I would go ahead with it without NZ/Australia.
Yes it devalues the tournament but why should all the other countries miss out?
Sod em at least it gives England their best chance of winning it

Are Tonga still coming?

Good point.Unfortunatley the party in power in Aus have botched the vaccine rollout.Personally I think they should go ahead with the tournament. Regardless.If Aus or NZ don't want to take part so be it.

I’ve been coming round to that way of thinking too. Run the tournament, use it to showcase the women’s game and the wheelchair game etc. We may need to reach out to bring some new nations in I don’t know.

This is a mess with the government funding which has been acquired etc.

Leeds Live reporting that lots of support among players abs coaches for doing the WC still. The NRL is so political sometimes. Nice to see there is still a majority support for the international game from those who matter.

If the sponsors, tv etc are still prepared to back it, I would carry on with the tournament.

I saw a video interview with Gus Gould a couple of weeks ago and before any of this came to light when he cast a large shadow over the Competition not going ahead.
Gus said that from the NRL clubs perspective that all NRL players are allowed 8 weeks rest in between each season and that he couldn't see the World Cup going ahead as the NRL players would only have a very short pre season as a result before the 2022 season started.
He also said that as all of the Pacific nations players were all predominantly playing within the NRL competition that they wouldn't be allowed to play either.

After hearing the noises currently being made by the elite players within the NRL
Perhaps they hold a far higher regard of the World Cup than their clubs do?
After all not all great players get the chance to represent or even win a World Cup for their country.

How good would it be if all of these players stood firm and said that they wanted to play in the World Cup

Perhaps they could pick some SL based players to fill out some of the squads?

It amazes me that people still believe the smokescreen. NRL has its own agenda here. Big business, big money, and they don't want to compromise that. International game has been dead for a long time, this being the final nail in the coffin....

I personally think that this has they Prentiss to not only kill the international game, but kill the professional game in the UK.

Regardless of whether the tournament his ahead this year or not, the RFL will lose out financially in a bit way. Cancel/postpone and they will potentially lose money from deposits on grounds and admin etc. Let the tournament go ahead and crowds will be down. Aside from tickets already bought, many less people will be attracted to the big games if aus NZ are missing.

The RFL has no money at the beast of times, and coming off the back of covid is probably in an even worse state. It took 10 years to financially recover from the losses made at the 2000 world cup

It’s interesting reading Phil Goulds tweets its clear this is nothing to do with covid security.

The problem is the Aussies think that the NRL and some interstate rivalry on the eastern side of their country is more important than international RL, they couldn’t be more wrong.

I feel sorry for the players in all of this aswell

Players won't care. They'll have been led to believe NRL and SOO is all that matters.....
They are in good money. Why would they want to come here abd be locked in a hotel room for 6 weeks?

Because despite what the ARL think, for sports people representing your country is a big thing as is playing in a World Cup and maybe once in a lifetime opportunity - the players would want to play.

They also wouldn't be locked in a hotel room for 6 weeks, that's just hyperbole.

It's not just about the Aussies. The Kiwi's and pacific islanders in particular love representing their country and for them it's the pinnacle.

We could still do the WC without Australia but not without all of the above.