Rugby league must evolve for the international game to progress

[Masoe_eats_babies]

It's a stupid f**king idea because even in theory it wouldn't work. Okay so you put a cap on international teams, big deal! Nothing changes. Aus, NZ and England could play a bunch of no name first-year rookies and put 50 on Serbia.

The reason these countries are shit is because none of their players are playing in professional, domestic competitions. Capping national teams wouldn't change anything. The minnow nations will always be minnows until their players can get contracts playing Pro in England and Australia.

It will take time and a lot of grass roots work, but it will come about eventually.

A better way to evolve the international game would be to allow domestic teams in the SL and NRL, and also the competitions below, to sign foreign players on some sort of apprenticeship system. Where by you can have x number of players from x nations, and the players don't contribute towards cap.

Give Pro and Semi-Pro teams in England, Australia and NZ some incentive to actually engage with and build partnerships with teams and players from other nations.

Imagine how good Lebanon or Serbia would be if 50 of their main players had a season or two working with pro and semi-pro teams in Aus, England or NZ. They wouldn't necessarily need game time, just the experience, being amongst future stars of the game, learning from the best of the best. Having something they can take back.

I'm talking vague nonsense and it might not even be workable in reality, but I think the above would be much more benefit to emerging nations. After all you mentioned Rugby, well look at why Rugby minnows are getting better... because they're getting their players in professional competitions in France and England, no other reason.

If Serbia could get 10 of their best players involved with NRL or SL teams imagine what that would do for them. And they can take there skill and knowledge back and improve their teams and grass roots, repeating the process until they're competitive.

But capping the best international teams is counter-productive and will harm an international scene that is still relatively fragile.

 

[Masoe_eats_babies]

To note, I'm not suggesting teams are forced to play these players. But rather that the players are in the background, involved in training sessions, gym work etc to some extent.

I don't believe there's much in the way of downside, financially, for such a system or idea to be put in place.

 

[NRLMad]

The most obvious way to improve the talent for the international teams is a buddy system for the top 6 teams & a quota system or exchange program. All we need is 4-6 competitive international teams. I think we have that with the addition of France, Tonga & Samoa.

Miguel I respect your opinion, however, Wales have been competitive. The score line might not show that - but they've unearthed a lot of great talent. Elliot Kear, Wozniak standouts + the big prop (massive guy). The other players improved from the previous game. They suprised me - an onlooker who just looks at the scoreline doesn't really get that Wales played very well in the game. I watched both games live and they played adrmirably in both games. If they could just focus a bit more. The same could be said for NZ about 10 years ago.

England have improved as well. The forwards are their obvious strength - however they need to send more youg backs to Australia. Not just the forwards (Ellis, Morley etc). A player like Ryan Hall would be a star in the NRL, same could go for the other winger & obviously Tomkins. They all need more quality coaching to add that extra dimension.

 

[NRLMad]

But capping the best international teams is counter-productive and will harm an international scene that is still relatively fragile.

And harm the game thta we have delicately constructed. We need the best players plkaying otherwise you can;t play at Wembley. 42k+ is a decent crowd. It will draw more sponsors, more money, more ratings.

France - have a 2nd team in the ESL
NZ - have a 2nd team in the NRL (over the next 10 years this will probably happen)
Wales - more domestic/grassroots work (which is already happening)
Pac Islands - more players in the NRL (which is already happening).

 

[miguel de cervantes]

It's a stupid f**king idea because even in theory it wouldn't work. Okay so you put a cap on international teams, big deal! Nothing changes. Aus, NZ and England could play a bunch of no name first-year rookies and put 50 on Serbia.

Serbia again? What about Wales, France and PNG?

A better way to evolve the international game would be to allow domestic teams in the SL and NRL, and also the competitions below, to sign foreign players on some sort of apprenticeship system. Where by you can have x number of players from x nations, and the players don't contribute towards cap.

Give Pro and Semi-Pro teams in England, Australia and NZ some incentive to actually engage with and build partnerships with teams and players from other nations.

Now you are talking.

Imagine how good Lebanon or Serbia would be if 50 of their main players had a season or two working with pro and semi-pro teams in Aus, England or NZ. They wouldn't necessarily need game time, just the experience, being amongst future stars of the game, learning from the best of the best. Having something they can take back.

Sorry, I can't take this suggestion seriously, especially when you criticise my ideas so fervently.

