League "World" Cup

[rowan]

A few of these teams will be heavily reliant on diaspora, I would imgine:

Men's Teams:

Australia
NZ
Papua New Guinea
England
France
Samoa
Fiji
Scotland
Tonga
Lebanon
USA
Wales
Ireland
Italy

14 Teams participating... Some National Teams I have heard about but some didn't event know they had Rugby League. What are people's take on the competition?

The recent strengthening of the Tonga Team will be interesting. I would like to see a new winner but I fear it will be either NZ or Australia.

Previous Winners and Runners up in caps:

Australia 10 3 (1960, 1972, 2008)
Great Britain 3 1954, 1960, 1972 4 (1957, 1970, 1977, 1989–92)
New Zealand 1 2008 3 (1985–88, 2000, 2013)
England - 2 (1975, 1995)
France - 2 (1954, 1968)

[rowan]

I thought Russia were supposed to be the big up-and-comers in mungo ball. What happened to that?

[morepork]

I thought Russia were supposed to be the big up-and-comers in mungo ball. What happened to that?

Never been on any radar at all.

[rowan]

Well, they qualified for a league World Cup once, as I recall. Guess that doesn't mean much in league, though; since teams representing countries with no more than a few hundred locally based players are often known to compete in it.

[morepork]

Yes and no. Lebanon will be "represented" by ex-South Sydney players over the age of 28. Not much community sprit for Beirut there. I'm pretty sure that Russia has less than no interest in their rugby league community, regardless of heritage. As for countries with a rugby league community, you could do worse than looking at Papua, where league is the national sport. You as a Wellington local must have some recollection of Wainuiomata rugby league, who boasted Piri Weepu and Tana Umaga in their ranks?

[rowan]

Yes and no. Lebanon will be "represented" by ex-South Sydney players over the age of 28. Not much community sprit for Beirut there. I'm pretty sure that Russia has less than no interest in their rugby league community, regardless of heritage. As for countries with a rugby league community, you could do worse than looking at Papua, where league is the national sport. You as a Wellington local must have some recollection of Wainuiomata rugby league, who boasted Piri Weepu and Tana Umaga in their ranks?

Yes, I knew a lot of those guys from the Wainui league team that came from nowhere to win the national title in 1990. Tana Umaga, Lomax brothers, Yogi Rogers and so on. Ken Laban coach at the time, I think, was an acquaintance of mine back then.

PNG is probably the only country in the world where league is the main football code. League ranks 3rd in Aussie behind soccer and AFL.

As for Russia, the way I recall it was that after the collapse of communism and before the advent of professional rugby there were quite a few union players switching to league and for a while there it looked as though the Bears might actually emerge as the next heavyweight in the sport. But I guess that fizzled out once union itself went professional and they realised they actually had better prospects in the more global code.

[morepork]

Yes and no. Lebanon will be "represented" by ex-South Sydney players over the age of 28. Not much community sprit for Beirut there. I'm pretty sure that Russia has less than no interest in their rugby league community, regardless of heritage. As for countries with a rugby league community, you could do worse than looking at Papua, where league is the national sport. You as a Wellington local must have some recollection of Wainuiomata rugby league, who boasted Piri Weepu and Tana Umaga in their ranks?

Yes, I knew a lot of those guys from the Wainui league team that came from nowhere to win the national title in 1990. Tana Umaga, Lomax brothers, Yogi Rogers and so on. Ken Laban coach at the time, I think, was an acquaintance of mine back then.

PNG is probably the only country in the world where league is the main football code. League ranks 3rd in Aussie behind soccer and AFL.

As for Russia, the way I recall it was that after the collapse of communism and before the advent of professional rugby there were quite a few union players switching to league and for a while there it looked as though the Bears might actually emerge as the next heavyweight in the sport. But I guess that fizzled out once union itself went professional and they realised they actually had better prospects in the more global code.

You knew Ken? Rogers is of a different vintage than Tana and Piri boss.

[rowan]

Yes and no. Lebanon will be "represented" by ex-South Sydney players over the age of 28. Not much community sprit for Beirut there. I'm pretty sure that Russia has less than no interest in their rugby league community, regardless of heritage. As for countries with a rugby league community, you could do worse than looking at Papua, where league is the national sport. You as a Wellington local must have some recollection of Wainuiomata rugby league, who boasted Piri Weepu and Tana Umaga in their ranks?

Yes, I knew a lot of those guys from the Wainui league team that came from nowhere to win the national title in 1990. Tana Umaga, Lomax brothers, Yogi Rogers and so on. Ken Laban coach at the time, I think, was an acquaintance of mine back then.

PNG is probably the only country in the world where league is the main football code. League ranks 3rd in Aussie behind soccer and AFL.

As for Russia, the way I recall it was that after the collapse of communism and before the advent of professional rugby there were quite a few union players switching to league and for a while there it looked as though the Bears might actually emerge as the next heavyweight in the sport. But I guess that fizzled out once union itself went professional and they realised they actually had better prospects in the more global code.

You knew Ken? Rogers is of a different vintage than Tana and Piri boss.

I don't think Tana was in that championship-winning team, on second thoughts. He would've still been a teenager. I think he came through a year or two later. His brother was famous before him, Mike 'Monkey' Umaga.

