- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
While Australia at home deserves favouritism, the strength of other squads, such as New Zealand and England, cannot be discounted. The Cup will commence on October 25th in Townsville with the match between England and Papua New Guinea, followed by Australia and New Zealand the next day in Sydney.
The final will be played at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on November 22nd.
However, it will be of interest to see if the gap has closed in regards to second-tier nations, such as the Pacific Island teams and France.
The thirteenth edition of the League World Cup, which debuted in 1954, has not featured since 2000 – which speaks volumes of the lack of international depth in the code.
There are ten teams featuring in this year’s tournament, none of them debutants. It was only from the 1990s that more than five teams were featured in the League World Cup.
Again indicative of the lack of true global competition, the championship is split into three pools, headed by Pool A, which features the top three ranked nations: defending and nine time champions Australia, England and New Zealand, as well as Papua New Guinea.
The top three teams of this pool will automatically qualify for the semi-finals, irrespective of other pool results.
The other two pools, B and C, feature Fiji, France and Scotland, and Ireland, Samoa and Tonga respectively.
The second and third best teams of these pools will clash in a seventh place and ninth place playoff, while the winners of these groups will play off in a Qualifying Final to decide the final semi-final position.
The reward will be a match against the top qualifier of the Pool A giants.
The somewhat confusing schedule and the expected dominance of the Australian Kangaroos has led to numerous attacks on the viability and credibility of the Cup, most recently from league legend Wally Lewis, who claimed that Australia should be represented by Queensland and NSW Origin teams.
Likewise, the championship has been tainted by eligibility and allegiance issues.
Case in point? Outstanding Roosters (soon to be Sharks) forward Anthony Tupou, who was selected to be in the Tonga team, was then selected to be in the Kangaroos when Michael Crocker was ruled out through injury.
With the immense depth that Australia already wields, firmer rules should be in place to allow players to turn out with priority for their country of birth.
Barring huge upsets, it will be either Australia, New Zealand or England who will contest the Grand Final in Brisbane.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.