Which is having little impact on the numbers of infections with double-jabbed infections set to outpace unvaccinated infections for the first time. So again, it isn't going away any time soon. The current runaway rise in cases has come during a heatwave, the very time it's supposed to go down naturally. Extrapolate that to the winter months and perhaps factor in whatever new variants have arrived by then and I think we can all work out what the situation is likely to be.

You either accept the risk is not going away and work to the best protocols to minimise it or give up on life. I suppose ultimately it's each to their own.

The question still stands-why is it only the Australian and New Zealand Rugby League teams who aren’t prepared to travel?

Disruption will be part and parcel of every day life and that applies to sporting competitions. I have seen individuals pull out of non team sports recently, such as Tennis and Golf but I can’t think of too many organisations that have pulled out full teams from team competitions. They may have had to soak up some individual pull outs from those squads (although I can’t think of many of them either) but it’s not been a major issue.

We can debate the ins and outs of covid impact all day long but this isn’t about covid in any shape or form IMO and the NRL don’t deserve the respect of us letting them hide behind it. The NRL do not care one jot for internationals and haven’t done since the day the game boomed Down Under about 10-15 years ago. They see them as an inconvenience, that could potentially disrupt their competition and rob them of some of their stars on occasion. It’s that simple and if the players down under actually care about representing their countries, then they should kick up one hell of a fuss and force a change of stance through.

That's my understanding as well. If that is the case, I would just invite the players and go ahead with the World Cup with "unofficial" New Zealand and Australia teams, assuming that enough players were up for it (I am confident they would be). And if the Kangaroos and Kiwis don't like it, expel them form the international federation altogether.

I agree. You could probably put together 'unofficial' Kangaroos & Kiwi teams together from UK based players alone. Get it played.

As stated elsewhere, 75% of the players want to go, the federations are messing about because the NRL are pulling their strings!

When we played Tonga two years ago, it was a 'Tonga Invitational' side because their federation had been expelled. Barely anyone noticed, and it made no difference!!

Players like Cook and Tedesco are chomping at the bit and want to come....Tedesco talking of playing for Italy under heritage rules if there's no Australia. IMO that's just daft.

Replace Australia with Australia Invitational, and the same with NZ. Then say, boys if you want to play contact Jon Dutton!! Ultimate two fingers to the NRL and we crack on.....There's more than one way to skin a cat.

We need players from Down Under to represent the Aussies and Kiwis IMO or it has no credibility. A break away team from each nation would be perfect, in fact I think I’d prefer that now to an official U-turn happening. If over 75% of the players are happy to travel, then we shouldn’t have too many issues with them pulling together a couple of amazing sides, that would still be the favourite and second favourite to win the comp.

They’ve not half got some brass neck. Mal Meninga has come out today saying Australia and NZ need test matches at the end of the season



Convenient for them eh?

Proves it’s got nothing to do with CV19 and all about the NRL putting their noses back into place after having it adjusted by RLWC2021 board last week. They ought to be banned from international competitions for 10years. I hope Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, PNG, Cook Islands, Italy, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France and Jamaica mop up their star players. I genuinely pray the WC goes ahead without them and is the best one yet with star “Aussies” and “Kiwis” defecting to other nations.

Now isn’t the time for us to bow down to the NRL. Stand up to them. Go ahead without them. Stick it to them and do it with glee. I don’t even care if England win the WC or not at this point, I just want a superb tournament without Australia and NZ. I’m quite happy without their over inflated ego and self interest.

I think we have to ask ourselves, like David Mitchell,

, who are the bad guys here? It's not really players in the NRL, is it, many of whom clearly want to play. At the end of the day, Meninga and most of the bosses down there want international football on their terms, when it suits them, and when they can conveniently fit it in around their comp and Origin. I wish they didn't take that attitude, and we could have 'proper' Kiwi and Kangaroo teams, but they do. If (and I still think it's a big 'if'), we can get serviceable 'unofficial' teams for them, it;s better than nothing, and the comp could go ahead. it's a critical time for international relations in rugby league.

When I first heard this news I was fully behind cancelling the comp.

I’m now of the opinion we go ahead with or without them.

The NRL need to understand or be taught that they are not all that matters in the rugby league world.

Is it going to be a devalued tournament? Absolutely, but it’s time to grow a pair and fight back.

I think that's the point, jonh. If we can get some serviceable Aussie and Kiwis sides into the comp, somehow, then, yes, it will be devalued a little, but I think it could, and should, go ahead. Lacking that, not really. It's starting to look that it may increasingly be down to what individual players down there want to do.

And that is exactly why they are better, because our own fans CBA to watch us.

If the viewing figures for Cas v Hudds, as you suggest, were of a decent standard then we would get a better tv deal. The more people that watch, the more companies want to advertise, the more expensive it is to do so etc etc.

Nah sod it. Lets watch our own clubs and sod the rest. No wonder players get booed playing for England.

I'm not sure what point you are making there, Egg Chasing. The NRL isn't better because 'English fans can't be d to watch SL', why should that have anything to do with it? As I said elsewhere, i watched Cas v Hudds, and quite enjoyed it. but the Canberra game I watched earlier, whist not reaching any great heights, was still a better quality contest, if it comes down to that mythical "if you had to invite a viewer who'd never seen rugby league before" argument.

Of course the quality is better. My point is that how is the game supposed to grow over here when our own fans cba to watch it?

If people tuned in for games on tv and viewing figures were high we would get better tv deals and could demand better coverage. Instead we get games moved around at daft times or shoved on sky sports mix.

You must be an absolute masochist or something if that's your solution. You can't be being serious surely?

