If it's such a good thing roopy then why have the Kangaroos never played a PI All Stars team? Oh wait, let's try and palm it off on the Poms first and see what happens. This proposal (and that's ALL it is) is a way of saying to the likes of Hayne and Civonaceva that they can represent their PI roots but they don't have to relinquish any allegiance to SoO or Australia. They can have their cake and eat it.

So it will strengthen international RL to allow the 3 competive sides to cherry pick all the other countries' best players?




As soon as that happens the competiveness of the match will fall through the floor and the Aussie public simply won't turn up (especially in Sydney). It's obvious.

That's what happens now - or rather the top teams don't have to cherry pick because the top players knock on their doors (for the money).

As Einstien said, 'madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results'.

This is an attempt to do something differently. I think it will work, but even if it doesn't, we'll at least have stopped whineing about the problem and tried to solve it.

If there was a simple, easy and legal way to do this - we would have already done it. All the talk of making players play for the teams we wish them to play for despite them losing money will not fly because they have the legal right to earn as much as they can, and their managers would have us in court in a second.

People have been dribbling on about this problem for 10 years at least. This is the first practical attempt to do something about it.

What does this do for the game in the Pacific? Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Publicity? Revenue? Stage for young or so far undiscovered players?

I'm guessing you've either misread nadera's post or horribly misunderstood the idea.

I read an interview with Aku Uate's father just after he changed to Australia, and he made the point that Aku would actually be more of a role model and hero in Fiji if he played for Australia than if he continued with Fiji, because that is bigtime, and playing for Fiji isn't.
What this concept does for League in the Islands is makes it possible to be bigtime AND play for a PI brand.
If this team can knock over any of the big three, the people in the Pacific aren't fools, they will know it's a big deal.

So a Fijian international becoming a top NRL player isn't as big as a former Fijian international who has now severed his links with Fiji to possibly play for another nation? His dad would say that wouldn't he? Surely a genuine Fijian making it big in Australia is bigger than one who dumps Fiji at the first opportunity. By your reasoning there's no pride in playing for YOUR country unless you can make good money from it. I'm glad not many of the African footballers who play in the EPL think like you.



If I was a PIslander and I saw the proposed team (full of Aussies with PI heritage) beat one of the big three then I'd like to think I could see it for what it was i.e a team with tenuous links to the actual PIs other than place of birth and ancestry (well that's what the Aussies argue when they defend Australia selecting PI players who grew up in Australia).

There isn't a court in the world that will tell a sport's governing body who to choose for a squad. Players can knock on the door as loudly as they want. The ARL/NRL/NSWRL/QRL DO NOT have to select them. Does your logic mean that any player plying his trade in the EPL and who hasn't been capped has the right to demand to be chosen for England because he can make more money playing for them? Crazy.

You could go to gaol for excluding Islanders because they are Islanders here.

If they meet the criteria and want to be selected, they must be considered on the same basis as everyone else.

But you don't HAVE to select anyone. Remember the SL war in Australia when the ARL decided not to select any player who was aligned with SL. Just because Uate wants to play SoO isn't a reason to select him for NSW. Australia, New Zealand and England need to start doing what's right for rugby league not what's right for them and stop either picking players who have already played for another nation or stop trying to entice other nations' players with the carrot of SoO. If this means dual qualified players opt for the big three then so be it but at least other nations will know that the players at their disposal are committed to the cause and not some mercenary who renounces his roots for a quick buck.

If the governing body of a sport decides that playing for one country means you are locked in for them permanently then no court in the world would overrule that. To suggest otherwise is a nonsense.

This PI team is not there to represent the PI and PI Rugby League. It is there to represent Australians and NZers with PI ancestry. There is a huge difference.

