Week 3 of the 2022 RLWC is now done and dusted, leaving just eight of the 16 competing teams to advance to the next stage. On the way through there has been no shortage of one-sided results.
Week 1 saw England towel up Samoa 60-6. Australia defeated Fiji 42-8 even without Nathan Cleary. Ireland romped home 48-2 against World Cup debutants in Jamaica.
In Week 2 Australia, this time with Nathan Cleary, kicked off proceedings with an 84-0 ‘opposed’ training run against Scotland. Fiji bounced back to destroy Italy 60-4, NZ gave Jamaica a 68-6 hiding and Samoa woke from their apparent slumber to wipe out Greece to the tune of 72-4.
Come Week 3 and blowout results became the norm, as the top eight ranked teams all found themselves playing against the bottom eight, with only the Fiji-Scotland game not resembling a cricket score. NZ defeated Ireland 48-10, England nearly brought up their century to send Greece packing by 94-4 amd Australia defeated Italy 66-6 without ever hitting top gear.
Lebanon thrashed a by now disinterested Jamaica 74-12, with veteran winger Josh Mansour notching his first career try treble. Tonga lit up Middlesborough’s Riverside Stadium when they defeated the Cook Islands 92-10. PNG defeated Wales 36-0.
These blowouts have been great fodder for rugby league haters, doom merchants and the RLWC naysayers alike who point to the lopsided results to support their feeble arguments about the irrelevance of the RLWC and the looming death of rugby league generally. However, I’m confident that no-one beyond their few equally dim followers is listening to them, as anyone capable of googling can tell you that blowouts are nothing new to either the RLWC or the game in general. They matter not a jot, and the game still both survives and thrives.
To illustrate, let’s have a look at some historical RLWC blowouts.
(Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
1970: the first RLWC blowout, where Australia, the eventual champions, defeated New Zealand 47-11. Australia had a pretty formidable side that day, with players like Bob Fulton, Billy Smith and Eric Simms together with virtually the entire South Sydney premiership-winning pack, while NZ was made up of a team of no-name players who were basically amateurs.
1975: England flogged France 48-2 at Bordeaux after running in 12 tries. Fortunately for France, the English goal kickers missed six conversions.
1988: Australia destroyed World Cup newcomers PNG at Wagga 70-8, with Michael O’Connor running in four tries and kicking seven goals from 14 attempts.
1992: New Zealand defeated a largely unknown PNG side 66-10.
2000: Australia prove that Russia were way out of their depth, defeating them 110-4.
Not surprisingly, it’s usually the the lower ranked teams, often made up of either amateur or semi-professional players, that find themselves on the wrong side of a lopsided score line, because once a good side gains the upper hand and has momentum, it can be very difficult to turn the tide against them. This is particularly so under the six again rule.
But even the best World Cup teams can be murdered in a game, as England found out the hard way in 2008. Australia, led by a rampant Billy Slater and Greg Inglis, put the visitors to the sword to the tune of 52-4 in Melbourne. No-one saw that coming.
Blowout score lines are certainly not just confined to the RLWC though. They can occur in even the strongest competitions. Take State of Origin,for example. It’s one of the most evenly contested sporting struggles of the modern era, with barely a struck match between New South Wales and Queensland after some 43 years.
Wally Lewis led Queensland to a 36-6 victory in Game 1 of the 1989 series; NSW dismantled the Maroons to the tune of 56-16 in Game 3 of their whitewash in 2000; and Queensland returned the favour in Game 3 of 2015 when they romped in 52-6. Blowouts occurred, the rivalry remains and the competition is as strong as ever.
Even in the NRL, the premier competition in the world, we regularly see one team totally dominate another, and that applies to grand finals just as it does to regular club games. St George fans will still be trying to forget their 38-0 grand final loss to the Roosters in 1975. The Roosters did it again in 2002 when they defeated the Warriors 30-8; while some Manly fans will still be celebrating their 40-0 thrashing of the Storm in the 2008 decider.
The RLWC is here to stay, and whether we like it or not, there will always be some one-sided results, just like there always has been in the sport of rugby league.
andyfnq
Roar Rookie
Whoever gets a NRL game does all right, but what NRL fan wants to see a second tier competition like Super League live when you could have NRL games instead?
andyfnq
Roar Rookie
RLWC IS irrelevant and massive waste of the NRL's time, money and effort. It is certainly not the reason the game "survives and thrives". It does NOTHING to grow the game, as evidenced by the massive number of players who are first generation Australians. If anything, it gives a false sense of international growth and relevance. We would all be better off without it and instead concentrate our efforts on growing the game domestically in the more difficult AFL state markets, along with PNG and NZ. If you think otherwise, you have been sucked in by the warm glow of thinking that RL is relevant internationally. It isn't, and there's nothing wrong with that.
