Where did the concept come from?

Danila Anderson has spoken/writen about the ins and out of teh tier structure, could offer International RL a real shot in the arm. Especially between World Cups.

What are you on about? Aside from uate, who should still be playing for Fiji and not for nsw/Australia (despite the fact he had never played rugby league before emigrating to aus), who have Australia cherry picked from the south sea islands. Every single national team has players born and/or raised in Australia, yet Australia weakens international rugby league? How does that work?

It's very rich coming from vagana considering that NZ are the worst nation when it comes to "cherry picking" other nations players. The most recent player is a young kid from the warriors in Konrad hurrell who is going to be a superstar. He moved from tonga to NZ 3 years ago on a rugby union scholarship before taking up rugby league and has already stated he wants to play for the kiwis. NZ are the biggest hypocrits of all!

All that needs to happen is a fairer schedule of meaningful test matches and rep games for all nations both mid year and post season and a one country for life rule and we are well on our way to reaching our potential as an international sport. Vaganas two tier system is ridiculous and will ensure that these national teams are packed full of players who would drop them for aus or NZ as soon as they are good enough. Players must commit to the nation, not play when they don't make their first choice. Leave origin to Australians as it is, other countries should be giving players with dual nationality the choice to make the decision and stick to it!

Uate aside, the other 3 players are Australian, they are playing for their state and their country. The arl have every right to ensure australian players make up their state teams! What they shouldnt have the right to do is pick players who play for other countries if they choose to have that rule! They also shouldn't be allowed to stop other countries from holding their own rep series or test series when origin is on. This is where Australia holds the game back, not by taking stealing other countries players which in the most part is a lie!

Agree with this. Are England stealing Brough? Or has he just played for another country he is eligible for whilst waiting for his chance to play for his country of birth? I think the latter, and it's the same for the vast majority of Australian players that people consider "stolen" from the Pacific Island nations. They're just taking advantage of the international rules until their chance comes for THEIR home nations. If you take that rule away, I think you'll find that they won't play for those other nations at all (and not "stop Aus stealing players from other test nations, thus making the others stronger" like many seem to believe, if only it were that simple!).

I think New Zealand vs the Pacific Islands would go a long way in giving players of the smaller island nations (who don't play all that often) a big stage to play on 3 times a year. That is what they are after, and that is why they choose their home nation over their nation of heritage.

Didn't Adrian Lam play for Queensland and PNG?

Yes he did. As has Neville Costigan. Rules only bent to suit the Aussies!

I agree with all of the first part of this. If they didn't have the chance to play for England, would Bridge or McIllorum have played for Ireland? Or Brough for Scotland? No chance, but Ireland and Scotland will have benefited from them playing, as will their younger players.

The rules weren't bent to suit the Aussies at all. They were bent to suit png. Costigan has always wanted to play for Australia, he has never really identified with his png heritage. He played for them at the world cup as it wouldn't affect his chances of possibly playing for qld and aus in the future. I have spoken to him about this personally as one of my good mates played for png in the rlwc. IMO, once he made the decision to play for png he should be eligible for noone else but hey, this is rugby league!

Lam moved to Australia as a small child, and as an exception was allowed to play for png and qld during the super league era. He was an exception to the rule at a time when rugby league was struggling, but yes it is a joke that he was allowed to do so.

Whats the difference between Uate and Tuquiri?

Two things,

firstly, if this was say the USA, getting a rich backer and paying $50k a man to heritage players in the NRL to switch eligibility to the US, we would be up in arms about how wrong it was. I cant really see what the difference there would be to this. Rep payments should be paid by the RLIF and be uniform.

secondly, this would be much less of a problem if pac island nations actually played top tier internationals regularly.

It is a big shame that there are not more internationals for the Pacific Island nations.

Look at who Fiji could select:

FB: Lote Tuqiri (Wests Tigers)

3/4: Akuila Uate (Newcastle), Wes Naiqama (Newcastle), Darrel Millard (Catalans), Ratu Peni Tagive (Sydney Roosters)/ Sisa Waqa (Melbourne)

5/8 Jarryd Hayne (Parramatta)

2R: Tariq Sims (Nth Queensland)

PR: Petero Civinoceva (Brisbane), Ashton Sims (Nth Queensland)


No wonder Fiji came 4th in the 2008 World Cup (without Tuqiri and Civinoceva).