Is RLWC one of the biggest hoaxes in world sport?

Well said! The Australian football team also speak English just as well as the Italian League team.

Tell me this? A German friend of mine who is also a soccer nut said that 80% of the players at the last soccer world cup was made of players from just 2 countries -England & Germany.( I am assuming they would be players mostly playing in the EPL & Bundesliga but also in the lower divisions as well). If this is true they gone are the days of teams of local players from say dirt poor African nations ever winning the WC or ever being competitive.

Roarer, four of the teams you listed as being capable of beating NZ in union have never beaten the All Blacks. Ever. And Wales hasn't beaten them since 1953. RU doesn't quite have the ultra-competitive international scene they would like to believe. The Kiwis are certainly closer to the Kangaroos than the Wallabies are to the All Blacks at the moment as well.

disappointment occurs when your own values are not met - so who needs to own that problem ?????

welcome to the new world order of migration meryck. My moko (grandkids) back home in Levin put on Aussie gear when the Aussies play Kiwis on tv because 'koko is over there' (in Australia. You are saying that our next generation of kids born in Aussie should denounce their Kiwi heritage. I doubt whether that will happen Tamou, a Levin boy, never denounced his - he just sold his soul for $30k a game, SOO, so what ??? An internal bum fight between two former Pommy colonies. Ninety per cent of NRL players sit twiddle thumbs while Aussies carry out their sibling rivalry. pathetic really We all have our price. Rangi boy, playing for England. Pommy wife. Not seen as in the frame for the Kiwis. Good on him. The Pom recognise his quality and he is repaying the faith. I don't have a problem with present day structures The islanders went home to represent blood, for nothing but honour and pride in their heritage without expecting a penny. forget about Fenn. he didn't get rich playing for the Kiwis. But Tamou ???????????

Ra, you are obviously a Kiwi and most Kiwis are really genuine, good people. Do you usually "name call" on this forum. Bit childish. When you say " Get off the couch man and go for a walk. Turn the tv off and enough of playing solo games on your own", it just does NOT make any sense. The only people who need to get off the lounge and go for a walk are those enthusiastic individuals who stay up all night to watch "Z" grade Rugby League played by "Junior League Park footy" level players. As you have watched most of the games does that mean you are one of these "enthusiastic individuals". I believe in only spending my valuable time watching Championship level sport no matter what sport it is. As I'm involved in Rugby League it's part of my job to watch the best games. Enough said !!! So, when any of the "Big Three" RL Nations play each other I am watching the game. The others are just making up the numbers. You sound a little agro at the moment. The rest of us are entitled to an opinion, even if you don't like it. Anyway, enjoy the Final of the sham RL World Cup. At least that game will be a cracker. Have a good weekend and throw down a couple of "cold golds". It will do 'ya good :-)

Boom You have completely lost it if you suggest that the Socceroos are somewhat similar to Italian RL... Good God

No, growing the game internationally has to start somewhere.

Because it would be more of a contest and you forgot the t-bag

Ra, I applaud your passion for rugby league, and international rugby league in particular! I have no problem at all with players moving to Australia or England to make money doing what they do best. I know all NZ players play in the NRL but they all genuinely are New Zealanders who were born there, grew up there or lived there for a significant amount of time (not 3 years, Nathan Fien ....) There are just things that annoy me such as Rangi Chase playing for England. Living in a country for 3 years should not entitle you to play for that country. I heard a suggestion from someone re the eligibility rules. It went something like a player who represents one of the big three teams (NZ,AUS,ENG) only ever being able to represent one of those three teams and then, if they have a genuine tie to an emerging nation (eg. born there, parents born there, grew up there) they can choose one and only one emerging nation to represent if they are not playing for their major nation. This of course should only be if they actually have a connection to a nation. I don't think this should extend to grandparents, as I think that is pushing it too far. I have loved the World Cup but sometimes eligibility is so messy it leaves me feeling a bit hollow about it all. I guess as long as players have a genuine connection to their team it is all good. I just want a truly international rugby league so badly that I struggle with it sometimes!

Roarer your aname suits you, I'm roaring with laughter....Argentina have recently been humiliated by NZ, France, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are no hope, gee even Australia have achance of beating Ireland this weekend, that's how weak they are ...Australia...Australia, they haven't got close in recent history. Roarer or dreamer......Australia will not see the Bledisloe cup again whilst the current bunch of no hopers are playing.

I can give an example, Creg, go and research how many test matches have been played recently besides world cup by teams that are 4th and above. Take Fiji for example, its ages they had a test match and league in fiji is stagnant, the interest only comes when the world cup is around, the local league hardly gets coverage.