(a) The 50 players need to work and don't have the time or the money to go on a sabtical to Australia or England to watch Billy Slater lift weights.

(b) They would still be rubbish compared to the top 5 or 6. See again the mathematical argument. What makes you think 50 Serbians are so magical they can suddenly compete with the big 3 who have talented depths in the hundreds? I will reiterate. You need at least 50 serbians on NRL/ESL first grade rosters for them to be even in the ballpark.

After all you mentioned Rugby, well look at why Rugby minnows are getting better... because they're getting their players in professional competitions in France and England, no other reason.

True, they may be getting better but they will never win a world cup, only the odd Samoa v. Australia type friendly.

If Serbia could get 10 of their best players involved with NRL or SL teams imagine what that would do for them. And they can take there skill and knowledge back and improve their teams and grass roots, repeating the process until they're competitive.

Sure, it's a step in the right direction, but this is not going to one day create an NRL in Serbia. Not a hope in hell.

 

[NRLMad]

Clubs do not currently sign these players because they are not good enough. Forcing clubs to sign players that aren't good enough based on where they are from just doesn't make sense whichever way you look at it.

What needs to happen is better youth systems/scouting, particularly for the higher level emerging nations such as France and Wales. Clubs should be encouraged to sign junior players from these places, and it should be made as easy as possible for them to do so. They shouldn't be forced to do it to meet quotas or whatever, they should want to do it because it's in their interests to cast a wide net.

I think the problem is visibility & access. An NRL club is likely to look in NZ first or a Pacific Island country for talent than travel to the south of france or Wales. Games like the 4 Nations allow players to be exposed. We need some scouts in France or Wales sprooking home grown talent & watch the NRL clubs chase them (they'll come at a fraction of the price too).

 

[NRLMad]

Let's perform an exercise. Imagine in your heads that today it was England playing Russia at Wembley. Awesome you think, imagine the Russian Thurstonowski slicing through gaps, slotting them from the sideline. Great to watch. Now back to reality. For this to happen an NRL would have to exist in Russia. You get off the plane in Moscow and the back page of the paper has articles on the scandals of the week. Three games a week are shown on national FTA TV. The grand final sells out an 80,000 seat stadium, the season average hovers around 15,000. Wake up. Ditto for PNG, New Zealand, France even. It...is...not...going...to...happen.

Miguel, I agree - I don't think you're going to create an NRL or ESL overnight in any of these smaller nations. The NRL is bordering on a $1Bn if not more tv deal for their next right issue.

In these countries, we need baby steps & grass roots development. We can't expect the new international teams to win a full fledged international against the top 3 teams in the next 10-15 years surely. It's not about that though. It's about growing the game slowly & steadily.

We just need some of their players playing in our comps. That will be enough for the next 10-15years.

 

[Evil Homer]

I think the problem is visibility & access. An NRL club is likely to look in NZ first or a Pacific Island country for talent than travel to the south of france or Wales. Games like the 4 Nations allow players to be exposed. We need some scouts in France or Wales sprooking home grown talent & watch the NRL clubs chase them (they'll come at a fraction of the price too).

Super League clubs aren't though. Wigan have already indicated that they are looking to establishing a presence in Wales, and we've seen a couple of other clubs signing Scottish and Irish youngsters over the past few months. IMO the lack of French juniors in the English system is criminal, but hopefully this will start to change soon as well.

The best way for this to happen would be for an U20's World Cup, or even just a regular and standardized junior rep schedule. Again, the fact that such competition does not already exist is absolutely inexcusable on the part of the RLIF.

 

[NRLMad]

Super League clubs aren't though. Wigan have already indicated that they are looking to establishing a presence in Wales, and we've seen a couple of other clubs signing Scottish and Irish youngsters over the past few months. IMO the lack of French juniors in the English system is criminal, but hopefully this will start to change soon as well.

The best way for this to happen would be for an U20's World Cup, or even just a regular and standardized junior rep schedule. Again, the fact that such competition does not already exist is absolutely inexcusable on the part of the RLIF.

EH - the Super Legaue clubs don't have the same sort of $$$ the NRL clubs have. I mean yes, the NRL teams don't make a profit, but that's just good accounting. The 'Penny Panthers' are worth like a hundred million.. most of the teams in the NRL are huge & with the new rights deal they'll spend close to 50% more ($5-6m salaray cap). The ESL can't hang onto their own players. Think all the players who have joined rugby. Kyle Eastmond, Joel Tomkins, Chris Ashton etc etc .. The ESL needs to evolve like the NRL. Focus on memberships, tv ratings etc.

