There has been some issue with the inclusion of Papua New Guinea in the Super group, most recently PNG's coach Adrian Lam saying that it's a joke. However if there is a team that can cause an uset in the Super Group then I think it's Papua New Guinea. The top three teams in the Super Group go through into the Semi-final's and the winner of the Group B and Group C have a play off to determine the 4th place. Currently it looking like an Australia v France and England v New Zealand Semi final's. Is this a bad thing - who knows?

2009: For me this is the last year of the four nations in its current format and where we have other random tournaments. Also this will be the last of the yeras for tours* (see note at the end of the page). As much as I love the Kangaroos, Kiwis and Lions touring, I think its an outdated concept that needs to give way to more openness and flexibility to incorporate other nations (more on this later). If rugby league is going to have a significant international presence then it needs to have a consistent set of tournaments year in and year out.

Four Nations: So here the four nations will consist of four countries, Australia, England, New Zealand and France. Other tournaments to be played out may be a pacific 4 or 5 nations tournie with Tonga, Fiji, PNG, Cook Is and Samoa.

2010: This is the year that International rugby league makes its resurgence! The tournaments that are played in this year are consistent stand alone tournaments but are also qualifiers for regional championships to be played in the next year, i.e. The European Championships, The Pacific Championships and The Atlantic Championships.

European Championships Qualifiers: Currently there are about 18-20 teams that are playing International Rugby League. This tournament will culminate in an 8 team group finals tournament where the top 8 teams from Europe play. in 2010 though there will be two rounds of qualifying to get to this group stage that is played in 2011. So qualification is as follows. The top 3 teams and the host go through Automatically to the group finals, or, if the host is in the top 3, then top 4 countries go through. This leaves 4 places to be fought out for. In the first round the botton 6 ranked teams have a tournament to determine the top 2 to go through to stage 2 of the qualifiers. So teams will get to have 5 games with other teams of roughly the same standard. The reward is promotion to stage 2. This game would be played at the beginning of the year around the march-may time of year. Then Stage two which is played later in the year around September to October. There are now 10 teams + the 2 qualifiers in this round. It is split into 4 groups of 3 with the top in each group going through to the Group finals in 2011.

Pacific Championships Qualifiers: There are less countrie in this region. I am including Japan into this area and not in to the Atlantic. To me it just does not make any sense having them travel all over the Atlantic for their matches. The Pacific Championships would also be have a 2 round qualifying process. Again the top 2 ranked teams and host got hrough to the finals Automatically, or if the host is host is in the top 2 then the top 3 go through. The bottom three ranked teams then playout a small tri nations tournament to see which top two will go through to the second round. They then play in a six (6) nations tournament split between two groups of three where the top two go through to the grouf finals stage in 2011 and and a third team with the best points or points difference goes through as well. Once again these stages would be played around the same time as the European championships, hopefully not co-inciding with any of the domestic competitions that countries are running.

Atlantic Championships Qualifiers: This group is quite small and consists basically of 5 teams, the USA, South Africa, Canads, Jamaica and Argentina. There would be no play off rounds here just straight into the finals groups stage played in 2011. As this is potentially the weakest of the regions this spare year allows for these teams to build them selves up by hosting other teams or hacving tour themselves to regions.

NOTE: That in this year, where potentially the top 4/5 nations in the world, i.e. Australia, England, New Zealand, France and Papua New Guinea potentially could all have their respective tours if the wish.

2011: This is the first of the major Tournament years. This year hosts the major regional championships where the best countries in those regions are able to pit themselves against each other. The qualifying process is as stated above in the previous year. So there is a 5 nation Atlantic Championships, an eight (8) nation European Championships and a six nation Pacific Championships. The top two winners from the European and Pacific go through automatically to a 6 Nations tournament to be held in 2012 and the top nations from the Atlantic Championships and the third nations from the Pacifc and European Championships have a play off to see which two will go to the 6 Nations as well. This 6N tournament also has significant meaning as it's effectively the consistently six best teams in the world from the last 3/4 years and so they also get automatic qualification into the world cup in 2013! A nice carrott to dangle in front of them to try hard! So this is how I see it panning out.

European Championships: This tournament has 8 nations split through two groups of 4 nations.The top two nations in each group go through to a semi final play off's and the winners of those go onto the final as well as the 6 Nations. There is a 3/4 play off to determine the third place that goes into the other qulaifications round.

Pacific Championships: A similar thing happens here. There are six nations split through two groups of 3 with the top two nations in each group going through to the semi finals. The winners of the semis go onto the final and automatic 6 Nations qualification and a 3/4 play off determins the team to go to the other qualification round.

Atlantic Championships: This is a one group 5 team tournament, where the top two nations go into a final. The winner goes into the qualification round for the last two spots against the two third places teams.

