England Finally Post a Win

By Daniel Andruczyk

The last round of the 4 Nations was played out last weekend. Australia fielded a team with a few news players getting a run while the Poms finally got to post a win on the board. The final now moves to Brisbane and will be held between the Kangaroos and Kiwis. In France the next round was played out and also some results from South Africa.

France – Elite 1

In round 6 over the weekend the usual suspects won their matches with the table not changing much. Carpentras beat St Gaudens/Toulouse 50-6, Limoux had a close win over Carcassonne, Lezignan defeated UTC 30-12 Avignion had a big win over Villeneuve 46-16 and Pia thumped Montpellier 56-18. The table stands as:

South Africa

In South Africa, round 8 in the Eastern Eagles was played. Kempton beat the Bears B 36-22, St Helens beat Elsburg 38-11, Bears A thrashed Germiston 76-0 and the ERP Falcons had the Bye. The table stands as:

4 Nations

In the 4 Nations the last round games of the tournament were played out. These were some of the closest and best games of the tournament I felt. Australia though leading all the way had to work hard for their win over the Kiwis 34-20 while England had their first win over the Kumuls 36-10. The final table is:

The 4 Nations final will be played by the Kiwis and Kangaroos in Brisbane this weekend.

Atlantic Cup

The Atlantic Cup is getting closer and closer, its only a week till kick off now and all the teams are getting ready. The Canadians have announced their squad and the USA tomahawks are in training with frequent twitter updated from USA Rugby League boss David Niu on twitter that the players are doing well. Remember that Rugby League International Scores will be there covering the match. There will be blogs and articles and films of the match as well possible commentary on the HKC radio. The We Are Rugby website will also be showing the Atlantic Cup matches live.

Disrespect

So with the 4 Nations coming to the end there have been some odd calls from the Australian media recently. Manly that the format should be scrapped, that the International game is in disarray etc… once again a whole lot of rubbish, considering how many international tournaments and teams have been playing this year its amazing seeing the insular way they look at the sport. An interesting articles by Tone Hannan talked about how Rugby Union, despite how badly many of those teams do against the All Blacks are never negative and saying that the international game is dyeing. In fact they push the sport more. It made me think why that is, and I feel that its because they at least have a couple more tournaments that all the major nations participate in. There you have not only the Try-nations but also the 6 Nations where teams played each other before the end of year tours. So you have teams not being beaten by the usual suspects but also getting to play many other teams. In fact there has been talk in the past about the tri-nations going to 4 with Argentina coming into the fold.

So for Rugby League what would be my solution? Rather than it getting scaled back I would expand the 4 nations to a 6 Nations tournament. I would rename it the RLIF Cup to start to advertise and promote out governing body, just as in soccer you seen to get FIFA and UEFA put in front or after every single tournament! How would such a tournament work? Well it would be in the general context of a 4 year cycle. In the first two years there would be the regional championship qualifiers and finals. This gives all teams in that region a chance to play each other in a meaningful tournament and go onto a pan-regional tournaments outside of the world cup, like the Confederations Cup in Soccer.

At the moment I have three regions in mind, Europe (Middle east would come under this), The Pacific and Atlantic. You then have in the third year of the cycle the RLIF cup and along side it a secondary one 4 nations involved which I would resurrect the Federation Shield. So the two finalists from the European and Pacific Cups would get entry into the 6 Nations (RLIF Cup) directly then the 3rd placed teams (the winners of the 3/4 playoff) will have a 3 way qualifying tournament with the winner of the Atlantic Cup for the last two places of the RLIF Cup.

The 4th placed teams from Europe and the Pacific would then go into the Federation shield along with the team that didn’t come through the RLIF qualifier and also the 2nd placed team of the Atlantic cup. This has essentially 10 of the top team in the world playing in a meaningful tournament… why is it meaningful, the 6 nations teams and the two finalists of the Federation Shield get Automatic entry into the World Cup. So Teams right from the start, from the qualifiers of the regional tournaments have an incentive to put the best teams out there, World Cup qualification.

On top of that, however, going back to the RLIF Cup and Federation Shield,  I would have the two tournaments in the same place with the Federation Shield as an opener to the Main Game. So you get two full international games for the day! The 6 Nations I would have in two groups of 3 with everyone playing each other twice. This makes 6 games with the two top nations going through to the final. The Federation Shield would have one group  of 4 teams, also 6 games. The top 2 teams go into the final. So you would have the finals day also with two matches.

So that would be my next step for International Rugby League… expansion not contraction.

Daniel Andruczyk’s email: daniel@rugbyleagueionternationalscores.com