Quote: shinymcshine "Way too much of the RL development seems to be left to enthusiastic ex-pats or well intentioned amateurs, whose dedication and hard work isn't always built on a solid foundation. I would love the game to grow, but there just doesn't seem to be a coordinated manner to make it happen, just the occasional random flourish in an obscure corner of the globe that people roll out to 'prove' the game is spreading.'" What do you think should be happening? Who should be making these 'coordinated' moves? You can't force people to play the sport in some random place where nobody knows it exists. The fact that there are over 50 nations now playing as opposed to less than ten 15 years ago would suggest that yes it probably is spreading but I'm not trying to 'prove' anything, just sharing what I thought was some positive news about a sport that we all supposedly enjoy being played in a new continent, apparently not in your eyes. But you're free to go ahead and tell them that they're wasting their time. https://www.facebook.com/futbol13chile/?fref=mentions

Quote: shinymcshine "Way too much of the RL development seems to be left to enthusiastic ex-pats or well intentioned amateurs, whose dedication and hard work isn't always built on a solid foundation. I would love the game to grow, but there just doesn't seem to be a coordinated manner to make it happen, just the occasional random flourish in an obscure corner of the globe that people roll out to 'prove' the game is spreading.'" What do you think should be happening? Who should be making these 'coordinated' moves? You can't force people to play the sport in some random place where nobody knows it exists. The fact that there are over 50 nations now playing as opposed to less than ten 15 years ago would suggest that yes it probably is spreading but I'm not trying to 'prove' anything, just sharing what I thought was some positive news about a sport that we all supposedly enjoy being played in a new continent, apparently not in your eyes. But you're free to go ahead and tell them that they're wasting their time. https://www.facebook.com/futbol13chile/?fref=mentions

I'd like the RLIF to have a clear strategy for rolling out the game with a structured route of international competition to allow sustainable growth to allow the global competition to strengthen. rlif.com/members What we seem to end up with, and accept though, is adhoc best endeavours of a committed few in the developing nations, whilst those in the game's position of power sit dumb and happy in the belief that the game is growing.

I'd like the RLIF to have a clear strategy for rolling out the game with a structured route of international competition to allow sustainable growth to allow the global competition to strengthen. rlif.com/members What we seem to end up with, and accept though, is adhoc best endeavours of a committed few in the developing nations, whilst those in the game's position of power sit dumb and happy in the belief that the game is growing.

What's the Brazil shirt look like?

How many teams are there in Brazil?

Regards

King James

What I find ridiculous is countries standing up with National teams when there is minimal domestic competition in existence in that country.

National representation should be the aspirational pinnacle for domestic competitors, not a replacement for the domestic game.

So you think New Zealand having a national team is ridiculous, despite the fact they won the World Cup in 2008.

we need to get an emerging nations tournament going in the next world cup as we did in times past. putting these teams straight into a full WC would just mean tonkings and a lot of players with dubious connections playing which won't grow the game. you could play the games as curtain raisers or as stand alone/double headers and make all tickets a fiver, give some to schools and RL clubs and (shock horror) actually do a bit of promotion for it. of course if we do this in 2021 this would also be an ideal comp for a canadian team to enter ahead of the north america world cup. germany, canada, ukraine, russia, south africa, spain, cooks could all play.

what other nations would fit the bill?

I find it ridiculous that as a sport RL has been around for over 100 yrs but globally can still barely sustain more than a couple of dozen full time professional clubs.

There are four different groups in different states working independently, apparently they didn't know each other existed until fairly recently. As for how many teams and what level of activity each of them have, I don't know because I don't speak Portuguese.

There would be similar domestic activity in most of these nations to Tonga, do you think Tonga don't deserve to have a team? Nonsensical viewpoint.

As for there only being a handful of pro teams after 100 years I agree, but why is that the fault of people trying to develop the sport now? Maybe if someone had done this 50 years ago there would be pro teams in other places.

Decent start then. Hopefully they can build on it

Regards

King James

About ten years ago there were some very promising developments coming from Cuba. Much of it was due to the work and enthusiasm of Phil Melling. At the time there would appear to have been little interest shown by the Rugby League authorities and sadly Phil shortly after passed away. He was someone who was well respected in his home town of Wigan and later in South Wales where he had gone to live.

It took me three minutes to find the relative Facebook and websites of the three nations mentioned...all showing fantastic local development ... also check out the 2017 Wikipedia for World Cup qualifying .. you will see all three were involved in the qualifying competition

You might want to also check out the Balkan Superleague competition run by the entrepreneurial Serbians ... which is perhaps the most exciting grass roots development currently in the game!

I'm aware of Phil Melling, he was a good guy. But not sure where you've got the info from regarding Cuba as I don't ever remember any mention of there being any type of RL presence there.