By calling it a world cup, doesnt mean anything, it does not represent the whole world. Lets be realistic. I dont have a problem with the tournament and neither with the games, its good fun, but lets admit it, the business end of the tournament is the semi-finals, uptil then its all expected, i wouldnt expect a semi-final upset. My whole point is why cant the governing body spread the money around and the related development to smaller countries. Take for example Fiji bati, do you mean know wen they last played a test match besides the world cup...(googling)....in fiji they dont even show the NRL on tv its only paid tv, so how you you expect global following. A good example is look at the stadiums used in england, none of the big stadiums have been used, becuase of the lack of following i know this because i watch EPL all the time for 20 years. I rest my case with the League governing body to do more, than just organise a world cup...by the way i am no hater of league

+1

No Tony, the fact is they qualify and you are a whinging cry baby. Get off the couch man and go for a walk. Turn the tv off and enough of playing solo games on your own. It's not an Olympic sport - live with it !

And we all neded to know this because .............?

Adrian, it is a world cup event. The people involved call it a world cup. The people who support it call it a world cup. The sponsors who back it with multimillions of dollars call it a world cup. The people who care call it a world cup. And when I'm up in the wee hours of the morning watching, the guy on tv calls it a world cup. So you have the problem Adrian. And if you have a problem with Petero's indigenalty and his rights to represent his island home, then brother, you got bigger problems than the rest of us. Just leave your home address here and we'll pass it on for you hahaha !!!!!

Ka pai (Well Done). I was in Wellington last month and even took time out to watch the ITM final. I'm probably in New Zealand every second month for work. I agree with your comment re strong connections of Samoans to their homeland and have no issue with the tie home which can go many generations. FYI, I lived in Petone for a few years and am well aware of the strength of their family ties which is equally shared with the Tongan community as well. I am not picking on Samoans here, just using this particular team as an example of how the authors comment around where people play, chose to live and how they decide to identify with their ethnicity is outdated and irrelevant (as I believe is the IRB's fixed rules around eligibility). As Oikee mentions below, although being a 5th generation Aussie he can equally identify with his whakapapa as being from Yorkshire as I can similarly with connections to Lancashire. As a first generation kiwi myself, living in Australia with strong ties to New Zealand and the UK, I believe the current Rugby Union eligibility rules are too rigid and do not take into account the cultural ties which you mention. At the moment the Wallabies and All Blacks can plunder young pacific island kids at will locking them in while inhibiting their cultural roots and potential future direction. They may speak the language, understand the customs but still have to preform the haka. I do not believe that players should flip flop between countries, but there are very real circumstances which see people having sufficient connections to a second country and a little flexibility should apply. ie why shouldn't Akuila Uate play for Fiji? I do like the Te Iwi Kiwi which from what I understand combines Maori, Tongan, Samoan and Pakeha influences and was developed around the current Kiwi team make up. A good weekend to you and your Whanau.

Meryck, I think back to the 1970s-1980s and the Kiwis teams made up of mostly domestic home-grown boys, labourers, freezing workers, West Coast coal miners going out and taking on the might of Australian & Great Britain's professionals. We had a handful of guys who flew home from England and had to battle with the Aussies to release the handful playing in Sydney and learned a lot about contracts when Cronulla refused to release the best 12 in the world at that time, Kurt Sorenson. For me, the Kiwis in that era was like The Tiger Moths that went out to battle The Bizmark in WWII. We were always on a hiding to nothing. And we at home were always rapt when the boys came home from England and Sydney to bolster our ranks, the visible lift it gave us as a nation. The commentators catch cry of "Sorenson to Leuluai" was as familiar to us back then cricketing call of "caught Coney bowled Hadlee". In both cases, a domestic home boy and one of our professionals combining to take down " the old enemy". The belief amongst Kiwis is that our domestic players are just as good as the Aussies and the Poms, we just need greater access to the professional environments they offered to prove that. Cricketers had the English County Cricket scene to aim for and league turned it's guns on Sydney. Wind forward to today, and our cricketers are still the tiger moth battling the odds and good luck to them. But our rugby league has developed so much that our domestic scene is being raped and pillaged at the nesting stage as NRL clubs circle south Auckland like ole turkey buzzards, and families move "across the ditch" to fill the huge number of job vacancies being advertised there and taking with them our raw league talent. Sadly, the job opportunities are off shore and that's why most Kiwi International of all sports, codes both male and female live most of their young lives in other countries. And we love them heaps when they come home to donn "the black top". That is my argument against who are crying here about numbers of domestic players and where people are born etc. We are a migratory people the human race. And we migrate for good reasons. Some of us living in other people's countries today, still have our ancestoral home countries deep in our hearts, even generations later. And today, we along with the Aussies and Poms have helped our Pacific Island nations to build their international footprint, and are giving them and those minnow nations an opportunity in this RLWC to taste what we did when our professional players came home to represent us at Carlaw Park in the 1970-80 era. It's a great feeling ! Well done international rugby league, well done RLWC !!!!

The difference. When was the last time you were in New Zealand? Do you know the culture, the people the language. If i were to say kapai would you understand? The Samoan players involved in Rugby in Samoa might have been born in New Zealand but they retain a strong connection to their roots, they speak the language and understand the customs, they visit the island of those roots often but more importantly in Rugby once they have made the decision to play for Samoa they stick by that decision. There is no going back