Quote: puroresu_boy "Jason Taumalolo decision to play for Tonga started all this. '"
To be clear. A New Zealand born player, picked for the Kiwis Squad in 2012, capped by Tonga in 2013 and who was then selected to play for the Kiwis in 2014, disagreed with the punishment of 2 Kiwi players for taking a class A drug and therefore opted to play for Tonga and you think that is a good thing for Rugby League?
He opted for New Zealand, then Tonga, then New Zealand aggain and now Tonga again. I get that other sports have "ringers", with the England Cricket Captain being Irish, their ICC World Cup hero a Kiwi and even the England Union side's first try v the AB's recently was scored by a Kiwi, but you are claiming a team, born almost entirely outside Tonga is Tongan?
Yes, where you are born doesn't always reflect your heritage (I hold Irish citizenship, I was born in Hertfordshire), but a side that is 98% not born in Tonga is not "good for International RL", no matter if they beat Australia, GB and New Zealand.
The current Tongan 21 man squad has 9 Australians, 11 Kiwis and a solitary Tongan Born Player, 11 of whom who have since (or before) represented the country of their birth, or in once case, John Asiata was born in Australia and has played for both Samoa and Tonga is as plastic a side as you can get. Do those fans who made up 15k of the 25.5k there yesterday care? Probably not, but neither does their playing under a flag boost the domestic game in Tonga.
Play a Tongan international RL match anywhere south of Hamilton and see what crowds you get. Google Tonga v Lebanon 2017 for an idea....it's not good. Even the game in Hamilton v GB was poorly attended. £12 is what the 3 games cost me to attend yesterday. Low pricing and games played on their doorstep, and Tonga looks to be the answer, but the reality is that like Toronto in SL, they're just a made up team doing little for the games development in their "home" town/country but making Myopic RL fans feel that the game "is on the up"
Oh. BTW. Tonga would have been relegated to Group B if the comp was definitely going to happen next year, but if it does happen, it'll be without the touring Kangaroos.