This article says Vodaphone has given 4 mill Fiji dollars (2.38 mill Aus dollars or about a million pounds) to boost League in Fiji. www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=251852 Fiji also have a great chance to pay big dollars to some of their players when they play in the 4 nations. Guys like Groome and the Tani brothers (nephews of Noa Nandruku) have never made much money out of the game, but match payments for 4 nations will be good money.

This article says Vodaphone has given 4 mill Fiji dollars (2.38 mill Aus dollars or about a million pounds) to boost League in Fiji. www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=251852 Fiji also have a great chance to pay big dollars to some of their players when they play in the 4 nations. Guys like Groome and the Tani brothers (nephews of Noa Nandruku) have never made much money out of the game, but match payments for 4 nations will be good money.

Excellent stuff! Does any one think the international game is in finally on the right track?

Fantastic, more of the same please!

As long as the Aussies don't start pinching the best Fijians for themselves.

Lets hope this money is invested in clubs and facilities and not some greedy playing and administration staff's back pockets.

I would like to think that it is but I have one big resavation "Australia" The NRL is the reason the International scene has struggled, the clubs are not interested in anything but their own team, the media dont care about anything but State of origin. You only have to remember the farce of the last proper GB tour, the clubs all played second string sides against the tourists & except for a few exceptions the crowds were poor as a result.

Jarrad Hayne likes it. www.theherald.com.au/story/19195 ... up/?cs=306

Jarrad Hayne likes it. www.theherald.com.au/story/19195 ... up/?cs=306

If Fiji had some sort of centre of excellence to a) develop potential stars and b)accommodate an international squad for training camps, then it would surely go a long way to improving their standing as an international team.
The better they get, the less likely players are to go for Australian rep caps. If we somehow improve the money they can earn, then that'll mean even more motiatvion to stay Fijian.

I know that there is a good islander representation in the NRL, but for me the NRL clubs that are currently rolling in money with the strong economy, exchange rate and tv deals are still missing a trick out there. Fijians absolutely love their rugby, I've only been out there once but was amazed that even the tiniest villages consisting of maybe a dozen tin shacks all have a rugby pitch in the middle. The back page of the papers every single day had a full page on the Fiji RU 7's team, some days simply giving a run through of how they'd trained that day as they are the Fijians big presence on any world stage. There were adverts in the classifieds each week for 'turn up and play' 7's tournaments with pretty hefty cash prize pots for the winners where apparently the standard is staggering.

However, the facilities are tatty and poor, the national stadium other than one modest stand was a grass banked athletics track. It doesn't take a giant leap of imagination to see that an NRL club could pump some money into a club or set of facilities there and have the locals flocking, and I'd wager the same for Tonga and Samoa. They'd have the pick of the islanders and a free scouting system with the weekly tournaments to turn up and watch rather than at present picking up those that have already emigrated to Australia. It wouldn't harm them to have a nice pre-season training camp there either. Some very draconian spectator rules though:

If we don't start involving the emerging teams more after this World Cup we need to pack up. The likes of Fiji, Italy, Scotland and the USA have been a revelation and others like Samoa and Tonga have offered great value. I'd set up a tournament to run alongside each four nations involving these sides and have them playing in double headed fixtures alongside a four nations game.

Let's use it as a mode of qualification for future four nations and as a means to expand that competition. If we give players the opportunity to play in more high profile competition we may not see as many players keep swapping nations.

There's a passion for international rugby league and that's been evident these past few weeks, let's take advantage of that.

I think double headers are the way forward, if the 4 Nations is in the Northern Hemisphere, have games like France-Scotland as the warm-up to England-Australia. Same when its in the Southern Hemisphere, have PNG-Samoa as the warm-up to NZ-Fiji.

the smaller nations get the chance to play in front of bigger crowds at better grounds, and the game doesn't incur the cost of hiring 2 grounds out for the day, and the fans get a better knowledge of the smaller teams players and 'star' names which can only help sales when a World Cup comes round. Everyone's a winner.

