- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
With the Kangaroos seemingly marching confidently towards their 12th World Cup triumph, the question of whether another Australian title does anything at all for rugby league globally is a fair one.
Despite expanding the tournament to 16 teams for the first time since 2000 and a pervading narrative that consistently speaks of international expansion and the impending victory of a Pacific nation, Australia are now short-priced favourites to win the silverware.
Even though the Kangaroos are nominally the fourth-ranked team on the international stage, their performances in the UK have them now bedded in at $1.45 with PlayUp to lift the trophy in around three weeks’ time, with New Zealand looming as their only serious threat at $5.00 and England very much an outsider at $8.00.
The opening ten days of play have been far from boring, yet they’ve been potentially more skewed than many had hoped in terms of points. Just one match has been seriously competitive. Aside from Wales’ clash with the Cook Islands on 20 October, tipping winners has been automatic, with Tonga’s poor display against Papua New Guinea and the subsequently close score line something of an anomaly.
It was pleasing to see Tonga bounce back somewhat against the Welsh in their second match, yet along with Samoa, they have been the disappointments of the tournament thus far. Considering the important role they both play in challenging the top three nations, with a continuation of their international improvement hopefully seeing one of them claim the trophy in the short to medium term, what they have dished up thus far has been mediocre.
England’s demolition of Samoa by 54 points was humbling for them and simply unthinkable heading into the tournament, Tonga then stumbled badly against Papua New Guinea before scraping across the line. When Samoa put 72 on the gallant Greeks, one could only have imaged how many the Kiwis or Kangaroos would have racked up, and it reminded everyone of the vast gap between the elite and those pleased just to be participants.
(Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images for RLWC)
When Tonga struggled to kill off the Welsh challenge on Tuesday morning, it had become abundantly clear that there still appears to be daylight between the Australians and the two countries seen as the lightning rods for global rugby league expansion and participation; the great Pacific hopes of many fans who believe that new contenders and winners are the best way to see the game evolve and grow.
Sadly, that will not be happening in 2022, with the Kangaroos and Kiwis on a crash course to meet in a semi-final on 11 November in Leeds that will, in all probability, decide the champion.
Tonga and Samoa will belt the heck out of each other in their quarter-final, only for the winner to be outclassed by the English on 12 November. With the home side almost certain to go through to the final and the Australians waiting to recommence hostilities, the sense of deja vu escapes no one.
The fact that the predicted path through to the 19 November final in Manchester is so clear, predictable and historically familiar cannot be a good thing for rugby league as a whole. After the promise of the 2017 tournament where Tonga excelled and Fiji shared third place with them, many believed that things were finally to be very different, that a new level of competitiveness in international rugby league was about to be born.
If that were the case, we as fans would be the greatest beneficiaries, yet instead the Kangaroos will likely outlast the English in yet another World Cup final.
It is certainly no fault of those at the top of the pile, no fault of anyone actually, yet as a limited game in an increasingly competitive global market, maintaining the prestige of World Cup play requires evolution, new challengers and a freshness that international rugby league has historically been unable to deliver.
The situation would only be exacerbated by calls to ban Australian players from representing the nation of their heritage, and one can only imagine the appalling ratings and level of engagement achieved had those cynical voices been heard.
The fact they have not been clearly shows that those in governance fully appreciate the farce a World Cup without the current eligibility rules would become.
Thankfully the 2022 World Cup is far from farce and will hopefully feature some decent quarter-finals and, who knows, maybe a shock result somewhere along the line. However, it does look like a looming coronation for the Kangaroos, and after their winning of all bar one World Cup since 1972, one wonders just how long it will be before we see real change in the international game.