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MASCORD: If Australia wins the Four Nations, has anything changed?

13th November, 2014
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The international league calendar needs a shake up. (AP Photo/Tim Hales)
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13th November, 2014
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Despite all the self-congratulatory responses from within rugby league towards the Four Nations, the question has to be asked – if Australia wins the final, has anything changed?

There was a tantalising few days there where the World Cup holders could have missed the decider.

If they finished below Samoa, someone asked, would they have to qualify for the 2016 tournament?

But despite missing 12 players from the squad that walked away from Old Trafford with the silverware a year ago, Tim Sheens men bounced back from a poor showing against the Kiwis first up to edge out an unlucky England and give Samoa a bit of a whooping.

The key to answering the question in the first paragraph is to ascertain what perspective you’re taking – inside rugby league, or outside?

From outside the game – if you follow rugby union or soccer, for instance – the answer is a decisive “no”. Australia played New Zealand in the World Cup final, and when they were thrown into a competition with two of their World Cup rivals ended up being finalists again.

By the standards of other international sports, any progress has been so small as to be invisible.

But from within rugby league, the answer is probably “yes”.

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The score in one of our World Cup semi-finals was 64-0, to Australia over Fiji. Yet when Australia played Samoa last Sunday, they won by just 44-18. Before the six and two-point losses by the Samoans in their opening two games, no ‘fourth’ country had come within 22 of an opponent in the short history of the tournament.

Yes, the Australians are below strength – but Samoa is also without the services of its best player in Anthony Milford. England had no Sam Burgess or James Roby.

My understanding is that the Rugby League International Federation had planned to bring back tours and hold just one or maybe zero Four Nations tournaments between the next two World Cups. As Matt Parish said on Sunday, his side may well have “saved the Four Nations”.

Having a fourth competitive nation, in the southern hemisphere, opens up new revenue streams for the sport – particularly for the Kiwis. A series at Origin time, with fine-tuned eligibility rules that would strengthen Samoa – appeals enormously

This is a weakened Australian side, but also a below-strength New Zealand team. A win for Tim Sheens’ flu ridden line-up on Saturday at Westpac Stadium will not be an indictment on the competitiveness of international rugby league, unless perhaps they run up a big score.

But even through the rest of the rugby league playing world denies offering the Aussies a year off every World Cup cycle, and despite the absence of any such clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, that is what the NRL delegation wanted at the recent RLIF meeting in Brisbane.

A year off every four is the demand.

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In response, next spring New Zealand are touring Britain, the Pacific countries are all likely to play each other and we’ll have a full European Cup. The Kiwis now have a new Pacific rival to the east.

Should Australia win on Saturday, it will illustrate once again they don’t need their stars to be successful.

But what has changed during this tournament, regardless of the result in the caketin, is a growing sense that international rugby league needs Australia much less than it ever has before.

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