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The powerhouse of this World Cup has been the Pacific Nations.
All the drama of players switching allegiances saw more feeling in many of their games. The players have shown us how to do a rivalry – hard, but with respect – and the crowds have loved it.
Speaking of crowds, it’s clear that league has a strong foothold in Papua New Guinea and to maintain the momentum, we need more of these blokes playing in the NRL – the nation’s talent needs a pathway to the top level.
It’s also been great to see the full grounds in New Zealand. From an Aussie perspective, it was nice to see that the home team didn’t have the most support in the crowd. For many years the All Blacks have effectively been playing home games in Australia, as all the Kiwis in the crowd seeming to outnumber Aussie fans.
The casual chat of the video ref has been great too. Perhaps the robotic Bunker could learn to chill and have a chat to the viewers to explain what they are looking at and why they make their decisions.
Channel Seven’s coverage has also been refreshingly professional, without drama and very few rants during the commentary.
My personal highlight so far though was the singing of the Tongan crowd – simply joyous and beautiful.
However, there have been some less-than-inspiring aspects of the World Cup thus far, headlined by the lack of crowds in Australia.
The thrashings are also a bad look. Perhaps there needs to be a towel on the sideline that any coach can throw in when all hope is gone? I am not a fan of run-away scores.
Then there’s the one-referee system, which was supposed to be wonderful but, the reality hasn’t quite been so great.
The ruck has been getting more and more out of control as teams realise that the one referee cannot police everything – ditto the ten metres, which is just too much for one person to police.
Meanwhile, has anyone seen a northern hemisphere player actually touch the football with their foot in the play the ball? I haven’t.
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