So i read earlier today a fairly innocuous article involving the USA Rugby Union. They are on a tour at the moment in Portugal, Scotland and Georgia to play TEST’s. Now this seems fairly uneventful but to me its interesting that these matches are called test matches. Looking at the team:
Reserves:
There seems to be very few “American” names in there, yet there is I see no where any media condemnation that there are no Americans, that there are players from overseas in there, that there is no point that this tour should happen, etc… So Why is that? Why is it that Rugby Union and other sports like Soccer don’t condemn their players or teams, even when many do have foreign names and use the Grandparent rule etc…
I think there are two issues going on here. One is that these sports have a global governing body (IRB, FIFA) that keeps any of the selections consistent. You wont find players that have played for the USA or any other country being able easily switch to another country. Secondly the media is on board, they treat the game with respect. I doesn’t matter how good or bad the teams are, how big the scores blow out, there is never any condemnation that nations should never play against any of the big teams etc… they have proper qualifying tournaments and have consistent tournaments every year or in a 4 year cycle that teams play and look forward to.
So why is it that the main Rugby league media, namely the Super League and NRL as well as their fans seem to be so narrow minded. They look to be negative and stab the knife into Rugby Leagues back at every chance. Tone Hannan several days ago made a good point on twitter and in an article that the England Rugby Union team have had bad results since 2003 and Scotland and Ireland have never beaten the All Blacks, yet there is no one out there in the Rugby union media suggesting that these games and tournaments and tours are pointless and should be scrapped. They might question selections and the admin, which is fair enough, but never do they suggest that International Rugby league should be abandoned.
Rugby League used to have such a rich and popular International season and it seems with the advent of State of Origin it killed it off. Australians in Particular seem to think that Playing for your state is somehow better than playing for your country. That beating an international team makes things a joke? Well I have previously talked about how Australia always weigh things to make sure they never lose so i wont go on about that again. My point is that there are now well over 30 countries that play Rugby league on an international level and we need to start promoting that, especially amongst the two biggest Rugby League markets in the world.
So no matter what happens, we need to expand the 4 Nations to 6, get the Pacific, European and Atlantic Nations playing more high quality matches against the top teams and we need to get a RLIF that is independent and not have any conflict of interests, Neutral referees and a media that is positive of the game at all levels.
This week the Wales Rugby League announced that their U18’s team will be taking on the English and Australian U18 over the next two weeks. November 17, Wales U18 v England U18 at Caerphilly RFC and on November 23 Wales U18 vs. Australia U18 also at Caerphilly CFU.
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