6 Nations Qualifiers: This is a mini tri nations with the reward being that top two nations go through to the 6 Nations and also automatic qualification to the world cup.

2012: Here is the top flight tournament, the (six) 6 Nations! These six teams also get automatic qualification through to the Wold Cup. It is a reward for the teams that over the last two years have shown the consistency and that they deserve to go through. The rest of the countries this year also have their respective qualification tournaments to go through to the world cup.

Six (6) Nations: The six teams comprise of the two finalists from each of the European and Pacific nations Championships, as well the top two placed from a three way play off between the 3rd placed teams from these groups and the champions of the Atlantic Championships. The teams are split into two groups of three teams, with the top two teams in each group going through to a semi final and then final play off. As mentioned above these teams will automatically go through to the World Cup in the next year. This tournament can be played effectively at any stage of the year, but most probably in the traditional October and November period.

**Four (4) Nations (Federation Shield): The team that does not qualify for the 6 Nations tournament proper (in the play offs of the 3rd teams) does not go away empty handed. They still get to play in a Four nations tournament, which i see as the continuation of the Federation shield tournie, with the two fourth (4th) placed teams in the European and Pacific chamionships as well as the 2nd places team from the Atlantic championships. The top 2 i.e. the finalists, will also automatically qualify for the World cup.

World Cup Qualifiers: The system for how to do this fairly I am not too sure on, but the current system seems to be pretty good so I would not have an issue with that being employed again. So the sin nations that make it into the 6N amd the top two teams of the Federation shield qualify automatically as a reward for consistency over the previous 3 year years. Thus 8 spots are decided. However the remaining four places would be split as such, 2 more going to European nations as they comprise the bulk of the playing nations in the world, 1 more going to the Pacific nations and 1 repachage spot. I think a 12 team World Cup would be ideal in this year. The number of games eventually will not increase from the 2008 one and so you would not get a potential borathon like in some other sports world cup tournaments. However form these qualifiers the "top" 8 nations that did not get into the  world cup will go into another tournament to be held in parrallel with the WC. I call this the RLIF Cup... I really hate the "Emerging Nations World Cup" name, sorry.

*** I Have come up with a system for this now.

2013: Here is it the crunch year. This has the two major tournaments hosting the top 20 teams in the world, the World Cup and the RLIF Cup. The nations that have not made it into either of these can have small tournies, tours or a separate large tournament as well. I know that some nations may need this year to help gain money again to do the next lot of campaigns. This is left open and free for them.

World Cup: This is the big one, where the top 12 Rugby League playing nations come together to celebrate the great sport that Rugby League is! The tournament is split into four groups of 3 teams with the top 2 teams in each group going through to a quarter finals, semi finals and finals with 3/4 play off system. However the 4 teams that did not make it do not drop out completely either. They qualify to the RLIF Cup that is held in parallel with the World Cup.

RLIF Cup: This tournament has the next 8 best teams that did not qualify to the world cup. They play in 2 groups of 4 with the top 2 teams in each group going through to the next stage. This stage consists of these four teams as well as the 4 teams that did not make it to the quarter finals in the World Cup proper. These eight teams go into a quarter finals, semi finals and grans final and 3/4 play off format as per the world cup.This way all teams always have some sort of incentive to go through and play as there is a prize. Unfortunately the bottom four here do get basically nothing if not many good games against a wide variety of teams.

2014: Same as per 2010

2015: Same as per 2011

2016: Same as per 2012

2017: Same as per 2013

THE SIMULATION

So in this section I have run a theoretical "simulation". I have ranked teams according to where I feel they stand, this by no means reflects the current rankings but I think are a fair indications where some countries are standing - but in essence it does not matter what the rankings are, its to show how the system works.. I use a highly sophisticated Monte Carlo generator called "flipping a coin" to determin if the games are won/lost/drawn and by which team. I then pool the data into tables and see which teams go through tho the next phases of the respective tournaments. I have a win (W) = 3 points, a loss (L) = 1 points and a Draw (D) = 2 points. I just hate to see a team be on zero points. So let us start:

EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1.England, 2.France, 3. Lebanon, 4. Ireland, 5.Scotland, 6.Wales, 7.Russia, 8.Serbia, 9.Holland, 10.Georgia, 11.Germany, 12. Czech Republic, 13. Morocco, 14. Malta, 15. Greece, 16.Italy, 17.Estonia, 18.Latvia, 19.Austria, 20.Portugal. England, France, Lebanon and Ireland go through automatically to the main group stage, where as Greece, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Austria and Portugal play the first round of qualifiers. Everyone else are straight into the second round of qualifiers.

1st Round Qualifiers:

So Portugal and Estonia go through to the next phase of the qualifying which is the next 12 best teams in Europe.

