You dont see why it is pertinent to discuss the relative merits of one team to the team they were playing? wierd.

No, of course not. It is very unimportant to note the level of quality of either team nor the relative quality of the home produced players to the players they were playing against.

What is important however is that an NRL fanboy makes it known he believes the NRL to be of better quality than SL.

How many of those players are actually from the USA? (genuine question)

Probably not that many. As alluded to earlier in the thread, there is a situation in the USA at the moment where the vast majority of domestic players are not being considered for international selection because of a dispute between governing bodies. Hopefully this will be rectified in time for the World Cup.

Either way, its great that we are in a situation where RL of this level, is played between these two nations including players picked from the respective national competitions.

Matthew Petersen (Unattached)
Sione Taufa (Maui Voyagers)
Mitchell Stevens (Gateshead Thunder)
Ryan McGoldrick (Castleford)
Michael Garvey (Aston Bulls)
David Myles (Unattached)
David Marando (Belrose Eagles)
Junior Paulo (Penrith)
Apple Pope [c] (Jacksonsville)
Mark Offerdahl (Carcassonne)
Danny Howard (Wentworthville Magpies)
Mark Cantoni (Northern Pride)
Joseph Paulo (Parramatta)
Stephen Howard (Tuggeranong Valley, ACT)
Sean Taylor (New York Knights)
Curtis Cunz (Connecticut Wildcats)
Andrew Kneisly (Aston Bulls)

Thats 6 players from the domestic competition which is a great effort.

As I've come to expect from any American team there are some brilliant names in there. Curtis Cunz and Apple Pope stand out.

Keith, you and your lists eh?

Jamacians only had a four day turn around after playing South Africa last Wednesday too. Gotta be a factor.

Yeah looking forward to Stevo commentating on these names!

In all seriousness great for the game. A smattering of real yanks, but at a glance the RL WC now has a more of a World feel to it. Heard the Pope captain bloke speak before and he could be a real ambassador for the WC in changing peoples perceptions that these teams are totally made up of Aussies with heritage. Just need the Cedars to pull through now.

It's pertinent to note your difficulty in recognising the relative merits of yet another team chocka full of Australian players qualifying for the World Cup.

Which 'chocka full of Australians' team do you think will qualify for the World Cup this coming weekend?

Lebanon? Or Italy?

I don’t care, either would be a worthy addition to the world cup and it is great that even if it is only 5-10 players from the domestic competitions, they are being exposed to this level of competition. Its ok don’t worry, nobody doubts your NRL fanboy credentials they are safe, nobody doubts quite how in love you are with it.

I'm not aware of any players in either of the Lebanon or Italy squads with SL experience, therefore it'll be much more difficult to predict the losers out of that clash.

So you think the NRL is much better than SL, if only you had hijacked a thread regarding the emerging nations of international RL to let us all know! Thankfully it is now clear and you have stopped hiding that little pearl of wisdom under a bushel.

Im surprised you have kept so quiet about this cutting edge insight previously.

Apple Pope has a brother who also plays league. His name is Taco.

No, I'm not making that up.