In Defence of the RFL...

This week saw the news that Samoa would not be touring England in 2024. With under 12 months to go until the next international window, this leaves England without any confirmed international fixture until Autumn 2025, unless any can be arranged in the interim.

Obviously, this is a disastrous situation. With the exception of football, it is the international game which garners the most public attention in our direct competitors. The casual sports fan may have watched little of Rugby Union's Premiership in 2023 but may have watched the sport's World Cup. 

You could say the same in cricket, many casual sports fans would have watched at least some of the Ashes. Very few would have engaged with the County Championship.

Let's apply that sentence to Rugby League in 2024. The causal sports fans may have seen little of Super League. Without international competition in 2024, that simply means that our ability to attract the casual fan to Rugby League is hamstrung.

A Lopsided World

One major problem that we face is geography. In last year's World Cup, there were six sides from the Southern Hemisphere and two from the Northern Hemisphere who reached the quarter final stage. 

In terms of geography, the closest side to England was Lebanon. The capital cities of those two countries are almost 3,000 miles apart.

Of the Lebanese squad for the World Cup, 21 of the 24 players played their club rugby for Australian-based sides. English-based sides had one representative. Lebanese-based sides had two.

Are you starting to see the problem? For England to play international matches against competitive opposition, you have to get players who are primarily based in Australia to travel to the UK, or vice versa.

England do not have any competitive opponents on their doorstep.

The Heritage Question

International Rugby League has benefited hugely in recent years by many Australian-born players choosing not to represent their country of birth, but the country of their parents or grandparents origin.

Take Tonga this year. In the first test against England not one player who took the field was born on that Pacific Island with a population of a little over 100,000.

Some will make the argument that this dilates the meaning of the fixture. I do not agree. There is not a right or wrong answer. It simply depends on how you view the world. For me, a player who chooses to represent their family heritage has as much right to do so as a person born in that country.

When you see the visceral emotion pouring from the players who represent the likes of Tonga, Fiji and Samoa to name but three; that is the embodiment of national pride and the cornerstone of international sport.

The beneficiaries of this recent development are Australia and New Zealand. Now they do not need to travel to the UK for competitive, regular and varied international competition. They have several competitive nations far closer to home.

And why would Australia and New Zealand go to the expense of coming here, leaving their families for over a month, when they can still represent their country and have competitive fixtures at home?

The French Connection

On the whole, the heritage revolution has left international Rugby League in a stronger place than it was. The big loser in this revolution is England.

The demographics of Europe mean that England do not have the same quality of opposition near home. Even on a heritage basis, there are not enough players who choose to, or are of sufficient quality to populate sides that represent European nations.

Take France for example. Unlike the Pacific Island nations, all bar one of their 24 man squad for last year's World Cup were born in France or French controlled territories.

We had all hoped that the introduction of Catalans into Super League would lead to a resurgency of the French national side. With hindsight, it was naive to expect one club to be able to solve that.

Without wanting to sound like peak-2009 Rafa Benitez, here are some facts. Catalans Dragons starting team in the 2023 Grand Final contained two French players. Around 30,000 people in France play Rugby League in total.

I am not critical of Catalans for not playing many French players. Steve McNamara's role is to win trophies. And, as just one example, towards the end of the season, he decided that playing Australian Matt Ikuvalu at centre rather than French Arthur Romano gave him the best chance. I'd argue that was the correct call too.

When you realise these facts, it starts to become obvious why the French national team is not competitive. The player pool is not deep enough and there are nowhere near enough players playing at the top level. If France get even a few injuries or withdrawals, a part-time player will fill that position.

Let's have another fact. In fact, no, we'll start with a myth. The interesting thing about myths is that if you repeat them enough times, people start to believe that they are true. Rugby League fans seem to be under the impression that if England played annual matches against France, this would help the French national side to become more competitive.

Now, the reality. England have played France 16 times since 2007; that's an average of, yep that's right, once per year. Playing regular matches does nothing without solid foundations being put in place.

Another reality is that it is not the role of the RFL to develop the sport in France, or any other nation for that matter. 

Admittedly, the NRL have been able to push the sport in the Pacific Islands but they had the natural resources to do that, being a deep heritage of the sport on those isles and large-scale / historical migration from the Pacific Islands to Australia (meaning more player depth and wider international eligibility). Oh, and money. That helps too!

The RFL have none of those natural advantages in France. And even if it was the responsibility of the RFL, what action could they realistically take to deepen the player pool in France? This is a pre-requisite to more French players competing at the top level and, ultimately, a more competitive national team.

Money Talks

That is not to absolve the RFL of any blame at all. 

Mismanagement, absurd pay offs for failing executives, ongoing litigation, a loss-making World Cup, a reduced TV value deal and worryingly thin sponsorship portfolio are all responsible for leaving the RFL's finances in a perilous state.

That was evident in a story that emerged this week, where Tom Burgess revealed that the RFL could not afford to fly our NRL based players over for the Tonga test series by business class.

I do not know who paid for Tonga to get here in 2023. But it would not have been cheap. Flights, accommodation, living expenses for around a month would be the bare minimum. If the RFL did pay or made a contribution, and it's no more than speculation, perhaps the cost of doing so again for Samoa in 2024 may have proven prohibitive.

Circumstance has left England fighting to be relevant on the international stage with one hand tied behind its back. You could argue the RFL has tied its other hand too.

The blame game and finger pointing is probably not what we need right now though. We need answers and solutions to an ever-growing problem. The issue is that despite what the social media commentariat might have you believe, there is no simple solution.