2nd Round Qualifiers:

So from this round Russia, Morocco, Georgia and Serbia go through to the Final group stage of the European Championships.

Final Group Stage:

So Lebanon, England, France and Morocco go through to the semi finals.

Semi-Finals:

LEBANON vs. MOROCCO

FRANCE vs. ENGLAND

3/4 Play off:

ENGLAND vs. MOROCCO

Grand Final:

FRANCE vs. LEBANON

Thus France are crowned European Champions, with France and Lebanon going through to the 6 Nations tournament automatically and England goes into the 3-way playoff.

PACIFIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1.Australia, 2.New Zealand, 3.Papua new Guinea, 4.Tonga, 5.Fiji, 6.Samoa, 7.Cook Is, 8.Japan, 9.Tokelau, 10. Niue. Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea go through automatically to the final group stage, Japan, Tokelau and Niue have a play off to go to the second round of Qualifiers. The rest are automatically in the 2nd round qualifiers.

1st Round Qualifiers:

Tokelau and Japan go through to the second round Qualifiers.

2nd Round Qualifiers:

Play off: Samoa vs. Cook Is

So the three teams to go to the fianl group phase are Tonga, Japan and Samoa (after a play off for the third spot with Cook Is, this can also go on the best Point Difference).

Final Group Stage:

Australia, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and New Zealand go to the semi finals.

Semi-Finals:

AUSTRALIA vs. NEW ZEALAND

TONGA vs. PAPUA NEW GUINEA

3/4 Play off:

NEW ZEALAND vs. PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Grand Final:

AUSTRALIA vs. TONGA

Thus Australia are crown Pacific Champions. Australia and Tonga go through Automatically into the 6 Nations tournament and New Zealand go into the 3-way playoff.

ATLANTIC CHAMPIONSHIPS: 1.Unites States of America, 2.South Africa, 3.Jamaica, 4.Argentina, 5. Canada. This group is the smallest and probably the weekest of all world Rugby league. Thus there are no qualifying rounds, just one tournament where the winner goes to the 3-way play off for the 6 Nations.

So the United States and South africa go through to the Grand Final.

Grand Final:

USA vs STH AFRICA

United States go off into the 3-way play off for the 6 Nations.

6 NATIONS: Lebanon, Australia, France, Tonga, England, United States of America, New Zealand. The first Four Nations go in Automatically in the top four positions of the group stage, whereas the last three have a play off to see who gets the last two positions. The six nations that play this out in the end also have automatic entry into the World Cup in the next year leaving 6 more spots to be fought out for that tournament.

Play off:

United States of America and England secure the final two spots of the 6 Nations.

Final Group Stage:

Lebanon, USA, France and Tonga go through to the semi finals.

Semi-Final:

LEBANON vs. TONGA

FRANCE vs. USA

Grand Final:

FRANCE vs. TONGA

France are crowned 6 Nations champions, however all sic countries, France, Tonga, Lebanon, USA, Australia and England gain automatic qualification to the World cup.

4 NATIONS (FEDERATION SHIELD): New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South Africa, Morocco

THE WORLD CUP: This is the bigun tournament, the one that teams through the other tournaments are building upto. This world cup will have 12 teams, with NO super group the teams will be put into four groups of three with the four top ranked teams taking a place in one of the groups. Then the other places are selected at random. The two top teams in each group go through to a quarter finals, semi finals 3/4 play off and Grand final system. the four team that did not make it do not drop out however, they go into a quarter finals with the top 4 teams from the RLIF Cup.

World Cup Qualifiers:

The world cup qualifiers will have to be set up in a way as to be fair to all teams. However I feel the current system is pretty good. I have been quite happy with the level of play and the qualification process of the current system though I think something like this would be employed. I have not thought through this one completely yet so I have basically taken the best options oput of the previous tournaments to put into the qualifiication for the World Cup and also the RLIF Cup. The time when this would be played is the same year that the 6 Nations is being played. This way all teams are involved in internationas that year. The qualifying nations that I have are: France, Tonga, Lebanon, USA, Australia, England, Morocco, South Africa, New Zealand, Ireland, Papua New Guinea and Japan. As mentioned earlier the first six are the auto qualifiers from the 6 Nations and the other six are the next best six to qualify.

Final Group Stage:

The nations through to the quarter finals are France, Australia, Tonga, South Africa, Lebanon, New Zealand, United States of America and Japan. The other four Morocco, England, Ireland and Papua New Guinea will go into the quarter finals birth in the RLIF Cup.

Quarter-finals:

FRANCE vs. JAPAN

TONGA vs. NEW ZEALAND

LEBANON vs. SOUTH AFRICA

USA vs. AUSTRALIA

Semi-finals:

FRANCE vs. AUSTRALIA

NEW ZEALAND vs. SOUTH AFRICA

3/4 Play off:

FRANCE vs. NEW ZEALAND

Grand Final:

AUSTRALIA vs. SOUTH AFRICA

So from this we see that Australia would be the World Champions (bloody again... I swear this was done randomly!) with France taking the third place by beating New Zealand.

