RL is not a professional sport. It is a sport made up of amateur and professional players, clubs and competitions.

Yes your right they will be, and will continue to be until we see professional competitions with full time players in those other countries.

Png will have a lot of home grown players in their squad that have not been listed as will some other nations like Fiji I hope.

Translation

Killer stuff. No, really.

Although it might not seem right it does make it a more competitive competition no massively one sided games that can only be a good thing

Besides the above criticism of the quite frankly arbitrary selection criteria (which I know I baited by highlighting it!)...

How on Earth does the present state of affairs, that rugby league is not played professionally outside of 4 countries in the world, make any difference to the future growth prospects in the future? You just can't claim that something will never happen because it hasn't already happened - that's just plain moronic.

And I hate the double standard of some people (I'm not including you in this, because you haven't shown yourself to be one), who on the one hand will balk at a player turning out for their nation of heritage because they weren't born there; and on the other will deny that people born in a country are of that country - as a random example, I don't know a child born in France to Columbian migrants who then grows up there, and is called Columbian, and not French - rather than both.

I presume someone like Dan Sarginson should never be allowed to play for England if he is good enough? Or would you really complain if... Anthony Milford decided to play for Samoa, as both his parents are Samoan?


Plus those guys aren't all going to play for the country listed, just either can or have already done... plus it only includes the people currently in the NRL/SL...not full squads...

Not much different to the rugby union world cup really

The arguements over eligibility are pointless - it happens in all sports nowadays. And as FarsleySteve has pointed out, making the so called 'lesser nations' stronger by allowing 'heritage' players to represent will make the whole tournament much stronger.
I'm really looking forward to seeing the group , there should be some great battles. Additionally, I really hope that the games are refereed sensibly, using the State of Origin method of allowing a little extra aggression (although after this years series there is some debate about whether that still happens). I dont mean letting head shots go unpunished and allowing the game to turn into all in brawls, but just allowing the teams to have a real crack at each other.

totally different actually....as well you are aware.

Soooo what your saying is that when you watch international RL you don't want to see players picked on where they are from..... Like Club RL ???

In what way seeing as England Scotland Wales Italy Australia new Zealand USA Samoa Tonga Fiji Japan Canada all had players playing for them that wasn't born in that country the other might have had but there just the ones I know for definite so explain how it's not the same

Of the 20 nations below, how many had squads that where the majority of their players were foreigners?
England
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
France
Italy
Romania
Russia
Georgia
Australia
New Zealand
South Africa
Tonga
Samoa
Fiji
Namibia
USA
Canada
Argentina

the answer is none....in reality, less than 5% of the players at RWC were playing for the country that wasn't their birth country.

Same question here..2013 RLWC.

Australia
New Zealand
England
Ireland
Scotland
WalesFrance
USAJamaica
Tonga
Samoa
Cook Islands
ItalyPNG

Answer is 8 if not more.

Samoa v Tonga in RL in April saw of the 34 players on show actually born in the country they represented.....you are attempting to say that Japan fielding 5 non Japanese born players is the same? The 5 Non Japanese Union players are all naturalised and are playing in the Japanese league....the 29 Tongan/Samoan players are all born and bred Kiwi/Australians playing in the NRL.

If the game is to grow internationally, then the national teams need to have more nationals in them......Italy getting a decent result against Wales will have little positive effect on the game in Italy if most of the team are Australians