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The pool matches of the Rugby League World Cup concluded on Monday night. France, ranked fourth in the world, went down 22-6 to the Samoans, ranked eighth.
It, like the majority of the matches so far, was a hard-fought and close game, where either team looked likely to win until the final stages.
But an issue that must concern the Rugby League International Federation is not the closeness of the matches, but the identities of the winners.
The teams which had seemed most likely to challenge rugby league’s big three have all had sub-par showings in the 2013 Cup.
Fourth-ranked France won one match, a one-point victory over sixth-ranked Papua New Guinea. PNG, along with fifth-ranked Wales, won nothing.
This, other than the need to rearrange their ranking system, must be a concern for the RILF.
On the other hand, Scotland (ranked 11th), the USA (12th) and Italy (13th) have been the surprise packets of the Cup.
The Scots are unbeaten, and the USA have lost only once – to Scotland. Italy have one win, one draw and one loss.
Yes, I know the draw is not equal and is engineered to allow for such results and everyone doesn’t play everyone… etcetera, etcetera, but bear with me.
In recent times, considerable effort has been made to develop the game in France, Wales and PNG. Before the Cup, it looked like it was working.
The game was said to be growing in France and Wales. PNG have a team admitted to the Queensland Cup in 2014.
Looking through the squads of each side, most play in their home countries and very few have qualified on heritage grounds.
However, a couple of groups of fringe NRL and Super League players knocking off the French, the Welsh and the Kumuls can’t be the preferred outcome of the RILF, especially after the work that has been put into these nations in recent years.
The eligibility rules for the 2013 World Cup, of which I am a fan, allow for a lot more top quality players to take the field when they may have otherwise been watching it from home.
This is a good thing.
But when France, a team with all but two members who live and play in France each week (mostly for the same Super League side), can be trumped by a cobbled-together Samoan side it shows there is still a lot of work to do.
Is this more Rugby League World Cup bashing? Hardly.
Overall, the tournament has been and will continue to be a success. The amount of debate it has generated alone, not to mention the quality of the football and the money earned, is good for the international game.
The crowds of the semis and final are expected to be 70,000-plus and are heading towards sell-outs.
It is the first tournament in a long time which could realistically be won by one of three countries. This brings excitement to the World Cup.
The performances of the ‘minnows’, the USA and Italy in particular, will have positive impacts for the growth of the game domestically. This is the point of the World Cup.
From the 1950s to the early 1970s, the Rugby League World Cup had only four participants. Now, all of the 14 participating countries have established domestic leagues.
Hopefully the 2013 edition is an example of a code in transition, to a time when established leagues in several nations provide players for the game’s showpiece event.
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