Despite the major international tournaments winding down much is still happening in rugby league around the world, from domestic competitions to lower tier internationals to controversies. Its all happening in the sport!
The four nation discovery challenge continued with week with The Australian Institute of Sport taking on the French Juniors and running out very, very narrow winners. In front to 1000 spectators the French showed that in coming years they will be a force to be reckoned with on the world stage. Australia won this match 16-13. A few days later the AiS boys took on the French u19’s in Toulouse. Here the French showed the depth of their junior ranks by beating the Australians in what is considered an upset 27-20.
Yes, just as we thought it was then end of the 4N for the year, next years international fixtures have been started to be talked about in Australia. The controversy being where the matches are to be played. Melbourne seems to have paid a heap of cash to host the annual ANZAC test in Melbourne’s new rectangular stadium.
Melbourne also has snagged one of the premiere 4 Nations clashes for 2010, the Australia vs. England clash. The old rivalry will be re-ignited after this years tough losses and the last time the two teams played in Melbourne in the 2008 World Cup the Aussies smashed the hapless poms by 50 points. It is also looking likely that the newly revamped Eden Park in Auckland will host a double header in next years 4 Nations, with England an Papua new guinea and New Zealand against Australia being played there. The other New Zealand matches are being touted for Wellington and either Christchurch or Waikato. The Australia v Papua New Guinea match is up in the air with Sydney or Townsville being the most likely candidates.
The final will be held in Brisbane once again and should prove to be a sell out and that Queensland is the home of Rugby League in Australia.
In the last week Serbia launched an official compliant about the Italians illegal use of players in their clash in the European Nations Cup. The RLEF has launched an investigation. Claims are that players that were not named in the initial 30 and 20 man squads were brought in to replace players without good reason. We shall see where this leads. There has been speculation on forums this may lead to Serbia leaving the sport. Lets hope it does not come to this.
Rugby Leagues other professional / Semi-professional competition, the Elite Championships in France continued over the weekend with some surprising wins to a couple of the teams. Villeneuve continued their good form with a ten point win over Carpentras. Lezignan showed their early favouritism once again by beating rivals Pia quite convincingly 42-26. In what was the Lord Derby Final replay from 2009 Carcassonne had what could be dubbed an upset win over last years league leaders Limoux 25-14. Finally UTC had a good run for their money against St Gaudens 20-22. Avignion had the bye this week.
No word when the catch up matches will be played. The table for the LER 1 is as follows:
| Team | P | W | D | L | B | PF | PA | PD | PT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lezignan | 6 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 228 | 154 | 74 | 18 |
| Pia | 6 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 179 | 112 | 67 | 13 |
| Villeneuve | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 164 | 181 | -17 | 11 |
| UTC | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 102 | 62 | 40 | 09 |
| Carcassonne | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 121 | 80 | 41 | 08 |
| Avignion | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 114 | 164 | -50 | 08 |
| St Gaudens | 6 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 82 | 168 | -86 | 07 |
| Limoux | 5 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 89 | 101 | -12 | 06 |
| Carpentras | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 96 | 162 | -66 | 04 |
The Lord Derby Cup round 2 matches have also been announced. With Palau, Villefranche and Entrigause getting byes through to the 3rd round where they will face the Elite 1 teams. Round 2 matches are as follows: Bias vs. Corbiel, Les Bacares vs. Baho, Sauveterre vs. Albi and APT vs. Lescure.
David Gallop has been quoted as saying that he would be willing to take a pay cut if the matches can be established at the start of the season for TV. However he has come out that he has been misquoted and that the next TV deal will be the most lucrative in the sports history. Lets hope so as it out rates all sports on TV. There should be no way that AFL can get a better TV deal. Speaking of AFL they continue to claim that they will make an impact in the Western Sydney suburbs while all the evidence shows there is no interest there. Will be interesting to see how much money is bled over this and the Gold Coast team till they cut their losses. In Many ways the AFL’s tactics are De za vous for the NRL as this is precisely what the ARU tried to do, muscling its way around and poaching players and in the end went close to bust doing it.
Rugby League international Scores has joined the ranks of twitter! Follow RLIS and myself as I go through the day and any little new things i find out about the international game I will put up on twitter.
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