Quote: NickyKiss "This is an NRL decision. We can take covid out if it, it’s a convenient excuse to avoid international rugby league. The Aussie and Kiwi Union teams will travel here later in the year, the Olympic team are in Japan and they sent a team to a Table Tennis comp recently. Their cricketers will go to Dubai for the World T20 in October, the Kiwi cricket team played three tests here just last month and on and on and on.
They’re a disgrace the NRL. Rugby League fans in this country shouldn’t even contemplate watching an NRL/Origin game on Sky going forward until a time comes when they look at the bigger picture.'"
I think you need to take the emotion out of it. Comparing table tennis at the Olympics isn't like for like. Nor are the other sports the same.
It's 100% the right decision to pull out of it and COVID is the reason. Look at the NZ players as a perfect example, they've been away from home for 1.5 years now. If they come over here that will extend that by another 6-8 weeks when you factor in quarantine when they return. Is that really fair?
SOO went well into mid November last year and, as such, there was a reduced off-season. To then extend this season to go even longer is crazy. Add in the NRL has an 8 week window for players to rest and you're talking about (with 2 weeks quarantine on top) for players only retuning to clubs in Feb for the 2022 season. There was uproar on here about French and Hastings coming back late, but we're happy for whole teams to do it?