True. Brian Smith can spot talent, but he is a dreadful "man manager", i.e. he has no clue about how to treat people in order to get the best out of them (ditto Phil Gould). The only good thing he did at the Roosters was to get rid of Willie Mason.

Smith's true forte is player talent spotting and recruitment. He should focus, at this late stage of his life, on being a top flight recruitment officer..

The game in Ireland has, I believe, 15 Clubs with sides involved in the provisional and National comps. The USA has possibly 21 sides split over 2 bodies in the same situation, yet the USA domestic comp delivers 6 squad players in the 24 and 9 born Americans in total, whilst the Irish have nada...nothing.

Short term thinking, as in, "I don't care where they come from the games are brilliant" will deliver little if any growth for the game in Ireland, Scotland and dare I say it, even the USA.

Yes the world is changing and yes, it happens elsewhere. The occasional international soccer player pops up. BUT NOT TO THIS EXTENT!!
English cricket is full of South Africans due to the exodus from that country when Mandela was elected and English Union has the occasional Kiwi who is there on a grandparent rule or has been "naturalised", but what we are seeing at this RLWC with regards to using the rules would make Jack Charlton blush!

A Scottish team with 2 born scots and an Italian team with 2 born Italians scrapping over the chance to lose to New Zealand is not going to grow RL in either of those countries....it's window dressing...and as pretty as it is, there is very little if any tangible legacy available to some of these countries where the game isn't played.

So they've made it competitive, you'd find a flaw with anything.

Great for Canadian RL, but comparing USA to Canada is like comparing wales to England, nothing more than a spare wheel in the boot of a car.

What am I missing here?

Aren't the selection criteria that Harris whinges about the selfsame ones that qualified him to play for Wales in both codes? (and enabled him to make an absolute bundle in the process?).

I can't see the problem.
Why is it a problem if players want to play for a team they qualify for?

It's been very entertaining. If you want to build a sport get people interested first. They've certainly done that.

As for Wales, I'm not sure the "oh well they are Australian" cuts it any more. Bring from Oz doesn't make you a great player.
Effectively Italy and USA have put a team together that have never played together and would never be anywhere near an Aussie rep team yet they beat the Welsh team that have been building for a number of years.
Nothing to do with the Aussies in the team.

How many of the current RoI squad play in the RoI? That’s right, its nada…… Nothing. In the last 12 months more players from clubs in Russia and the Ukraine and ‘no current club’ were called up by the RoI side than those playing for clubs in the RoI. Their last squad included players from those bastions of Irishness Chatham, Solihull, Harrow, Falkirk, Glasgow, Pontefract and Blackburn.

The job of the World Cup isn’t to deliver growth to these countries. If you think it is and that’s the standard you are holding it to then ‘CRM man with ideas above his station’ is probably the right description of you and I can see why the RFL and London basically ignored you.

The world cup was never meant to be a panacea. Now your doom-mongering and negativity surrounding crowds has blown up in your face, you are setting up a straw man regarding who the players are (which you even needed to make up a narrative about Clint Newton to fit. Which was weird when you think about it. You completely made up a story about the first years of Clint Newtons life to try and prove your point.) and now moving on to holding the WC to an impossible standard so you can in some way claim it as a failure. There are only two reasons you would do this. You are a troll despite your years of denial, and you spend a large part of your life sat on your own, on your computer trying to wind people up who are half the world away, or you think if you get lucky and one of your ‘negatives’ gets some traction in some misguided attempt to retain some sort of credibility.

Either way, you are a busted flush.

I think the Canada/USA rivalry will be more like Aus/NZ in coming years.
They have a longstanding rivalry in Rugby Union in which Canada pretty much always kicks US (that is relevant because the League/Union communities are very close in both countries).
The Canadian League people are working very hard to get over the Tomahawks, and the Tomahawks are very keen to not let that happen, so playing 3 tests every year between the countries will drive both to keep developing as rapidly as possible.
Canada are competitive with USA at the International level (domestic players of course) after just a few years, which is remarkable.
They had completely opposite development paths, with the US starting with David Nui introducing his workmates to the game in Friday afternoon 'Scrimage sessions' and the game developing organically from there, while Canada started with some experienced Union players getting together a side to play against USA and a comp developing later so they could learn the skills - but both development paths are working for them.

Bloody hell, Canada is the worlds 11th biggest economy, a country of 35million people, it is by no means insignificant.

Ouch.

A bit harsh, possibly. But it's true that Gutterfax has been spending too much time trying to bring about a focus on this as a negative. Completely needless. Nobody cares except Harris, who uses it as an excuse for his own failings as a coach.

Anyway, onwards and upwards. I'm really looking forward to the PNG game.

so Wales the first team to exit the world cup, very very disappointing from them, as the joint host nation and will the work that has gone into them over the last few years...opportunity missed

well done USA... bit of sour grapes from harris in his after comments, hope the USA winning can spark up abit of interest in the game over there.. only 3k followers on twitter though at moment!

Alas poor Smokey TA, if you're going to try and throw a personal insult, try and make it accurate....neither ignored me and whilst one promoted me, the other couldn't afford me.

As for blowing up in my face..........I fail to see any posts of mine predicting failure. I questioned the reluctance to produce actual figures and I still find it using that it takes double counted double headers to make you feel al warm and fuzzy inside.......wembley and Cardiff will be the biggest difference between 2008 and 13.......long term legacy planning it ain't!
Looks like my projection of 360k may get beaten by 10% at best......that's 20% shy of their target......hardly worthy of a call to the bomb squad

others tell a different story.

The fact you have needed to invent an attendances of 22.5k so you are only 10% away shows just how much nonsense you predicted. Even when you twist and fudge the figures you are still predicting yourself to be at least 10% away. Which is why you have moved on to simply lying about Clint Newton

Why is he lying about Newton? Did you know Clint as a toddler?

No, that's why I didn't make up a story about him.