m.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league ... 1bs3b.html A PACIFIC ISLAND all-stars team including the likes of Benji Marshall, Jarryd Hayne, Michael Jennings and Manu Vatuvei is set to play England in Sydney or Auckland under a proposed new international schedule for next year. If true this would be massive news and just what international rugby league needs.

m.smh.com.au/rugby-league/league ... 1bs3b.html A PACIFIC ISLAND all-stars team including the likes of Benji Marshall, Jarryd Hayne, Michael Jennings and Manu Vatuvei is set to play England in Sydney or Auckland under a proposed new international schedule for next year. If true this would be massive news and just what international rugby league needs.

Will the be dancing in the city about this news

I'm a great believer in a combined PI side, but it has to have PNG included as well.

There is a big enough Islander community in Sydney to get about 15k people along to games between any of the big three PI sides, and maybe 20k for a combined side if they embrace the concept.
If you get all the big names - Hayne, Civo, Tuquiri, Vatuvai, Uate, Marshall etc etc, the game could draw just as many fans of the game who just want to see a spectacular game.
I pity England though - they will probably win, but it would be brutal.

This is nonsense. A true Cobined PI side wold be interesting, ie one that has players who actually play for PNG, Tonga, Fiji, etc. But this isn't the case here. This team will be made up of NZ/AUS players with PI ancestry. It's a way for the ARL and NZRL to allow players to represent their heritage and still commit to those two countries. They're protecting their own empires, again.

This is the exact opposite to what we actually need.

And we come back to the fact that the RLIF need to grow a pair and sort out the international eligibility rules.
Agree with your post nadera.

I don't know about grow a set, I think they have the genitals of a woman.

Players play for money.
People seem to just ignore that.
This is a good first step in allowing high profile players to make serious money by playing as Pacific Islanders - and the day they can see a chance of making the same dollars from committing to Fiji as they can make from committing to Australia will be the day they start to do it.
If the RLIF insist that they all commit to one country when they are 16 - every one of them will suddenly find their inner Aussie and the PI countries will never be competitive.
This game won't fix the problem instantly, but it is the only practical attempt i've seen to make it possible for a guy to make money as a committed Pacific Islander.
All you dissing the concept are obviously happy with the status quo.

No, it completely defeats the object of international RL.

If the object of International RL is to have only 3 competitive sides forever, then it is an attempt to to defeat that.

If you want the next generation of Hayne's, Uate's, Civo's and Tuquiri's to aspire to play for Fiji, you need a way for them to make a few dollars as committed PI players.

The first team will not be all guys committed to the PI teams, but it is obvious where they are going with this - make the concept and the team popular, then change it to only guys who throw in with the PI countries.

If only the ARL operated in that way.

You're ignoring the fact that these players all play for Australia and New Zealand. Allowing them to turn out for PI is just a way of letting them represent their heritage while still playing for the big two.

It does nothing for the game in the Pacific!

Players have free will and legal rights.
You can hate it all you like, but they will always, always go for the big money - and there is no legal method of forcing them to go for less money by telling them they can't represent any nation they qualify for, and anyone who can get an Australian passport is an Australian if that is what they choose.

If we make it impossible to make money by committing to a PI country, no one in their right mind will commit.

It isn't perfect. It isn't a simple measure that will solve the problems of the world at the stroke of a pen. It's a step in the right direction to make it worthwhile to represent a PI country.

You can spend the next 50 years talking about how beautiful it will be in Utopia, or you can take measures that will actually start us heading in the right direction, even if it isn't your beautiful Utopian solution that will make everyone happy instantly.

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.