Quote ="gutterfax"As con tricks go, they're pretty damn good. Do they use that Dynamo fella to make it look like they play internationals in full stadiums? Of the 8 Squads of the Quarter-finalists at RWC 2011, 96% of the players represented the country of their birth.
I honestly believe that The RLWC is flawed...it should be a Tri-Nations comp, with the second tier nations playing in a separate competition featuring development squads from the big 3 (certain number of age restrictions). Slowly, you will see the development of counties such as Italy, USA etc becoming more competitive.
Samoa v Tonga earlier this year was a great game, but would have done little for the development of the sport in those countries because 29 of the 34 players on show were Australian.
Still, I reckon Fiji will make the semi finals....they only need to win 2 games to make it.....the 2nd placed team out of group B will have had 3 very hard hit outs...all Fiji need to do is beat Ireland....they will then meet Australia in the semi-final....let's hope for better than 52-0 this time around.'"
Australia and especially New Zealand have very large PI populations and a lot of these people would consider themselves to be both Aussies/Kiwis and Pacific Islanders. The vast majority of the players who represented Samoa and Tonga in the recent test match would have had at least one of their parents born in either of those islands. I hardly think that the Samoans and Tongans watching that game at home will have been less enthusiastic in their support for their respective teams because most of the players weren't born there.
