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One of the major controversies with this most recent RLWC has been the eligibility of players to play for multiple nations, being able to switch national allegiances fairly easily.
Some say that this decries from the validity of the tournament as truly international (those people who always paraphrase the ‘world’ in Rugby League World Cup) seeing as every team has drawn players from one competition, the NRL.
Unlike the majority of other sports with ‘world cups’ which forbid such a practice, or at least put heavily obstructive legislation which takes years to fulfil (such as minimum continuous residency requirements), the RLIF has remained very lax on the issue for a variety of reasons.
The most prominent and unique of these is State of Origin. Considered the pinnacle of the sport and arguably the biggest annual event on the rugby league calendar, State of Origin influences the entirety of the sport and its competitions.
In particular its requirement for all participants to dedicate themselves to Australian rugby league has proved destructive and disruptive.
This devastates the rosters of minnow nations (considering English and New Zealand players are ineligible) and gives ARL a considerable talent pool to select from.
The RLIF recognised this and made the process of switching national allegiances fairly easy and simple for those seeking to make themselves available for Origin (switching to Australia) and those who wish to support a minnow nation.
This seemed like a reasonable solution, however this freedom has led to mixed results.
It has led to the increased competitiveness of minnow nations through stars like Petero Civoniceva and Akuila Uate being able to both represent their state and nation.
The standards of play have been rising dramatically from World Cup to World Cup from returning teams, with a much larger talent pool to potentially fish from.
However these changes have also facilitated a greater ease for representatives of minnow nations to align themselves to Australia in particular.
Players like Robbie Farah and James Tamou originally represented other nations (Lebanon and New Zealand maori respectively) but after pledging themselves to Australia to play for NSW they then went on the represent the Australian national side.
These SOO laws are set by the ARL, and, funnily enough, in the long run are very beneficial for Australian rugby league to the detriment of practically every other nation.
With the examples of Robbie Farah and James Tamou its clear that both minnows and majors are drained by the lure of SOO. What a coincidence, eh?
Before international eligibility can be tightened, SOO eligibility must be loosened.
Some may chuckle considering the already ‘lax’ approach to eligibility that currently exists (cough cough GI cough cough James McManus).
However the requirement that all participants be aligned to Australian rugby league is excessive considering the pre-existing requirements that one originally resided from a place.
The series is called State of Origin, it’s not about your current home or occupation , but rather where you came from. Your roots.
This is probably the most threatening condition to the growth of international rugby league.
Of course there are other causes for concern, such as a barren international roster with minnows rarely engaged and therefore not needing to actively search out talent.
The laxness of the current eligibility rules is also a considerable detriment, as with the rules as they are its a lottery draw to see which players who played for you last World Cup will dedicate themselves to you again or pledge themselves to higher calling.
However the first step to addressing any of these problems, is to de-nationalise SOO.
With SOO de-nationalised, contests between smaller nations can take place more frequently as their rosters will be stabilised due to the more clarified eligibility criteria.
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