The welsh twins playing for England is the problem, they should be able to choose and stick with Wales and have meaningful regular international competition as Welsh players.

so winning the european cup was'nt meaningful competition?


and the welsh twins are able to choose...wales or england........some players are'nt that lucky

Wales beating France in RL is similar to Waltham Forest beating Hilingdon Borough 2-1 in division 1 north of the Ryman football league.

winning it enabled them to 4nation......hardly worthless or meaningless


people whinge about there not being enough internationals or it having no structure.....when in fact we do and it has..

heres the fixtures scheduled for the end of the season

FRANCE - england knights,england,scotland & ireland (euro tri nations)

SCOTLAND - samoa,france & ireland (euro tri nations)

IRELAND - samoa,france & scotland (euro tri nations)

SAMOA - england knights,scotland & ireland (britain tour)

ENGLAND KNIGHTS - france & samoa

ENGLAND - france & 4nations

AUSTRALIA - NZ & 4nations

NZ - australia,cook islands & 4nations

WALES - 4nations

RUSSIA - serbia,italy & lebanon (RLWCQ2013)

SERBIA - russia,italy & lebanon (RLWCQ2013)

ITALY - russia,serbia & lebabon (RLWCQ2013)

LEBANON - russia,serbia & italy (RLWC13)

USA - south africa & jamaica (RLWCQ2013)

SOUTH AFRICA - usa & Jamaica (RLWCQ2013)

JAMAICA - usa & south africa (RLWCQ2013)

FIJI - PNG series

PNG - Fiji series

Cook islands - NZ

theres never been as many games

It does show the worth it has when it is a qualifying competition.

it does show its worth....


just like the qualification group stages of the UEFA european champions or the FIFA world cup....


we all know who the top 3 teams are in the world......whats unclear is who is the 4th....the teams ranked 4th to 12th can all beat each other, wales are indeed currently ranked 12th in the RLIF rankings.....thats why the european cup & pacific cup are so important....its gives all the '2nd tier' nations a goal and drives development......


or we could go back to tri nations or test series between GB,AUS & NZ and f**k everyone else off and kill international progress once and for all...

Other than the 4 nations none of them are of any great standard.

Exactly, people very rarely celebrate winning a qualification stage. Do you know the winners of the last World Cup qualification stage? Do you know the winners of the last world cup.

Qualification is a means to an end, it is worthless in and of itself.



and there is your problem, why would anyone choose to be part of a nation 4th - 12th when they are viewed, and treated as second class, when they can simply choose to be part of nations 1-3 and be included at the top level. Thats why people switch nations, thats why people choose England, Australia, NZ over Wales, Fiji or Samoa.

You have drawn a false dichotomy. Our options arent as you have described. We have a very obvious option of treating teams 1,2, and 3 the same as we treat teams 4,8, and 12. If Australia are playing Fiji, Samoa and Tonga as well as New Zealand then the likes of MoiMoi and Uate dont need to be swapping, if England play Wales, Scotland and Ireland then Danny Brough doesnt need to be swapping nations, neither does Gareth Carvell.

The answer is to not devalue 2nd tier nations by separating them from the big 3, but to include them in real international competition, not just qualifying competitions and warm ups.

ask mark rowley if winning the european cup was worthless to wales


like i've said time and time again....tightening the laws and enforcing them will stop players switching...bringing back GB to appease player swapping is'nt the answer

If you enforce laws that stop players switching, they simply wont choose to play for any nation outside the top 3. Why would they? Why would they commit themselves to playing European Cup qualification competition when they could play in the 4 nations. Enforcing those laws whilst not addressing the actual problem simply condemns all nations outside the top 3 to always being outside the top 3.

"if" we enforce the laws??? enforcing the laws should be a given.....and enforcing the laws is addressing the actual problem..


not every player is gonna select england...cos not every player is good enough for england....it'll also drive development so the likes of wales,scotand and ireland won't have to rely on grandparent players

We do enforce the laws you are wanting new ones to legislate against a problem which is of our own making. People dont swap countries for the fun of it, they do it because of the huge disparity between representing the big three and representing anyone else.



Yes, so we will be left with a situation where anyone good enough, regardless of where they are born, will find a way to play for England and the rest of the home nations will be left with the cast-offs and expected some how to catch up.

sorry pal...we don't


after the last world cup a law was put in place...you could switch immediately the 2008 world cup...but whoever you played for in 2009 you was tied into that nation till after the next world cup in 2013....as a result the likes of jarrod hayne,michale jennings,chris bridge and ben harrison switched from fiji,tonga and ireland to australia & england....all that was fine within the current laws...........

then the RLIF/ARL let akuila uate,who played for fiji in the 2009 pacific cup meaning he should have been tied to fiji till 2014, switch to australia this year....that in turn has allowed danny brough switch from scotland to england.....cos you can't let one player switch and not another...the flood gates have been opened again

if we enforced the laws UATE would'nt have been allowed to switch!



thats the current situation anyway...they get england "cast off" and are forced to develop their own talent...and thats the way it has to be during the development period...they have to start somewhere!

