Isnt the ANZAC test in NZ next year?
I could be completely dreaming but im sure that was mentioned...

If we had Great Britain, Pacific Islands, Ireland and France at the Level of Australia/New Zealand, we would be the greatest international sport in the world. Every game would be stunning, even (I dare say it) as good as the Wales/South Africa yawnion game today - which I thought was excellent, but what struck me was the packed house it was played in. If we could get there across the board - we'd have made it.

Yeah Christchurch(ChCh)

Someone must have paid attention to those Anzac ambush comments over the last few years.

great

good to see the quad nations and world cup champs belt the aussies at home

Maybe it's time to get the International eligibility laws straight now. Australia had three players in their squad and England had one who could have benefitted smaller nations more than they did the bigger nations. This is the way RL has to go to improve. The long term gains of Fiji having role models like Civonaceva and Tuquiri far outway the benefits to the Aussie team. They should be encouraged as ambassadors for their country, rather than poached by the bigger nations.

34k at the home of RL. Some serious work needs to be done to raise the profile of Int RL here.

wed have gotten more in sydney

20,000 average over 7 games.......final between the 2 best sides in the world gets 37,000 (71% capacity).....International RL is still not getting the support from the fans it deserves. The Final was a great advert for the game, but yet again, the Australian RL fans couldn't be bothered to roll up



Compare it with the attendances at other International Sporting events over the weekend:

England v Australia, Twickenham 80,002 for essentailly a nothing game.....
Scotland v All Blacks....56,807 turned up to see the expected hammering of Scotland......compare that with the 11,000 who bothered to roll up for the double header at Parramatta.........and the excuses used by some that it was raining and PNG were going to get hammered....It rains ALL THE TIME in Scotland and they were hammered, but they still got nearly 57,000
Ireland v Samoa, 31,000 .......for a country on the edge of bankruptcy, getting that many to a nothing game against a minow team is pretty good
36,700 turned up to Watch France v Fiji, 75,000 wales v South Africa, just short of 30,000 watched Italy v Argentina.........
that's over 300,000 fans for 6 games with nothing at stake and yet you, in your wisdom think that International RL is healthyd040.gif
You also attempted to ridicule my statement in another thread that International RL couold learn a lot from the IRB.........I would suggest that the figures above and the fact that the cheapest tickets at these Union games were at least 33% higher than the League Tickets for the 4 nations would point to League needing to learn from the IRB......

...PUT SIMPLY. If England had won the 4 nations tournament this year.....what match would have got more media coverage.......the final or the kick and clap at Twickenham?

I expect some stupid response from you now, either harkking back to some event in 1936 when 250,000 people crammed into a ground to watch RL.....or to be called ARLT Union Troll or something else equally unwitty....this is because as usual, you bring nothing to a debate about International Sport and its standing as a global entity.....I even expect to get a link to viewing figures that show nobody watched the Union in Australia........but the simple fact is that 1 weekend of Union playing international matches, with nothing at stake generated over twice as many fans than an entire tournament of League played over 4 weeks....and I would estimate that the revenues earned from the games was in the region of 50 quid a ticket....15,000,000........how much will the 4 nations make?
Still say the IRB isn't a good business model to copy from?

not if it was raining!

here we go again, some of you people never learn. THEY ARE AUSTRALIAN!

who was the third person in the aussie squad you are talking about?

yes we would.

<spam alert>

WOW......it's not a link to the SMH.COM.AU



Between you and the idiot who started this thread there isn't one unique idea....it's either a url to a non story or a history lesson about RL when the pits were open


The OP was trying to say RL was in a healthy state internationally, based on ONE GAME. I debated that it isn't by highlighting the other lot got over 300k for 6 games with nothing to play for.......and repeating that International RL could do a lot worse than try to learn from the IRB on how to grow the game as a GLOBAL sport.

Both Tuquiri and Civonaceva were born in Fiji you plank. Civonaceva chose Australia on the 'i've lived there for a bit' rule. Tuquiri played for Fiji, then changed his mind about where he's from, just like Jarryd Hayne, who was born in Australia, but chose Fiji. Then the Kangaroos realised they wern't as good as they used to be and he was an Aussie again.

Not exactly credible is it?

Ben Harrison is the same, sorry mate, you're Irish now.

Civo and Tuqiri have spent the vast majority of their lives here, they consider themselves Australian. Who are you to tell them they're not? My dad was born in Malaysia, but has spent the last 45 years here, and he considers himself Australian. Would you tell him he's not Australian as well? Do you see how that can sound racist?

Hayne? This can never be an argument, at all. Born and raised here. Played for Australia first. Yet he's Fijian?

Why did two of them play for Fiji if they're so passionately Australian? Plenty of Aussies piped up when Clint Greenshields represented France, how's that different in any way? Because he went the other way and represented a smaller nation and he doesn't sound French?

<spam alert>

Because they don't ignore their heritage? Because they were eligible to play at international level for another nation? If this is the problem, aim your questions at the rule makers, not the players who simply take the opportunities put in front of them.

Regarding Greenshields, firstly, I can barely even remember any exception to his representation. My guess it was probably in retaliation to all the whinging aimed at NRL players representing different nations. Secondly, it's baffling how so often 1 or 2 outspoken Australians will loudly and repetitvely display their opinions, and that is then somehow generalised as representative of all Australians, most of whom don't care so don't say anything.

Good on anyone who plays Test football, go for your life.

You're looking a pretty big idiot here.
Such a response is simply because you're so emphatically wrong there is nowhere else to turn, even the nazi line has passed you

So you think it should be allowed to represent more than one nation, like a transfer? Personally I could represent Wales or England, but once I had represented one, that would be my nation. The amount of credibility sports lose through eligibilty is unreal, Athletics, both codes of Rugby and Cricket suffer. At least in Football once you have represented a country, that's it, no changing.

And I don't mind people qualifying through residency or grandparentage at all, it's just once you have chosen that road, stick with it. Don't become Austraian/NZ/English because now you're wanted by them, when you wern't before.

I'd prefer to allow one change, then that's it. It's a bit more realistic in regards to where international league is at competitively.

Do you not think that the smaller nations will never even give the big three a game if a player like Hayne plays for Fiji, improves due to playing the larger nations and then once he's improved and more experienced, changes nationality to a larger nation?

A bunch of mostly NRL players making up most of those nations, who get spanked, aren't going to conjure money for their domestic leagues from the ground up. It's much more complicated than that and I don't have the answer either.

Right now, i'm most inclined to believe the best thing for the game is for the cream of the crop to look unbelievable. That's what creates new fans and inspires current fans. It's better than a blunted talent peak, where it's perhaps more competitive, but more a case of everyone just being average. Spectacle is the biggest strength for audience sports.

Players like Hayne would no doubt have chosen Australia if he was told he could never change. Just like Marshall would never be a Kangaroo despite being eligible.