Yes, I knew Ken pretty well at one stage. He was a very diligent fellow who came along to our American football training sessions, even though we were a bunch of amateurs (to say the least), just to see if he could learning anything. There were a lot of Wainui boys in the league, come to think of it.

[morepork]

He wasn't. Was a junior Kiwi though. Was the American football thing in NZ. We used to share the ground with a Seppo football team at Marist at Murray Halberg park in Mt. Albert (Owairaka). We would play a game of touch at the end of each's training. We thrashed them every time.

[rowan]

He wasn't. Was a junior Kiwi though. Was the American football thing in NZ. We used to share the ground with a Seppo football team at Marist at Murray Halberg park in Mt. Albert (Owairaka). We would play a game of touch at the end of each's training. We thrashed them every time.

It was, but we played in the summer. I believe it was the same in Auckland, though I'm not sure how they handled the heat up there inside all that padding. So we had a lot of union and league players in the ranks, including a couple of representative players, and at one stage a flying Fijian by the name of Philip Rayasi who scored a hat-trick in Capital Bowl IV. Timo Tagaloa also got involved briefly, scoring a memorable touchdown against a visiting American college team. (All Black Simon Mannix was guest kicker-punter).

[rowan]

Anyway, Australia fairly certain to win this yet again, Kiwi's most likely opponents in the final, though a quirk in the draw could see them meet earlier, in which case England is probably the only other team likely to reach that stage. Everyone else looks like cannon fodder for the Australasians.

[morepork]

The Roos are overwhelming favourites. They have completely dominated the Kiwis the last few tests the two have played. I'm thinking you haven't seen the two play much...

[rowan]

That's what I said.

[morepork]

Which part Seabiscuit? Seeing them play or the "Australasians"?

[rowan]

The Aussies are certain to win, is what I said, Moronpork. You said they were overwhelming faves.

Everyone else except England should be cannon fodder for the Aussies & Kiwis (collectively the Australasians, for those who don't like using too many words). Not rocket science, is it. Pretty sure they don't actually play league in Ireland. How about Scotland? Token team or two in English comp or something?

[morepork]

Thank you for the patronising object lesson you fucking legume.

[rowan]

Thank you for the patronising object lesson you fucking legume.

Don't mention it, Moronpork

[rowan]

I think that the only reason they have a league "World" Cup at all is because rugby union has one, and league has long attempted to piggy back on union's success in terms of international competition, because this is something of which they are exceedingly envious. It is also important to them to main the delusion in its traditional strongholds of East Oz, Auckland, Northern England and PNG that it is THE major rugby code - which of course it is not elsewhere; not by a long strength. It is to uni what Canadian football is to NFL, which is not to say we can't appreciate a good ol' test match involving two of the big 3 (Oz, NZ, UK), State of Origin (used to be one of the highlights of my sports-watching agenda back in NZ) or NRL grand final, of course. But one thing I'd never bother to watch is this Mickey Mouse charade which is nothing short of a mockery of the World Cup concept itself.

[morepork]

The first RL world cup was held in France in 1954...

[rowan]

In name only. A few invitational 4-team tournaments were held sporadically, without qualifying, then it went to a ridiculous points system involving just 5 nations, culminating in a one-off World Cup final, for many decades. I remember those days and everybody only wondered why they bothered with the charade. It was only once they saw how successful and popular rugby's 16-team tournament had been that they tried to copy it by putting together their own tournament the following decade and making up the numbers with diaspora. Lebanon appeared at a World Cup before the game was even played in that country, for instance. The Russians showed up with a bunch of converted uni players (who converted back not long after). Celtic teams were drawn mostly from the English leagues, and Pacific Island teams from Australasian competition. Meanwhile, rugby union had moved on to a legitimate 20-team competition. As mentioned, I have no problem with league as a game and played a season myself, and I also enjoyed watching those big games (elite tests, Origin & NRL grand finals) immensely. But the league World Cup is a deception worthy of nothing but scorn, because it is only there at all to try and convince people that league, also, is a global code - when in fact there are only 4 or 5 countries with proper domestic leagues, and no real effort has gone into changing that.

[morepork]

You are impossible. You remember the 1954 tournament. Jesus, it is constant one-upmanship with you. Constant.

[rowan]

Oh, sorry, I thought you were making an observation like a normal human being rather than trolling like a moron. Silly me.

How about the Coca Cola 7s Remember those? Early 90s, I believe. Having seen how the abbreviated code was taking off in union, they suddenly came up with that event in spite of international 7s having no history in league. I think at least a dozen "nations" were represented, but the players really only came from five countries. Provided lots of laughs anyway, as some of the skills levels were on a par with about Wellington third-grade league on a bad-hair day

[morepork]

League has a 9's tournament each year (well, the NRL teams anyway).

[rowan]

Memory's a bit fuzzy but I seem to recall that only got any attention at international level after 7s became a big hit in union. Amazing really, when I first heard of 7s it was just an annual event in Hong Kong that Australia and Fiji dominated and NZ didn't even send a national team to. Then they staged a World Cup, set up an international series, got women's 7s up & running, and finally made it all the way to the Olympics - all within a few decades! Kudos to World Rugby on a job well done! League can only dream, because it just hasn't laid the groundwork at any level, and probably doesn't want to, since HQ in Oz pretty well funds and runs the whole shebang and their primary agenda can only ever be to retain the preeminence of the NRL.

[rowan]