SOO robbing international game

[hutch]

I'd even have something a little simpler than that. I'd scrap City-Country to start - a complete waste of everybody's time.

I'd certainly re-introduce stand-alone weekends for Origin. SOO is so massive that people would watch and attend in huge numbers even if it was on at 2am on a Monday morning. There is absolutely no reason why it has to be played on a Wednesday.

If SOO was on stand-alone weekends, then we would not need byes in the NRL, but I'd still have a full bye round, meaning that there would be 4 weekends during the year where there were no club games. These 4 weekends should be 'international' weeks where no club games can be played.

I would love to see a Pacific Cup involving Tonga, Samoa, Fiji and PNG. They would play each other once and the top 2 play each other in the final in week 4. The winner would play in the QN that year. The same would apply to the Northern Hemisphere with Wales, France, Scotland and Ireland. The bottom place getter in the Euro Cup would be relegated to the reformed Euro Shield the following year and the Euro Shield winner to enter the Euro Cup in the proceeding year. The winner of the Euro Cup would play in the QN in that year dependent on what hemisphere the QN is in.

I agree that the respective Shield and Bowl competitions would be played during the same period.

In week 1 there would be (as a very rough example):
- SOO game 1
- Samoa v Fiji
- Tonga v PNG
- Wales v Scotland
- France v Ireland

Week 2:
- SOO game 2
- PNG v Samoa
- Fiji v Tonga
- France v Scotland
- Wales v Ireland

Week 3:
- SOO game 3
- PNG v Fiji
- Tonga v Samoa
- Scotland v Ireland
- Wales v France

Week 4:
- Aus v Kiwis
- Pac Cup final
- Euro Cup final

The problem being that I'm not sure how England would get any during-season internationals under this scheme. It isn't perfect probably by a long way, but it is something that I have been thinking about for some time.

On the original point, Origin definately isn't good for the international game, but under a scheme like this its negative impact might be lessened.

england and new zealand have to be involved every week as well. england should play in the european cup which should be split into 2 tiers of 3 with promotion and relegation every year. nz can have their own origin for the first 2 weeks, and play a pacific island team in a test in the 3rd week before the anzac test.

 

[hutch]

They also said they don't have a problem with younger players playing for a PI nation before "graduating" to the Kiwis. The PI nations should be the equal of New Zealand not some stepping stone to a Kiw jersey.:x

yeah that is a joke!

 

[juro]

england and new zealand have to be involved every week as well. england should play in the european cup which should be split into 2 tiers of 3 with promotion and relegation every year. nz can have their own origin for the first 2 weeks, and play a pacific island team in a test in the 3rd week before the anzac test.

These are great ideas that I would love to see implemented. For a long time I thought SoO had to be kept midweek to avoid only having 1 game of rugby league being played in a week. Now I see that there are so many other options.

 

[CMUX]

Surely the solution in all of this is to tighten up the eligibility rules that are a joke at the moment. It’s simple, players from the island nations play for the island nations and only the island nations.

 

[hutch]

Surely the solution in all of this is to tighten up the eligibility rules that are a joke at the moment. It’s simple, players from the island nations play for the island nations and only the island nations.

there are next to no players in the nrl who are players from the islands though. all our island players were either born or raised in nz or australia, or moved here at a later age and took up rugby league. we have been neglecting talent from these places (especially png) for way too long. our 'islander' players mostly have dual nationality which is why we are seeing them swap so much.

and our eligibility rules are fine, they are pretty much the same as other international sports. its the nation swapping which is holding us back!

 

[deluded pom?]

and our eligibility rules are fine, they are pretty much the same as other international sports. its the nation swapping which is holding us back!

The nation hopping occurs because some nations are simply ignoring or bending the current rules to suit themselves. The rules need to be implmented to the letter of the law before we will get anywhere.

 

[hutch]

The nation hopping occurs because some nations are simply ignoring or bending the current rules to suit themselves. The rules need to be implmented to the letter of the law before we will get anywhere.

Agreed!