorm]

Hence the return of Tours. Someone finally realised (Probably the Intern, the Administrators are too stupid) that the top 3 reguarly playing each other is a no brainer.

Hopefully this sort of blindness won’t be repeated ever again..

The individual leagues took over organising the tours and events, versus the IRL. It's a sad reality, but the IRL has shown time and time again, they can't actually coordinate anything for the major nations beyond a World Cup.

The IRL was the leading force in the dismantling of the old Tri-Nations/Four-Nations concept, which whilst wasn't perfect, at least was a solid cornerstone of the international calendar and was jointly owned by the RFL, ARL & NZRL. They wanted to add all their own competitions, which as we saw was an underwhelming Oceania Cup, a single World Cup 9s and a tour by Great Britain which no one asked for and bled significant amounts of money.

 

[Last Week]

France will be strong enough to take one of those two spots, so there will be one spot left for the teams you listed

Hopefully, but the French have been disappointing for decades now. They should consistently be the 4th best nation (or there about) given their professional and semi professional talent pool.