I meant in terms of money.

And playing without Australia is how it always should be from now on.

What do those things have to do with culture, anthropology and language?

Wasn't PNG first colonised (in part) by the Portuguese? The Germans had some power there and later the Australians governed the island. I'm not sure the British ever held PNG as a colony, but you could be right.

its not pointless,its giving these players the opportunity of playing interntional RL,something which they might never,otherwise experiance.
is GB a made up team?
are the british and irish lions a made up team?
are the barbarians a made up team?
do you not think its about exposing more people to the game of RL?

It has a great deal to do with culture.



I don't think so.



The Germans had a bit and we had a bit (one bit was called Papua and another called New Guinea) after WW1 - the Aussies got the German bit.

If someone isn't good enough to play international rugby league, they aren't good enough. You can't just go creating sides to give players the chance to play against other countries.


No, but at the moment Celtic Nations and Pacific Isles are.


Like the people doing such good work in France, London, south Wales, Wrexham and many other parts of the UK?

In terms of linguistics, the Papuans have little in common with each other FWIW. There are hundreds of Papuan languages and they are often unrelated to each other. FWIW I understand that some parts of Papua are Melanesian like the Fiji.

Though tbh I think it depends on on field results. The RU equivalent seemed a goer at first but poor results seemed to take the impetus out of it.

If they do well then it could be like Europe at the Ryder Cup. There is no such country as "Europe" and yet they play the USA.

Oh purleeease. I was at the 08 WC and saw those sides, none of whom could beat England. Sometimes we take the "woe is me, aren't England awful" schtick a bit too far folks. We're the 3rd best side in the world by quite a distance, and beat the Kiwis only a year ago in a competitive match they needed to win to make a final. Let's keep a little perspective here.

There are thousands of languages on the island. A few years ago the figure was estimate to be somewhere around 5,000.
I think it would be much better to consult the people themselves rather than have a few Aussies in a Sydney board room decide they'll play under the banner of Pacific Nations or Pacific Islanders. As I said earlier, I get the feeling this will turn out to be a non-story but it does create some interesting debate.
I for one hope we don't go down the Ryder Cup route as I think a two team international competition would be repetitive, exclusionist and ultimately a poor draw for neutrals.

i take on board everything you've said there,but imo RL needs to grow quickly at international level.
if you've got six nations who are crap on there own and no one is interested in watching, but they've got a few decent players each,then why not combine these players and let them play each other in a proper series,its not long term is it ?

I'd rather a three-match series against the Kiwis. Let France, Wales and the rest play the likes of Samoa and PNG as they warm up for 2013.

Yes to all of those. None of those teams exist in RL and for good reason. It's a pathetic and horrible idea and will hopefully never see the light of day.

Australian officials want to give the players a summer off after three consecutive Four Nations since the last World Cup in 2008.



Rugby league needs its heartland areas to stand up and be counted, not hide away in the shadows. The international game can't afford to lose a team like Australia. This isn't football where you have loads of famous teams. Brazil could pull out of the football world cup but you'd still have Argentina, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, England, etc. It would be a blow but the show would go on without too much trouble.

Rugby league has Australia, New Zealand and England, plus some up and coming nations. I don't mind us playing the developing teams but most of all I want to see us playing the Kangaroos and Kiwis. It's bad enough that we don't play them at home every year as it is.

I like rugby league as much as I like rugby union, but I probably watch (albeit on tv) 20 rugby union games for every 1 rugby league game I watch. RL can certainly produce the quality (as we saw on Sat) but it has to somehow try and increase the supply.

so you dont want us to follow the best ideas that RU use to make loads of money out of, do you not ?

No, because they are stupid ideas. RU has a better international scene which makes more money because they had administrators who were proactive in their expansion of their game in the 1980s and had the financial backing to support this. They were not insular and were not resistant and dismissive of change, they have an organised and motivated world governing body and they are now reaping the rewards. Contrast this with RL where we have fans who are completely resistant towards and actually wish failure on any attempts at expansion, and an international game that is run at the highest level by crooked Australians who wouldn't know what genuine international sport was if it hit them in the face. That's the reason we don't have an international scene like RU. Adopting pathetic contrived gimmick sides would achieve nothing.