The Newcastle Knights have done quite a lot for League in Fiji in the last few years. Many of the coaching and training staff have spent time in the country, including running camps and trial games leading up to this world cup. You can see the Australian based Fijians v the domestic Fijians trial game on youtube from a few months ago, and they also had a warmup game a week before the WC where the full WC squad played a game against domestic players in Fiji. A few years ago they brought the Fiji domestic side to Newcastle to play a pre-season trial against the Knights (which was a good game - Fiji played much better than the scoreline indicates - they bashed the Knights around in fact).
This year the Knights gave two Fijians trial games. The highest profile player was Watisoni Votu, a winger who has been a regular Union rep for Fiji in both 7s and 15s. He looked really good in his 3 or 4 trial games and I understand the reason he was cut was because he spoke no English and the coaches found it difficult to communicate what they wanted him to do, which wasn't working because he needed to learn a lot to convert from Union to League. The other guy that trialled was a 21 year old prop named Simi something. He is a huge unit with a lot to learn, and after a few trials he was dropped back to the local comp to learn his trade. I don't know if he went well enough to get a call up to the squad this year.
For the last few years the Knights have also planed to have a pre-season camp in Fiji, but it hasn't panned out for one reason or another. This year I think the Auckland 9s have killed off the idea - but in principal it is very doable. Fiji has a lot of holiday resorts which can be rented cheaply which have gyms and nearby football fields.

Well if they use soooperdoooper league as a model they may as we'll burn the money!

Rumours that Fiji will have a home fixture in next year's Four Nations, possibly against England.

That would be a superb thing to happen. To be honest when the home nations were having a bit of a bleat about OZ/NZ wanting a year off last year, I thought at the time it would be a great alternative to tour the pacific islands. I know the facilities aren't the best but I'm pretty sure it would be abetter bonding experience for the squad than camps in Loughborough and South Africa and would give back a lot to an area that is bled for players with no real input in development from the benefactors.

On this clip - looks like a crowd of about 10k for a game without a single NRL or ESL player (Fiji residents v Fiji Overseas) www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMi5hc0x2mg

On this clip - looks like a crowd of about 10k for a game without a single NRL or ESL player (Fiji residents v Fiji Overseas) www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMi5hc0x2mg

Quote ="roopy"On this clip - looks like a crowd of about 10k for a game without a single NRL or ESL player (Fiji residents v Fiji Overseas) www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMi5hc0x2mg'" There are a few NRL but not many, be good to see the whole match!

Quote ="roopy"On this clip - looks like a crowd of about 10k for a game without a single NRL or ESL player (Fiji residents v Fiji Overseas) www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMi5hc0x2mg'" There are a few NRL but not many, be good to see the whole match!

It would be interesting to see what side Fiji would come up with next year.
Obviously Civo would be a huge loss, but Korbin Sims will probably be a prop next year, and maybe he could fill the big boots of Civo.
Some of the aging backs like Wes Naiqama, Millard and Waqa could make way for Nabouli from Penrith and maybe the third Tani brother from Fiji, who is supposed to be better than the other two, and is being described in Fiji as as good as his uncle (Noa Nandruku).
The big area they could improve is if Sutton is fit and could be their main playmaker, and maybe Groome could move to hooker, where he usually plays, and where Fiji seem a bit lacking.
They probably also need to find 3 or 4 quality forwards to compete with the big 3 nations. Their backs are good enough, with Sutton their halves would be good enough, but once you take out Civo they are looking very short in the forwards.

Fiji is probably well worth devoting time and money as the source of players is large and its underserviced by RU as Fiji isn't treated as a major international team. So long as we don't see endless Uate clones playing Origin rather than for Fiji, there are also benefits for NRL clubs in terms of talent as well.

They would have had to move to Australia before the age of 12 to qualify for SOO
That would make them Australians via emigration.

I seem to remember reading last year that Mcnamara tried to organise something along those lines last year, but it was't to be. I just hope the NRL bosses will ignore idiots like Rothfield and now finally recognise the importance of international RL.

Most tours need to make money or at least break even.
A tour to the Pacific Islands would make a significant loss.

I hope that this year's Tonga v Samoa test held in Penrith becomes a regular thing to keep the interest levels up.

Well, they got over 10k to Penrith, that was not bad, could have been better though, half of Sydney's Western Suburbs are made up of Islanders or Arabs.

Surely if the quoted £5M made from the WC's is for international development, underwriting tours like this is as good a development tool as there is.