So, what needs to be assessed is why are these guys going to rugby - as soon as we get a quality player for the minnows - the ESL clubs will struggle to keep them. Maybe central contracting is an option for the top 25 England players? Also, why haven't the top ESL teams stopped signing crappy NRL players when they could be stock piling French, Welsh and other European country based players?

AFL may self propogate / consider themselves the biggest sport in this country - but we've attracted the highest ratings 2 years in a row + we have the larger growth possiblity.

 

[Evil Homer]

EH - the Super Legaue clubs don't have the same sort of $$$ the NRL clubs have. I mean yes, the NRL teams don't make a profit, but that's just good accounting. The 'Penny Panthers' are worth like a hundred million.. most of the teams in the NRL are huge & with the new rights deal they'll spend close to 50% more ($5-6m salaray cap). The ESL can't hang onto their own players. Think all the players who have joined rugby. Kyle Eastmond, Joel Tomkins, Chris Ashton etc etc .. The ESL needs to evolve like the NRL. Focus on memberships, tv ratings etc.

So, what needs to be assessed is why are these guys going to rugby - as soon as we get a quality player for the minnows - the ESL clubs will struggle to keep them. Maybe central contracting is an option for the top 25 England players?

Not sure where this has post has come from. Eastmond was offered a ridiculous contract that nobody in RL could or would reasonably want to compete with. Ditto Tomkins, apparently he's been offered something like £500k a year, I don't know what that is in Aussie dollars but it's far, far more than a player of his ability is worth, RL clubs would be stupid to even consider matching an offer like that. Ashton would barely be a first grader if he was still in RL. If RU are paying ridiculous, over the top amounts for players then there's nothing anyone can really do. Some English RU clubs are already running into financial difficulties, pretty much the only thing keeping their game alive is the international scene, which is about the only way I can think that this is relevant to the thread.

Also, why haven't the top ESL teams stopped signing crappy NRL players when they could be stock piling French, Welsh and other European country based players?

The top ESL teams do not sign crappy NRL players.

 

[NRLMad]

Yes, the top ones. All I was highlighting was that we should focus on our own backyard/s. I think this is working for us.

ESL - focus on bring in Welsh, Scot, Irish, French quality juniors.
NRL - bring in another NZ team, focus on building up international game by continuing use of Pac Islanders.

 

[Coleworld]

It's a stupid f**king idea because even in theory it wouldn't work. Okay so you put a cap on international teams, big deal! Nothing changes. Aus, NZ and England could play a bunch of no name first-year rookies and put 50 on Serbia.

The reason these countries are shit is because none of their players are playing in professional, domestic competitions. Capping national teams wouldn't change anything. The minnow nations will always be minnows until their players can get contracts playing Pro in England and Australia.

It will take time and a lot of grass roots work, but it will come about eventually.

A better way to evolve the international game would be to allow domestic teams in the SL and NRL, and also the competitions below, to sign foreign players on some sort of apprenticeship system. Where by you can have x number of players from x nations, and the players don't contribute towards cap.

Give Pro and Semi-Pro teams in England, Australia and NZ some incentive to actually engage with and build partnerships with teams and players from other nations.

Imagine how good Lebanon or Serbia would be if 50 of their main players had a season or two working with pro and semi-pro teams in Aus, England or NZ. They wouldn't necessarily need game time, just the experience, being amongst future stars of the game, learning from the best of the best. Having something they can take back.

I'm talking vague nonsense and it might not even be workable in reality, but I think the above would be much more benefit to emerging nations. After all you mentioned Rugby, well look at why Rugby minnows are getting better... because they're getting their players in professional competitions in France and England, no other reason.

If Serbia could get 10 of their best players involved with NRL or SL teams imagine what that would do for them. And they can take there skill and knowledge back and improve their teams and grass roots, repeating the process until they're competitive.

But capping the best international teams is counter-productive and will harm an international scene that is still relatively fragile.

This is exactly what is needed, getting the emerging nations players exposed to a professional set up. If they impose a rule that each club must take 1-5 players into maybe the U20's/Reserve Grade side for a season that will be more beneficial then playing in a semi-pro/amateur competition for that season.

