A Rugby League World Cup solution

It seems the Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) has created an industry for its naysayers and those who simply dislike the sport.

On sports sites like The Roar rugby league fans who avidly support the international side of rugby league are quite often targeted as though they had something to do with the make up/ failings of the RLWC, and are ostracised for just getting on with watching and loving the tournament.

The answer to those accusations? There isn’t, in that we are not responsible for the organisation of the tournament. However, like every other sport’s fan who has a passion about their particular code, a right to give an opinion, without the disingenuous chirping of the code’s haters, should be a must.

So I offer this potential solution to that vexed question of the heritage rule to my fellow Roarers who actually have an interest in international rugby league. As for you others, I don’t really think you’re in it to care.

Therefore bear with me as it’s not a complex solution. We all know international rugby league is not a rich or well-funded beast at most times and already a potential roadblock to what I will suggest comes to the fore-finance.

My focus on improving the RLWC focuses on the ‘heritage rule’ which attracted a lot of criticism and I want to negate as much scorn on future RLWCs as I can. The issue with heritage and the RLWC is that there are very few competitive nations in rugby league without this rule. I cannot see that changing for a while yet, potentially decades, given the late development and surge for the sport around the world.

In the group stages of the RLWC we saw quite a few blowout scorelines, mostly by those nations heavily favoured by the heritage rule against those who went down the admirable but ultimately non competitive domestic player route. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Now how can we solve this issue, why is finance brought into the equation, and what am I suggesting? I mention finance because my solution potentially entails increasing the squad numbers of the RLWC. I think RLWC2021 in England is actually a perfect launching pad for my idea given it will be relatively easier for travel logistics than say Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

(NRLPhotos/Robb Cox)

Say we have a group in the tournament involving Australia, Serbia, Tonga and Fiji. Already we know Serbia are basically sacrificial lambs and it will be between Fiji and Tonga to see who advances with Australia to the quarter finals.

Admirably for our sport, Serbia has a few heritage players to call upon in the multicultural world of Australian rugby league but not enough to overcome their three opponents. Therefore my solution is, that bar a miracle against Australia because the Kangaroos suffer not from a heritage rule and possess the strongest domestic line up in the world, the scoreline might be a tad high in the Kangaroos favour.

Instead of this being repeated two times over against Fiji and Tonga, those two countries must include a minimum eight domestic players (we’ll call this the ‘domestic rule’) in an extended squad that is also strong enough with heritage players.

Therefore when Serbia play Fiji and Tonga in group games, the ‘domestic rule’ comes into play for their game day squad of 17, hopefully making these games more competitive. Imagine if Fiji had eight domestic players in their game against the USA in RLWC2017? The score line may not have been so high, even a 36-16 scoreline would look more respectable – and hence ‘legitimate’.

Now when Fiji and Tonga play Australia, the ‘heritage’ rule could come into play and even when they play each other, given both nations are most likely to have similar heritage player strength, the best teams could take the field. This rule could be repeated even for the quarter and semi-finals, say if Serbia by a miracle made second spot and played Samoa in the quarter finals, for example.

Again it is just pot luck if they draw New Zealand or England in the quarters but at least a potential solution to a blowout scoreline could be in place if they did advance say against Samoa. It might be another 30-12 scoreline but much better than 50-nil.

With 16 nations competing in RLWC2021, there is potential for more than one minnow nation making the quarters under this rule and perhaps not even with this potential solution in place based on a draw as opposed to a manipulated grouping. Therefore it is imperative for the legitimacy of the tournament that nations which cannot call on large numbers of heritage players, can compete without both arms tied behind their backs.

Increasing the number of domestic players in the tournament potentially spurs growth of the sport back in those respective countries.

The RLWC organisers would have to come up with extra finance to extend squad numbers and local host country rugby league organisations could arrange ‘friendlies’ so an extended squad could gain match fitness. A question may be asked “But how is a team supposed to get any cohesion if they have to chop and change their starting 17 depending on the status of their opponents?” As with finance, this is another potential problem whereby ‘heritage’ and ‘domestic’ players, depending on the luck of the draw, could have an extended rest on the sidelines.

Hence, solutions can create new issues and the question is, which one is better or is there a solution to a question aforementioned.

All I know is it will take decades potentially for the many new nations now playing RL to catch up to Australia/NZ/England let alone Tonga, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.

There are fans of the heritage rule who say, perhaps rightly, when we saw the effort of Tonga and Fiji recently, that it creates a different and unique sort of world cup for a sport. But it appears there are more detractors and potential new fans in the many new RL nations who might disagree.