Never mind the blowouts: Why Australia must do more to make future World Cups better

ROCHDALE – There’s few things in rugby league more tedious than blowout chat. It’s right up there with NSW’s neverending stadium funding psychodrama in the pantheon of piffle that never, ever goes away.

The second round of the World Cup men’s tournament has been a banner week for blowout chat, with Australia, New Zealand and Samoa all racking up big scores against overmatched opposition.

It was enough to bring back calls for a smaller tournament to remove the potential of one-sided fixtures in the early stages.

One prominent columnist – I’ll save you the click, but run through who you think it might be in your head and you’ll come close – suggested eight was the optimum number.

(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images for RLWC)

As the columnist in question is based in Australia, it wasn’t surprising that the eight were six Southern Hemisphere nations, England and one other qualifier.

My first reaction was to suggest that if Australians wanted to watch a tournament made up of Australia-based talent, they should organise some sort of national rugby league competition for themselves and New Zealand.

Even better, the Australians themselves could deign to play the other nations in the Pacific – they can even call it the Pacific Cup – as has long been wanted by those same, non-Australian nations. Then, they could play a World Cup with the rest of the world included too.

I say this because, since 2000, Australia has lowered itself to play other Pacific nations precisely five times when not forced to by the International Rugby League and World Cup scheduling.

That’s Tonga twice, both since the 2017 World Cup made them politically viable, then PNG and Samoa, once each in Four Nations clashes designed to give one of the Big Three something to do on a weekend off, plus another game in PNG way back in 2001. They’ve never played Fiji outside of the World Cup.

It’s an interesting way to think about blowouts, because if you never play anyone, they don’t get better.

One wonders where the reductionist mentality might have taken us in 2000, the last time the World Cup had 16 teams.

Then, Australia won 66-8 against Fiji, who went on to make three consecutive semi-finals. In another group, New Zealand beat Lebanon, now gunning for their second appearance in consecutive knockout stages, 64-0 and a year before, the Kiwis recorded their record win, 74-0 against Tonga. Wonder what ever happened to them?

Oh, and since we’re on the subject: Samoa lost 60-6 just a week ago against England. Maybe they, with all their premiership-winning players, should be kicked out of the World Cup too. They’re lowering the standard, clearly.

The point is that teams like Greece and Jamaica, who copped some of the batterings this time, are in the position that Lebanon, Tonga and Fiji were in 2000.

We think of Fiji as a powerhouse, but in 2000, they had three players from the NRL and one from Super League. The game had only been played for the first time on the islands just eight years before. Now, their entire team is professional.

Jamaica are an interesting cognate. Anyone who has seen the Olympics will know that they can punch well above their weight in sporting circles, but have limited exposure to rugby league.

The game there is a decade old and the potential for growth that comes from playing at the World Cup is huge, both in terms of exposure at home and among diaspora communities in the UK. Their cohort of domestic players prove that the pathways are there.

The story of rugby league in Greece, which was legalised mere months ago after a prolonged legal dispute, is now widely known and the route from clandestine training to a literal World Cup is established.

That’s the emotional reason why these blowouts matter. But it’s not the main reason: the main reason is cash. The IRL derives income from two major sources: the World Cup, with associated ticket sales, commercial partnerships and broadcast deals, and a levy on international games.

If you play a Test match, there is a levy on the gate of 10% that goes to IRL (above a minimum threshold), which pays for the sanctioning of the match – match officials, for example – with the rest going to fund rugby league development around the world.

In that sense, Australia playing more games against Samoa and Tonga would, inadvertently, actually deliver much-needed funds to Greece and Jamaica through the IRL’s redistribution, while also making Tonga and Samoa better.

Contrary to recent news stories, the IRL doesn’t spend their cash on luxurious conferences, they spend it on balls, refs and infrastructure for nations that can’t fund themselves.

Moreover, they have been spending a fifth year’s worth of budget due to the delayed World Cup and a year without major internationals. It’s a lean operation to say the least.

Speaking as someone who was once a player in the Dutch domestic comp, these two things matter massively.

(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images for RLWC)

Firstly, our domestic game was administered, played and reffed totally by amateur enthusiasts, but when the Netherlands team played in tournaments, they could apply for a grant to help them with logistics. That money came from European Rugby League (ERL), but they got it out of their IRL distribution.

Secondly, the pathway is vital. Grigoris Koutsimpogiorgos, who made the squad for Greece, played in the Dutch comp for Rotterdam, taking the train up from his workplace in Brussels to keep active ahead of the World Cup.

The Titans qualified for this tournament by beating Ukraine and Malta in a group phase, then Norway, then came second in a three-team group with Scotland and Serbia.

Stefanos Bastos and Nikolaos Bosmos, who played on Sunday against a team of NRL champions, also featured in front of 700 people in Kharkiv in their first qualifier in September 2018, on the IRL’s dime, which they have because big nations like Australia sold tickets for their games. That’s how it works.

(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

In the 2042 World Cup, the hope will be that Greece and Jamaica are like Fiji, a team of guys from the domestic scene and heritage players, or Lebanon, where rugby league literally did not exist until Hazem El Masri et al made it exist in 2000.

If you were a Super League club, you could do worse than scouting in Kingston and Athens in search of the kids just being born who will be in that side. The athletic talent is there and the pathway now exists.

If you are an Australian viewer annoyed about blowouts in the World Cup, you’d do well to buy a ticket next time the Kangaroos rock up Brisbane or Sydney, because you’re paying for Greeks and Jamaicans to play the game too, not to mention teams that are yet to qualify.

Oh, and if you’re an Australian administrator: maybe put a few games on that people could buy tickets to see. You never know, you might enjoy it.