International rugby league has taken a bit of stick in the last two weeks from people with no clue...

For the record, here are some facts about the competitiveness between the top two in world rugby league, Australia and New Zealand (in no particular order)...

Over the last nine (9) Tests between the two teams in tournament play the AVERAGE SCORE is:-

New Zealand RL 21.44 Points
Australian RL 21.33 Points

To suggest anything other than that those two countries are nearly in step is clearly wrong.

It paints the English performance in a different light as well, given being third behind two such closely matched competitors is no disgrace.

Interestingly, the last ten Tests between Australia and New Zealand (ranked one and two in union's world rankings) has seen Australian union win one (1) test and NZ union nine (9) tests...

Well said mate, good to see someone being positive.

OD stop spinning it.

im as much a fan of int. RL as anyone else but between the kiwis tri nations win in 05 and WC win in 08 they didnt win a single game

australias winning percentage is something like 80%. thats not healthy

to make int. RL better we need :

1. 2nd nz nrl side
2. png nrl side
3. origin open to PI players ie play origin and also play for tonga, samoa etc
4. 2nd French SL side
5. more english players in the nrl

I'd agree with everything you say Dally, but i'd say more French and other northern hemisphere nationalities in the NRL too. I was thinking that maybe every NRL and SLE team had to sign one amateur player from an 'emerging nation' every year. Maybe this could improve Italy, Lebanon, USA etc?

biased.

just include all tests played rather than a sample which isnt reflective of all games played

Joke post.

Your knowledge of the international game continues to make Phil Gould look like the almighty on the same subject.

realistically only english players have enough skill level to make it here

we arent a charity and clubs wont just sign clubs cause its good for the int. game

its going to take a long while to get int. RL as strong as wed like it to be

Eight teams in international competition this month.

Great going for the international game.

NRL teams wouldn't in many cases have the foggiest who is good enough if they don't live in the Sydney CBD.

It would be nice to see SL litered with French players but they have to be good enough to sign and not just charity cases, same goes for players from other nations who want to go to the NRL.

I also don't want to see players from all nations gonig to the NRL and playing the exact same brand of rugby as each other. It would be terrible if the French lost their flair because it's trained out of them in other leagues.

We need to stop comparing ourselves to union. Yes, they are good at spinning things in certain ways but their international game is far more advanced than ours so let's not kid ourselves.

I also don't like the words "test" or "test nation," This isn't union or cricket. I believe it segregates all the nations and creates a sort of old boys club where Australia, England and NZ get to dictate whether other nations deserve to play at the highest level. Also, I think it leads to some of the ignorance surrounding international league that non test nations aren't worth the time of day.

In fact, union pinched the term "Test" from rugby league. They previously referred to them always as "internationals".

Further, they have 4 different WC winners to our 3...

We have a good top 8 - 10 nations, so do they.

They have a team with close to an 80% international record, so do we...

etc. etc.

Misinformation and exposure.

Why am I surprised those two words pop up again. And again. And again... Oh...that's right, I'm not surprised in the least.

dont forget the atlantic cup that starts in a few weeks time with USA, Canda and Jamaica.

without checking i'm pretty sure if you count just tournament games between us & NZ dating back to the 2004 tri nations...england/GB would still come out better that NZ??