Smokey understands where I'm coming from with this.

If players do not think that they could be eliminated by choosing Wales, Scotland or Ireland they would stop switching I feel. The same goes for Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Aus and NZ.

If we kept Wales, Ireland, Scotland, France and England playing every two years with GB playing in the tri nations against NZ and Aus it would not eliminate certain players from the elite competition and would also mean that the developing nations would be getting regular competition against the best in the Northern Hemisphere.

It wouldn't do England any harm to win something for the first few years of the 5 Nations or whatever we would call it. As and when other nations (Italy etc) became good enough to take part it could be expanded as the rugby union equivalent is.

it does do harm though...cos england hammering france and wales over inflates their ability.....and they come crashing down at the end of the year.....


and you talk about a tri nations with GB,AUS & NZ..........what about the pacific island nations??? whats gonna drive the development of the game there if they have'nt got a 4nations to aim for??


your all failing to see the bigger picture!.....we need more countries playing more meaningful international games, euro/pacifc cup,4nations,RLWCQ & RLWC.....not international teams playing part time....and a part time GB

But they dont get cast-offs do they, if other nations played proper internationals Uate would still be playing for Fiji and Brough for Scotland. If we stopped them switching all together all it would mean is Uate would never have played for Fiji, Jennings never played for Tonga and brough never played for Scotland, it wouldnt mean the didnt switch to the bigger nations, it just means they would never have played for the smaller ones.

If England are losing because they believe their own hype they dont deserve to win.


They play meaningful internationals against Australia and NZ throughout the season

So England should leave the four nations and play in the euro cup instead.

If we treat countries and competitions as 2nd class its no wonder people want to be involved in the countries and competitions which we treat as first class instead. We should treat them all the same.

Meaningful mid season internationals, England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and France in the northern hemisphere play each other once during the season, 2 years out of every 4 GB compete in a 5 team post season comp.

Australia, NZ, Fiji, Tonga, PNG and Samoa play each other in the Southern hemisphere and 2 years out of 4 a Pac Isles team plays in a 5 nations comp.

2 years out of 4 Australia, NZ, GB, Pac Isles and France play each other in a 5 team comp, 1 out of every 4 years we have a world cup. Once in every 8 years GB and France Tour Australia, NZ and the Pac Isles, Once in every 8 years Australia, NZ and the Pac Isles Tour the UK and France.

If we do that, Uate, Hayne, etc will still be playing for Fiji, making them a better, more competitive side improving their national side, and the players who are playing with them, the same with Tonga, Samoa, Wales, Scotland, etc until they are the level of the big 3, and when they are, we have a great international structure to watch them compete.

The sad fact is that whilst Australia and New Zealand are playing international RL England/GB will never win a major tournament.

Nobody will ever care about international rugby as long as you've got players switching countries every other year. Play for the country you're born in or not at all. International rugby is a joke and always will be as long is the have people like Richard Lewis are running our sport.

It's the switching that's the problem. One nation, for life. That way Brough could have either decided to play for Scotland and play in a WC, or sat around for his whole career and waited to see if he was ever good enough for England, and whatever he chose is HIS problem. Therefore, if he chose to play for England and never made it, but then decided to play for Scotland, only for England to come knocking later, tough. He chose Scotland and has to accept it. It's ridiculous and embarrassing that Brough and Moimoi can keep switching every year. I assume Brough will be running off back to Scotland when he fails to make the England WC squad.

Playing as GB is only to cover up the real problem of nation switching.

They shouldn't even get a choice! Play for the country you're born in, and nobody else!

Yeah, but what if you're born in, say, Paraguay, while your parents are visiting the country. You grow up in England and have English parents, but you can only play for Paraguay? (Who don't even have a National team anyway).

Thats a bit too strict. I think birth of Gran Parents is a fair enough rule.

I think the answer is no... the reason is more about being able to make decent young players into international standard performers.. we were better at it when the game was semi-pro... there was so much more hunger amongst the young players then...

It just isnt important in the SuperLeague... clubs just sign players who have come through the Aussie conveyer belt and play [i'lip service' [/ito genuine player development! after so many years of Super League youth development we should have 40 - 50 players now... who are all fighting each other to play rep football.

You should be allowed to play for whatever countries you hold valid passports for.

That is all.


Most people have one. Quite a few people have 2.