It's only alarming if you believe our media's constant fear mongering, though I can appreciate that coming from countries like Australia & New Zealand, where vaccination programmes are far behind ours, might be worried of coming here.

I'm fairly certain we'll still be seeing Australia play rugby in the UK in November. Just won't be rugby league.

This decision is just about protecting the NRL, not players.

There isn't much point without them. I don't see how it can go ahwad without looking farcical!

Perhaps allow some superleague based invitational teams in? Australian all stars and Pacific all stars? Rest of UK, England, France. Just have an entirely different tournament and event as a one off?

It's coming home.

All made up ...eh??? .
I am watching the stats for deaths, number in hospitals and those on ventilators ... or do you think they are made up?
Our rates of infection are way above almost all countries.
I don't blame anyone for not wishing to travel to and stay here.

Not surprised as Australia only has 11.5% fully vaccinated, and NZ 12.8%.

I know our cases have gone up but at least we are seeing protection from vaccines.

I wonder if the All Lives Matter campaign will start demanding we go back in to lockdown.

This stinks of "I'm all right, Jack" from the NRL teams

Pressure will have been put upon the 2 relevant governing bodies by the NRL

Have Australia and New Zealand sent teams to covid rife Japan to compete in the Olympics?

Like I said, if you're from outside the UK & from a country that has screwed up it's vaccination programme, then I'd be reluctant too. But your claim that our situation is alarming for us here, is a complete nonsense & something just being driven by a irresponsible media.

One person's "alarming" is another fellow's "hunky dory". We have all had different experiences and take on board information thrown at us in different ways.
But whatever ... other countries seem to be very wary of us.

Beat me to it

It stinks more of poor consultation and stakeholder buy-in prior to making, a seemingly blinkered, announcement last week that it was all going ahead, with a certain amount of brinkmanship being played, to declare that without a clear commitment from all the counties involved.

Very poor administration all round - who knows what'll happen now?

If you take a lesson from the 1980 & 1984 Olympics when USA & USSR (plus others) boycotted each countries respective games, the fans turned out to cheer their home nation to inevitable victory, with much of the field depleted, and athletes proudly wore their medals.

Undoubtedly, in RL though, people won't wave the same banner, but just won't attend the games, bemoaning that xyz only won because the competition stayed away.

From what I can see Japan has 4,915 New Cases compared to England's 38,804 (21st July figures).

Don’t blame them to be honest. Kind of think it’s inevitable that this would happen.

Utterly pointless in trying to have a ‘World Cup’ without them, as no doubt this decision will also impact the likes of Tonga and Samoa.

Short term I guess the only solution would be for a one off series between England, France and an Exiles team perhaps? Then hopefully look ahead to rescheduling the World Cup next year, which admittedly could still prove problematic given the NRL’s stance.

Without wanting to get into another tedious covid debate, we probably need to point out that our testing regime is now far ahead of any other nation & also that 'cases' don't equal illnesses?

As others have said, this presents the huge problem of clashing with the football World Cup. It would get horribly drowned out.

Of course nearly everyone is aware of our wonderful vaccination figures. But we still have to be wary and you cannot blame other countries from giving us a wide berth. Even with our vaccinations there will come a point (if we do not get infections down) where we cannot tolerate the deaths, those on ventilators and numbers in hospital. The numbers of infections are flying up. It is not surprising some would choose to visit Japan rather than here.

You're describing an issue with our health system, rather than any significant issue with a virus...

Sorry Dita ... not sure what you mean here. Can you explain?

This is spot on.

If our health system can't serve it's population adequately, after vaccinating the vast majority of its people, then I'd suggest it's the health system that's the issue and not the virus.

We cannot, as a nation, be held hostage to the whims of a badly run health system. We've done all we can as far as the virus goes. It's now a malfunctioning health system that is holding us back.

The players will be in a bubble and being tested on a regular basis. The players are supremely fit athletes, who will hardly feel the effect of having it, in the unlikely event they did contract it. The players would quarantine on their return home for two weeks and therefore negate the risk of passing it to more vulnerable people. The players should be able to make their own decisions on an individual basis and people would respect that.

Forget covid in this instance, it is nothing but a glorious excuse for the NRL to hide behind. These last two years has been ideal for the NRL big wigs. They have zero interest in International Rugby League.

Pretty much this. The Aussies couldn't give a toss for international RL & the health of our game here in the UK. Covid is merely a convenient excuse.

Well if the boycott is down to the NRL there are ways round it. Remember the 1997 GB v Aus series, during the ARL v Super League 'war'. The ARL clubs boycotted it and it wasn't allowed to be called the Ashes, so they just had a 'Super League Test Series' with Aus represented by players from clubs who were in the Aussie Super League like Brisbane, Canberra, Penrith and so on.

A combined nations team beat England the other week, surely they can raise a team of Aussies who are already over here. I would put a few quid on Jake Mamo being the world cup top try scorer.