Quote Dropkick Murphy="Dropkick Murphy"GB were rubbish, but as a sport rugby league needs to invest massively in PNG and Tonga. I realise most of the Tongan players and fans were born and bred in NZ or Aus, but their passion puts everyone else to shame. PNG is a country of around 8m people who seem to absolutely love RL. Invest properly in those two and we start to have a five nation international game instead of three (and yeah, I realise GB/Eng are currently fifth on the list anyway).'"
How would you invest in Tonga to boost Tonga RL?
Genuine question BTW......given that Hurrell is the only Tongan born player in the current squad and he moved to Auckland on a Union scholarship? Also. Where is this massive investment coming from?
Triple header in Auckland attracts 26k people paying about £9 a head. Australian 19 gets £285,000, as do the Kiwis and GB......my math may be a bit out, but that's a HUGE loss, so where is the money coming from.
In RL, the tail wags the dog. In soccer, that model works, because the game is global and everywhere. In Union it doesn't, so the dog controls the tail and therefore their international game and club game coexist (the english premiership continued during their world cup...imagine the NRL/SL doing that????)....in league, we either need to wrestle control from the clubs or accept that we are a club sport with an international game that relies on immigration to fill squads from all but 5 countries (Eng/Au/NZ/PNG/Fra)