RLIF CUP: In essence this is what the 1995 "Emerging Nations" World Cup is. But I hate the words Emergin Nations. This is a tournament at the second level that allows teams that have not made it to the World Cup proper to still have a meaningful tournament. The RLIF Cup would be played alongside the World Cup with some of these games as the "warm ups" for the main event or traveling to more regional areas of a country to help promote the game. The format is two groups of 4 teams with the top 2 teams advancing to the next phase. Thus the bottom 4 teams from the World Cup proper would drop down to meet these top 4 teams in a quarter finals, semi finals, 3/4 playoff and grand final format.

1st Round Qualifiers Qualifiers: These would basically come out of the same qualifiers used for the Wold Cup qualification. Thus eight (8) teams would make it into this tournament. To compete for the right to play the bottom four teams from the WC proper.

Final Group Stage:

We see that the four teams to advance through to the next stage are Georgia, Cook Islands, Fiji and Wales. They will play off agains Morocco, England, Ireland and Papua New Guinea who come down because they did not qualify in the WC proper.

Quarter Finals:

MOROCCO vs. GEORGIA

ENGLAND vs. FIJI

IRELAND vs. COOK ISLANDS

PAPUA NEW GUINEA vs. WALES

Semi-Finals:

MOROCCO vs. WALES

FIJI vs. COOK ISLANDS

3/4 Play off:

MOROCCO vs COOK ISLANDS

Grand Final:

WALES vs. FIJI

And the winner is Fiji of the RLIF Cup with the Cook Islands coming in third.

So This now rounds off the full four (4) year cycle of tournaments for teams to play in. A quick summary of the champion nations of the various tournaments (Tournament: winner, Runner up, 3rd place (where applicable) ):

European Championships: Lebanon, France, England

Pacific Championships: Australia, Tonga, New Zealand

Atlantic Championships: Unites States of America, South Africa

6 Nations: France, Tonga

RLIF Cup: Fiji, Wales, Cook Islands

World Cup: Australia, South Africa, France

For interest and consistency's sake I have gone and run the simulation a second time to see how things would pan out with the tournaments. I have kept the starting nations the same but have run the sophisticated "flip of the coin" genearator once again. These are the end results:

European Championships: Wales, Lebanon, Czech Republic

Pacific Championships: Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Cook Islands

Atlantic Championships: Argentina, United States of America

6 Nations: Wales, Lebanon

RLIF Cup: USA, Wales, France

World Cup: Germany, Czech Republic, Lebanon

    NOTE: For the full results for both simulations above click here.

  *NOTE: Now I did, at the start, say that the tours like the Kangaroo, Lion, Kiwi and Kumul tours would be now defucnt, but on further thinking I realised that basically these nations will always be up in the top 3/4 of their respective tournaments, so when ever there is a qualifying year, basically the year after a woirld cup, then these teams have the opportunity to do a tour, thus keeping all htose who wnat tour happy.

 **NOTE: OK so after some questions for people etc... I think there us scope to have a four nations tournament (Federation shield?) the games in this can be openers to the 6N games! So you can minimise costs in terms of ground useage and still get two decent quality games.

***NOTE: This I cam up with thinking what woudl be the best and fairest way to do this.

PRIZE MONEY

So of course there has to be financial incentive for the teams to play. At the very least teams that play in the 1st stage qualifiers of a tournament need to get back enough money to cover travel costs like airfares and hotels etc. This is what I propose to have as the financial structure for the tournaments.

Thus we see that all up through the 4 years the prize money outlay over these four years by my estimates would be in the order of $8.7 Million, but considering the potential for money to be made from various tournaments if promoted well, and have help through goverments to hold tournaments and hopefully no outside influence then I feel that this really can be feasible to be done, as wll as run a successful tournament and make some money on the side. I guess the actual monatery values can bechanged around a bit to be less (or more) as one sees fit. So...

THIS IS MY TEN YEAR PLAN FOR INTERNATIONAL RUGBY LEAGUE

Comments are welcome on the sites forum at Sporting discussion: My 10 year plan  section.

ALTERNATE 4 YEAR CYCLE

By Daniel Andruczyk, 11 February 2008

With some recent constructive critisism I have come up with an alternative 4 year cycle taking in the regional championships and a 4 Nations and world cup. Basically there are only two divisions now. With Europe being one and the Asia/Pacific/Atlantic being the other. A similar structure with the rounds and promotion into rounds exists but I have also come up with a different world cup qualifying preocess for all the teams that do not come through the 6N and 4N tournament.

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