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If Rugby League ever wants to have an international game on the scale Rugby Union has – where a World Cup could possibly, if not probably, have five nations win – league needs to grow its international game. And the best way of doing this is through a re-think of national eligibility laws.
Presently the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) is made up of 12 member nations – Australia, Cook Islands, England, Fiji, France, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Tonga and Wales. Within these 12 nations there are two distinct tiers.
The first tier consists of the nations that could all possibly beat each other but, when faced with any of the other nations, are guaranteed victory. Australia, New Zealand and England make this top tier.
The second tier is every other nation – nine countries who could probably each beat each other, on their given day, but when facing one of the top tier nations, it’s simply a matter of how much they will lose by.
(Obviously there are always exceptions to this rule, but the reality of 95 percent of international results back up the above statements.)
As a result, there is very little interest in rugby league at an international level.
There will be a Four Nations cup played at the end of the season between Australia, New Zealand, England and France and of those, interest will pique around Australia versus New Zealand, but English and French games will more or less be viewed as dead rubbers.
As for the other eight nations that make up the RLIF, well to be perfectly honest, who cares? This is not a statement of callousness but rather, largely, of fact. Who actually cares about watching minnow nations play one another merely for the pride at stake?
The reality of the answer is probably, “people of those nations”. If rugby league wants to grow an international game, the answer should be “fans of rugby league”.
Some of the best players in the game have heritage with these minnow nations – 40 percent of the NRL’s players are of Polynesian descent – but cannot represent them because that would in effect rule them out of playing for Australia (and therefore State of Origin) or New Zealand.
Presently, RLIF laws state,
“When a player plays a Senior International Match for a country, he is deemed to have elected to play for that country. Once an election is made the player may not play Senior representative rugby league for any other country until the end of the next World Cup tournament, or the expiry of two years, whichever is earlier (‘Election Period’).”
Which is where the aforementioned eligibility law re-think comes in. As long as there are the two distinct tiers of rugby league playing nations, national eligibility should also be divided into two tiers.
A player elects to represent one of the top tier nations by playing a senior game for them and that shall be the only top tier nation said player will be allowed to represent for the length of their career. The idea that a player can represent New Zealand at one World Cup and switch to Australia for the next (a complicated international jig known as “doing the Tonie Carroll”) is ludicrous.
But a player should be allowed to nominate a second tier nations to represent, obviously based on current eligibility laws – a player’s birth, residence or heritage in their nominated nation would be examined.
If they are not selected to play for their top tier nation, they can instead play for their second tier nation without having to wait for two years or a world cup before being ruled eligible to represent their top tier nation again.
Though this may seem like a double standard, the question that needs to be asked is would this weaken international rugby league?
If Jarryd Hayne does not make the Australian squad for the upcoming Four Nations, would anyone really consider it to be to the detriment of international rugby league if he instead played a few games for the Bati?
Ditto for Nev Costigan having a run with the Kumuls? Or Robbie Farah with the Cedars?
With the present rules none of these players would dream of playing for the nations of their heritage because it would be the end of their Australian and Origin dreams until the completion of the 2013 World Cup, so in reality season 2014.
Rather than ask whether this would serve to weaken international rugby league, perhaps we should examine who would benefit from this system.
First of all, the players good enough to nominate and play for two nations. Jarryd Hayne has said on numerous occasions what a huge benefit it was to him, both professionally and personally, to play for the Bati at the 2008 World Cup, saying at the time:
“This has been one of the best experiences of my life and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. We play like we’re family. We don’t go out there with any pressure, we go out there to have fun.”
Playing for second tier nations serves to show professional players how good they have it and allows them to show their pride in their heritage.
(It also would give them a chance to show their first tier selectors how wrong they got it by leaving them out of their teams.)
Secondly, the fans.
While it’s great watching Australia win every international game they play (except the two or three that actually ever matter) wouldn’t it be better to watch a competitive game of rugby league?
And in league mad countries such as Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Samoa, wouldn’t it be nice for the locals to get a chance to support a team that had a legitimate chance of winning games against the bigger league nations?
Could you imagine the scenes in Port Moresby if the Kumuls got a win against the Kangaroos with Nev Costigan leading the way?
Thirdly: the rugby league federations of these second tier countries.
While the NRL wring their hands over whether they will crack the magical billion with their next TV deal, most second tier federations operate on a budget that wouldn’t pay for a Toyota Cup team.
If their national sides had a handful of superstars each, all of a sudden gate receipts would go up, along with jersey sales and there may even be interest from TV networks in showing their games.
Though these are the kind of financial boosts not even Cronulla would be fussed over, they would serve to massively inflate the budgets of the struggling nations, in turn helping them create better conditions for not only their players but also the kids of their nations who dream of one day playing international rugby league for their country.
Perhaps the only people who would have a cause to gripe would be the players who faithfully serve their country only to be replaced when a better player doesn’t make the cut for his first-nominated nation.
But while these players would have legitimate complaints about losing their spot, the benefits of playing or even just training alongside internationally recognised players are enormous. Their own games would improve dramatically by seeing how professionals do it.
More importantly, many players in these teams would suddenly be exposed to the international rugby league community, markedly improving their chances of getting a professional contract for themselves.
All those benefits aside, getting replaced by a better player is the nature of the beast in professional sport. And while it would be tough for Fiji’s regular players to be displaced, they would all have to admit it would be fantastic for Fiji if Petero Civonicieva, Jarryd Hayne, Lote Tuqiri, Aku Uate and Sisa Waqa lined up for the Bati against a top tier nation, played with passion to put a Queenslander to shame and caused a boil-over.
Because at the end of the day, that’s what the aim of this tiered system should be. Not that players of international standard continue to choose to play for two nations but rather that these second tier nations become so competitive that the superstars of the game decide they only want to play for that nation, thus negating the need for the tiered system.
This may be decades away but one needs only compare the Rugby World Cup’s humble beginnings at Concord in 1987 with the global coverage it receives today to see the benefits. Acknowledging and operating a two tiered system could be the first step in putting league on a comparative level.
League may be the dominant rugby in Australia, with daylight coming in well before Union but, with the world’s eyes on New Zealand hosting the Rugby World Cup this month, it shows Union is light years ahead of League on a global scale.
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