Dionysus
Guest
" i haven’t watched more than 10 minutes of the entire thing." Then you have missed some wonderful moments. Teams like Greece knew before they got on the plane that they were going to get flogged yet they came for that one moment something came off and they got a score. The fans went beserk at that point as well getting more pleasure out of that one move than a larger nation racking up a score. The England game yesterday was a sell out and a record attendance for a quarter final in the UK.
Tony
Roar Guru
No doubt, and as you say, most of the games have seen both sides giving it their best for the whole 80 minutes
chris
Guest
In league, losing by 40 points whilst a heavy defeat, is not really a blowout. It's similar to a 3-0 defeat in football. Most nations have been somewhat competitive. I've actually been impressed by teams like Jamaica. They never stopped trying and did some good things against NZL. The gulf in class between the top 3 teams and the rest is huge though.
JennyFromPenny
Guest
The, very, last, Northern Eagles game. Round 26, 2002. Panthers 68 - 28 Eagles, at Brookvale. Score 28 points in front of the home crowd and still get smashed by 40 by the 12th placed Penrith. Eagles finish 9th, and any win would have had them finishing 7th. Just can't get any more painful than that.
JennyFromPenny
Guest
Trust me, 70+ from a Panthers side hurt more.
Tim Buck 3
Roar Rookie
That would be 60 - 10 when tries were three points.
JennyFromPenny
Guest
Encouragement awards is one thing, but 8 teams already qualify for the next World Cup. How many tiers below this do you envisage ? Would a country winning the tier 2 tournament only qualify for the tier 1 tournament four years on? Or same year? How many games would you ask the non-backed, part-time players in tier 2 to dedicate ? Sounds a fair bit pie in the sky.
Andrew01
Roar Rookie
But not their biggest, or most painful loss. Losing by more (68-6) the following year to Cronulla in the last couple of weeks of the season basically meant they finished 8th and the Sharks finished 7th. Which meant Manly went and played one of their foes, the Eels, in the first week of the finals and were humiliated again.
Tez
Roar Rookie
I know all that but qualifying tournaments do not rule out a Tier 2 RLWC with the double prize of winning it and promotion to the Tier 1
Dionysus
Guest
Exactly, In one model that the professor showed us (for soccor I think it was), he had isolated different elements of skill such as fitness, training, prior injuries etc and even did it down to player position. I think that some of the relevance at this level started to become lost as rogue elements (ref decisions, weather, a player playing with a cold etc) would start to skew results particularly over the short term. However his modelling was pretty good at predicting outcomes over larger volumes of data. One of the surprising things was that his model tended to suggest that the most important position on a soccor field is in fact the goal keeper. I would love to see him tackle RL
JennyFromPenny
Guest
Times up. 2004 , Panthers 72 - 12
Forty Twenty
Roar Rookie
2013 GF wasn't much fun. Hayne was ripped off for the Clive Churchill.
JennyFromPenny
Guest
Most points conceded in a game for Penrith was the game mentioned above. What was Manly's ?
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Most points or most painful? Manly has a few: Their loss in the 95 grand final on the 7th tackle (record for the most number of tackles in a 6 tackle set) And their loss in the 97 grand final equalled the biggest choke in a grand final in the 90s (see: St George) The whole Northern Eagles dynasty Tom Turbo/Nik Kosef injury run Trent Barrett's time as head coach
Choppy Zezers
Roar Rookie
Good point. And St George won 11 straight premierships.
JennyFromPenny
Guest
Tez, There's already qualifying rounds for the world cup which is your promotion. Jamaica, for example, wasn't hand picked for novelty value. They won through from the Americas mini tournament in 2018 over USA, Canada, and Chile. Likewise Italy and Greece won through over other European teams Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Spain, and Serbia. Note they ask the minnows to go through this qualifying process, which is not required by either the current host, nor permanently Australia, NZ, and England, nor the previous cup's top 8. Pretty tough to win through qualifying in the years leading up, then get flogged in the cup itself, and then have scribes from all parts of the Earth, admonish you for being there.
JennyFromPenny
Guest
Yes, for sure, most minnows would probably much rather a 30 second break while the other team kicks for touch. Considerably easier for them though ? I have a feeling the 6 again rule is getting blamed for the blowout scorelines a bit more than it should.
Tez
Roar Rookie
Yeah ..... so how about a Tier 1 and Tier 2 RLWCs with promotion and relegation?