...They won't even give us a second franchise here in New Zealand. I saw a figure last year that stated 63% (I think it was that) of the players in the toyota cup qualified to play for NZ.....The storms big hope for the future was the stand out player in last years Warriors Toyota cup winning side..........if they gave NZ a second franchise thier lack of depth would be exposed.

League will never be a global sport until the international board grows a set of nutz and gets the ARL/NRL to play fair....and that will never happen.

By "play fair" you mean get the game's rules unified on both sides of the world. In that case the NRL itself needs to grow a set of nutz and stop bending over whenever Andrew Voss comes up with another barbaric rule change mid season on The Footy Show.

Exhibit A: 10 interchanges.
Exhibit B: The ruling regarding corner posts.

Rest my case, your honour.

Two referees was a Channel Nine introduction as well, wasn't it?

Actually...I meant
Rules of the game including corner posts, goal line drop outs and the number of officials on the field of play...etc....
Rules on international qualification as in you play for a country at any level or age group and that is it.....no passport swapping. No more Kiwis playing Origin either.........
Rules on Development of 'local" talent (minimum of 10 academy trained players in the 25 man roster)
2nd tier international competiton centrally funded to take place every second year and to include development squads from the "big 3"
England, New Zealand and Australia to play a tri-nations comp every 2 years. Suspension of the World Cup until there is the slightest possibility of a 4th team winning it.....
In between tri-nation comps, tours to take place with a development squad it attendance to play the local 2nd tier teams.
Limit both SL and NRL to 14 teams...28 rounds with top 6 play-offs...freeing up extra weeks for international comps.
Central contracts for international players............with a % of their wages paid for by the national fed. This removes any "dodgy' injuries from stopping players being free to play mid season internationals
.....the list is endless, but until somebody grabs the bull by the horns, the game will continue to play second fiddle to the other codes in both hemispheres.

No, No, No! We cannot simply cancel the World Cup again - we need to allow it to grow, and give those teams exposure, the IRB has done it, along with Tours/6 Nations/4 Nations. We need to get that Group of Elite Nations, Repeatedly Playing the Second Tier nations in Competitions, so here's what I would do.

I would have the entirety of Rugby League run by the International Rugby Leage Board, which will split into areas. The International Rugby League Board will run all International Event, the Elite Rugby Board, which will run the Elite Competitions, and the National Boards, which will organize teams and sub-elite competitions.

The NRL and Super League should be limited to 14 Teams, but they should also be required to expand the game in a way that will give the sport a good grounding in more than one country. The NRL should be advised to expand into New Zealand, and the Super League into Wales, and France. This will create a bed of players in Aus, Wales, England, France and NZ, and we should aim for these to become able teams, then we will concentrate on PNG and Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. We'll continue this over 20-25 Years, and hopefully have a good basis of teams and players in these countries.

Easier said than done, I Suppose.

I agree with your sentiment but there are a few specifics i would disagree with.

The problem is, SL and the NRL are the cash cows, how do you get them to sign over power to another body. And how do we get the independence of this body which at the moment is pretty much ockers.

...i didn't say it was going to be easy

The crowd figures for this week have been outstanding...25k average gates are healthy and the clubs owners will be looking at ways to keep this up all season. These 16 teams, together with the 14 in SL need to have a say in the formation of the international board.
Soccer...whilst still a minority sport in Australia, is growing. They got 50k for the final yesterday......if I'd said you'd get 50k to a domestic soccer match in Australia 10 years ago I'd have been laughed at.
The AFL sees 90k crowds for a basic domestic game and the IRB will keep bankrolling Union in Australia for as long as it takes....the 30 club owners, together with the lewis and gallop types need to sit down and formulate a plan that will see their clubs benefit from the growth of the game internationally.....If need be, reintroduce the WCC as a bigger competition.....that will generate extra revenue for the clubs involved, but they will all have to stick to the rules.

The game cannot hope to grow if the clubs aren't prepared to support it........but the kicker is the longer they stay isolated the stronger the other codes will get.

...as I said, it wouldn't be easy

Then I would suggest that the ARL/RFL get together and sit down with the 30 club owners to start the ball rolling. No way they will all agree at first, but there is one thing that will make them sit up and pay attention......TELEVISION.

If it can be shown that a strengthening of the international game could see an increase in awareness and therefore the fan base, then the revenues from Television would be massive.

It may be that the international game needs to grow from age group up? Maybe get assurances now and start the ball rolling with an under 16's or u 18's world cup. Get fijians playing for fiji...tongans for tonga etc. When I was in fiji last year there was an U20's comp between Australian Fijians, New Zealand Fijians and Local fijians. I met one of the players parents...he is on the books at melbourne but his mum said he would jump at the chance to play for the Fijian national team.....get these kids to commit now.....

....not easy, but the benefit in the long term would be a much bigger talent pool.

If someone can convince them then that would be great. I just get the impression the ARL/NRL especially resist international RL. Hopefully the independent commission will be the catalyst we need

Surely the Aussies know much better than us how to grow a sport like RL , they get sell out crowds far in advance of ours , bigger TV deals and are lauded by people like yourself for expanding the game nationally

They should be in charge surely