Maybe I have misunderstood the idea, but that's still no reason to do your best starbug impersonation.
As I have always stated, for me players should be tied to one country and this rule should be enforced by the RLIF. However, the sport's international governing body is toothless and is dictated to by the ARL/NRL.
If managed correctly and if the rule which I have mentioned was fully and rigidly implemented, then I think a PI side could and most probably would bring publicity, player recognition and revenue to rugby league in the Pacific.
I wouldn't want to see any Pacific Islands side replace the individual nations (Tonga, Cook Islands etc), rather act as a rugby league version of the British Lions rugby union side.

A court would overrule any unfair practice that stops someone earning a living.
The reason we don't have restrictive rules is because they wouldn't hold up in court.
It's not about what our sport decides, it's about accepted practice in sports, and there are a million examples of people changing nationalities in every sport from ping pong to bull fighting, and everything in between.
By saying 'we don't have to pick them' implies our game officials would illegally conspire to descriminate against people to limit their potential to earn a living. Good luck finding someone who wants to be that guy.

This isn't about proposing a combined PI side to play internationally in that way. It's about the ARL making up a joke 'Pacific All-Stars' exhibition side full of players who already play for Australia and NZ, with the intention of allowing these players to represent their Islander heritage in a meaningless exhibition game and thus discouraging them from committing to the Island nations for proper tests. The merits of a PI side like you suggested aren't really anything to do with this, I personally don't see any merit in that idea but it's a discussion for another thread.

Absolute Bull Shit!

FIFA do not allow soccer players to switch nations one year to the next. Why has no-one taken them to court? Once you play soccer for a country then you are locked in to them. They use grandparent rules, etc, and it only counts once you play a competitive senior game. But once you pull on that shirt you're set for life.

You're just making this nonsense up as you go along. Are you Colin Love?

Soccer have a process that is fair to all.
We let one guy change, so we have to let everyone change.
The reason the RLIF always backs down before it gets to court is because they would lose, not because they are gutless, because they have the brains to not fight a battle they won't win and will cost them loads.

You already have roopy. It was whoever chaired the selection committee that chose the 1995 Australian WC squad.

this game won't happen.....

this team is PURELY designed so players won't have to choose between playing for a island nations and state of origin...those very words came out of the mouth of the NRL media manager

spot on, i wish the people who ran the game thought of the bigger picture! you might have to change your name soon pom, not too sure about the deluded part anymore!

Thanks hutch. I think

Just to clarify here, you think the RLIF cannot announce that from 2012 onwards they will use a 'one nation for life' policy because they used a different policy in the past? So no-one can ever make a new rule about representative qualifications, or in any other area?

Utter nonsense! I am so glad you aren't my lawyer.

You can keep whineing and calling everyone in positions of power idiots for the rest of your life i suppose, or you could take a moment to think about it, and realise if it were all as simple as you think it is, it would have happened 10 years ago.

Maybe they will be able to get a set of rules in place similar to soccer some day, but it won't be done at the stroke of a pen because you want it to happen. It will have to take account of all the precedents they have made over the years because the only way three quarters of our teams exist is because they have been allowed to bend any rule at any time - and if you now want to stop one player using the same rules as another player, he will kill you in court (assuming you are stupid enough to waste money going there).

Again, if the world were as simple as you think it is, they would already be doing it.

So you are saying that they cannot introduce new rules?

Nonsense. How do you think other sports manage to do it then? FIFA changed their requirements just a year or so ago, so that if a player went to school in a country that he has no birth/ancestral/residential links to then he can qualify to play for them. How did they manage that if it's not possible to ever change the rules? Or does this threat of legal action only apply to RL and no other sport?

The real reason changes have not been made is that whenever the RFL have tried to do something about it the ARL and NZRL block them. And that comes directly from Richard Lewis himself.

You're the one making things simplistic. You are assuming that player B is being stopped from playing for a team but he'll take you to court because player A did it previously under the same circumstances but prior to a rule change. That's rubbish. As long as ALL players are governed by the same rule change then what comeback does player B have? You might as well say that the rules will NEVER change because there will always be a precedent somewhere down the line. We may as well do away with the RLIF (not a bad idea) because they are not allowed to make any new rules according to you.