So we now all have to be little bum buddies and watch RL all the time? I bet you're the type of guy who buys those half and half flags. Is this a new level of fan btw? Someone that has a season ticket & all the merch, is no longer the top tier. They've now been usurped by someone who watches all RL games on sky (but not the NRL obvs).

I think I'll just stick to watching stuff that I enjoy

When Australia and New Zealand can send teams to the Olympics and Rugby Union players to our country, it is simply proving that they do not want to take part in the event as they see it as a loss making venture in the present Covid19 situation of our country.

Fans will watch games they want to watch. Salford v (near enough anyone bar Wigan) on Sky doesn’t tickle my fancy. I can add HKR, Wakey, Leigh, Huddersfield into that too.

I’m a boxing, golf and cricket fan too. I don’t watch games there I don’t want to.

But by your reasoning we should all watch RL all the time as that will boost advertisements and money? You’re far off the money here.

Watching sport should be a pleasure, not a duty.

You’re spot on, and that’s exactly my position as a diehard RL fan.

Quite simply it’s not worth watching HKR, Salford, Huds, or Leigh vs anyone as it’s usually low quality fare in front of a trickle of a crowd, no spectacle atmosphere or event.

Sadly that’s what super (sic) league has become.
I love watching the game but I’m only interested if it’s the top SL teams playing each other. Otherwise it’s usually a non contest or pretty rubbish rugby....tbh games at the top of SL can be like that too, just less frequent and more often get a decent game.

Top of SL is just about watchable, bottom half is largely a waste of time. There’s only really 6/7 decent clubs, even then it’s miles off the quality of NRL

Easily, the best two games of last season were the two Wigan Vs Saints games. I'm saying that's as both a fan of Wigan and also a fan of what RL should be. If every game was at that level, then more people would watch it. It isn't and they don't.

If you ever want to know what's wrong with British RL then read this article [urlhttps://www.seriousaboutrl.com/proof-the-salary-cap-works-41335/[/url. I'm not a fan of Saints, but why should they suffer because they've built a decent side? Why should players be asked to choose between being part of a winning side, or a big pay day? Why is it seen as a positive that, as I said above, a team that played a part in two of the best game have to become weaker?

People question why fans like me don't like British RL. Well that article is all they need to read. The opening paragraph states that it was done prevent the team I support from being dominant. What more of a reason do you need? Fu to the rest of the clubs and British RL imo.

Couldn’t agree more with you, the article or afootingmiracle.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it but occasionally sky play retro games. The last (to my knowledge) being Wales v Aus in the disastrous 2000 WC, the one before that Wigan v Saints for the last ever game at CP and some retro GB games. They’re brilliant to watch and bring back some good memories (or not so good on the 2000 WC but that’s beside the point).

The point is is that these games were so much better then the current rugby being dished out. Better atmosphere, better styles and better all round players. The SL decline started when the RFL for some bizarre reason decided to bring the league down to Wakefield/Cas/Salford level instead of forcing those clubs up, or booting them out. Now we’re paying the price.

I want to love British RL, even more so as I can’t stand the NRL, but I just can’t bring myself to watch the aforementioned teams if Wigan aren’t playing. I’ll gladly tune in to Warrington/Saints/Leeds and sometimes Catalans but even then I’m far from “can’t take my eyes off this”. The quality just isn’t there anymore, despite what Sky and any other podcast other than ‘Out of Your League’ would have you believe. That contributes to falling crowds, viewing figures and ultimately funding.

Rads spoke about how much more entertaining the game was back in the early 2000’s during a recent podcast. Everything goes in cycles and since Maguire came here in 2010, the whole game in this country and changed and got in to that grind mentality of low error counts, low risk plays, strong carries from your outside backs in your own 30 metres and the defensive structures have improved. A team will go totally against the grain at some point and be a trend setter for playing a more open brand of rugby. Why can’t that be us? If Rads knows it’s turgid, why not do something about it? We couldn’t been making the change these last 3 seasons. We’ve won nothing anyway, so we could had a transitional period to go in a totally different direction. One where you say ‘you score 30 and we’ll score 40’ or at least try to do that.

The Liverpool way a few seasons ago, I don’t watch much football but it seemed to have brought about a change in the PL and more attacking football than the English way of defensive play.

I agree. It seemed when we appointed (and at the same time didn’t) SE then AL that was the way we were going to go. That could well have sprung change in SL but alas due to the well documented failure of the coaching staff it isn’t to be under the current coach.

Cas kind of threatened it in 2017 and Saints certainly did under Holbrook, but it never caught on. Part of me hopes Powell does it at Warrington and inspires the rest of the league to change their way.

Liverpool are the example that springs to mind in sport of a team that broke away from the supposed winning method of playing to go their own attacking way. Rather than packing the midfield, sitting deep, playing on the break and winning by not conceding and pinching the odd goal, they went ‘we’ll go after you’, pressure you with the ball, push the fullbacks right up and if we concede 2, we’ll get 3, concede 3, we’ll get 4 and for a couple of seasons they were totally dominant.

I do fully expect Wire to be hugely entertaining to watch next season. They have an ultra attacking spine and a coach who will encourage that. If they can do that and win the big trophies, than they could lead a change away from the robotic rugby we see most teams play.

The real question now is whether we go ahead or not.

For me, we should. Any sort of Australia/NZ representational team IMO would devalue the comp. As they aren’t recognised teams I doubt the clubs would be obligated to release players.

We should look to add the 2 of USA, Solomon Islands or Serbia and see how many players defect to the south sea island nations. It could even result in a more competitive tournament with talent more evenly spread.

Stick 2 fingers up at ‘em

It might be a question of money whether we go ahead. It may well be a mickey mouse competition with no Australia or New Zealand but the amount we would have to pay back to cancel it may mean we have to go on.