By NICOLAS HIGGINS
ABSOLUTELY! The NRL, RFL and RLIF should do everything in their power to make a Pacific Four Nations tournament between New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji happen.
It is almost criminal, from a critical strategy perspective, to follow up a brilliant and transformational World Cup with a mid-season Test in Campbelltown. This isn’t new. Rugby league administrators have time and again done this and completely taken any momentum and helium out of the international rugby league balloon.
What they fail to see is that international rugby league should read like a continuous drama series. There should be a plot and twists, yet ensuring continuity.
As it stands now, international rugby league is akin to scripting Mike Ross going to jail in an earlier Suits season as a climatic finale and then scripting him in as a marginal character in the following season. That wouldn’t make sense and nor does the international rugby league calendar as it currently stands.
The idea of a Pacific Four Nations tournament is only one critical piece of a much bigger scheduling puzzle. The RLIF, together with the NRL and RFL, must draw up an international rugby league calendar cycle that works for both leagues, yet ensures both leagues cannot disrupt the progress of international rugby league.
Does a three year cycle work? Or does a four year cycle work? I’m not so convinced that a four year cycle achieves a great deal apart from giving organisers a decent break in between World Cups. Think back to the 2008 World Cup, when New Zealand upset Australia to be crowned world champions only to be given limited game time in the proceeding years. Imagine what would happen if the All Blacks had the same farcical sequential calendar scheduling year on year.
So let’s consider a three year international rugby league calendar. How would or should it look? For starters, it must make sense to fans. Something they can follow. It must not only work for tier one nations, but for all member nations that will eventually participate in the next World Cup.
Picture this, as a draft blueprint:
2019: 4 x Four Nations tournaments:
Tournament one: New Zealand (host), Tonga, Samoa and Fiji;
Tournament two: Australia (host), Ireland, Scotland and Wales;
Tournament three: England (host), Indigenous**, Maori** and France;
Tournament four: Papua New Guinea (host), Lebanon, Italy and United States.
Now before you raise your eyebrows and say ‘hang on, Indigenous and Maori teams’, I will cover that idea in a separate article shortly. I will also cover international rugby league player eligibility in another article, with proposed changes that aims to bring the likes of Ireland, Scotland and Wales to life as genuine or emerging contenders.
We then lead into 2020, or year two of the three-year cycle. Would it then make sense to stage two Eight Nations tournaments made up of the two finalists of each Four Nations tournament? OK, let’s run with that for a moment. Perhaps it would look like this as an example and assuming results go the way we expect them to:
Tournament one: New Zealand (host), Australia (host), Papua New Guinea (host), Tonga, Ireland, England, Indigenous and Lebanon;
Tournament two: France (host), Wales (host), Scotland (host), Samoa, Fiji, Maori, Italy and United States.
What may also make sense is to run a separate emerging nations four and eight nations tournament and substitute the poorest performing nation out of all the four and eight nations tournaments with the winner or finalists of the emerging tournaments.
We could then lead into the 2021 World Cup with the strongest sixteen nations. What could then ensue is that instead of waiting until 2025, we get our next World Cup in 2024 as part of the three year calendar cycle.
Something like this absolutely needs to happen.
If it doesn’t happen, we will continue to see poor, confusing and ridiculous scheduling that makes no sense to member nations, fans, clubs and all stakeholders involved. If we are to get proper buy-in from the NRL, RFL and their respective clubs, which currently hold the international game to ransom, they must buy into the gripping drama series that should be international rugby league.