Also a U20's or U18's Rugby League World Cup is definitely needed, it could run along side the actually World Cup and feature as curtain raisers. A good opportunity too for scouts in Australia/England to identify talent in other nations.

 

[bender]

So, pulling together the best points in this post and adding some of my own, how about we have the following:

1. U20 World cup
2. One nation for life
3. 5 metre rule to keep scores closer.
4. contested Scrums - why not give non NRL players a chance to create some sort of advantage
5. 3 points for a try, returning to our traditions
6. Actually, why not a 10 tackle rule, or unlimited tackles,
7. Scrum feed to go to the side whose half the ball is in.
8. No interchange

Okay they went a different way to what i thought it would when i started typing, but maybe we would be better off going back to most of our traditioanl rules to even up the game.

 

[Evil Homer]

So, pulling together the best points in this post and adding some of my own, how about we have the following:

1. U20 World cup
2. One nation for life
3. 5 metre rule to keep scores closer.
4. contested Scrums - why not give non NRL players a chance to create some sort of advantage
5. 3 points for a try, returning to our traditions
6. Actually, why not a 10 tackle rule, or unlimited tackles,
7. Scrum feed to go to the side whose half the ball is in.
8. No interchange

Okay they went a different way to what i thought it would when i started typing, but maybe we would be better off going back to most of our traditioanl rules to even up the game.

I'm praying that this is a joke or sarcastic post, but if that's the case then I can't understand why you've included the first two in there?

 

[typicalfan]

So, pulling together the best points in this post and adding some of my own, how about we have the following:

1. U20 World cup
2. One nation for life
3. 5 metre rule to keep scores closer.
4. contested Scrums - why not give non NRL players a chance to create some sort of advantage
5. 3 points for a try, returning to our traditions
6. Actually, why not a 10 tackle rule, or unlimited tackles,
7. Scrum feed to go to the side whose half the ball is in.
8. No interchange

Okay they went a different way to what i thought it would when i started typing, but maybe we would be better off going back to most of our traditioanl rules to even up the game.

:lol: hope you didn't spend too much time on this.

 

[PacificCoastRL]

How about leaving the rules alone. Just cut back on the number of teams in the World Cup until such a time as more teams can compete. That may not be in our lifetime, but so what. Try this - the top six ranked teams in the World Cup. Teams ranked 7-14 play a single knockout tournament as do teams ranked 15-22. Teams 1-6 play in a traditional tournament held in one (or two) countries spread out over 6-7 weeks. Teams play a round robin of five games each before top four teams play in traditional 1-4, 2-3 semi's with winners advancing to final. The other two tournaments would see all eight teams in each tournament play three games, but if you lose the games would be friendlies, if you win you move on to the next round. First round would see 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5 at the home of the higher seed. Winning teams move to the next round, again at the home of the higher seed, and then, of course, the final, at the home of the higher seed. Travelling expenses to be shared by the competing nations and the RLIF/RLEF. For the next World Cup a shuffling takes place. Team 6 in the top group drops down to the second group, Team 1 moves up to the first group. Ditto for Team 8 in second group and Team 1 in third group.

 

[Butters]

(4) Change the rules of rugby league to make it more forgiving for weaker teams à la rugby union and soccer.

In what ways do the laws of union and soccer favour weaker teams? :crazy:

 

[Butters]

Contested Scrums and Rucks would solve all of rugby league's problems.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

Contested Scrums and Rucks would solve all of rugby league's problems.

What problems?

 

[bobbis]

Turning internationals into a quasi club competition with salary caps etc would be farcical I'd have little interest. It would turn people off and be hammered by the media.

I would say only PNG and France have a big enough player base to become competitive in the medium term, getting players from those 2 into the NRL/ESL should be a priority, adjustments to NRL regulations to encourage recruitment from PNG would be useful.

I can't see any of the rest becoming competitive without a vast expansion of the domestic player base, which is where development should be focused.

On top of that remove selection ambiguity and go to one nation for life. Create an U20s WC so that those domestic players coming through can get exposure. A northern and southern world sevens or nines and Aus A and NZ A sides to tour minnows would also be useful to help exposure. Reform to make the IRLF more representative and professional is another obvious step.

The focus shouldn't be on quick fixes at the top end to improve short term competitiveness. If you artificially make a country competitive but lose the essence of international competition you gain little. Importantly though if the measures result in no significance expansion of the domestic club scene you won't have increased competitiveness in the long term and you'll merely have a controversial band aid solution.