After taking a week to reflect on the 2017 Rugby League World Cup, I have arrived at the opinion that it was the best one ever – or certainly the best one I’ve ever seen.

We witnessed six weeks of fantastic footy, played with a level of passion seldom seen in the NRL, after which the Kangaroos emerged victorious with a 6-0 win over England in the final.

This was a result that many, myself included, foresaw from the start of the tournament.

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However, the fact that the most likely result ended up occurring didn’t take away from the spectacle in the slightest. In fact, this tournament threw up levels of unpredictability and excitement not seen in international rugby league for a very long time.

In one of the previews that I wrote for the tournament, I said, “If there are to be any major upsets at this World Cup, New Zealand will be on the receiving end”.

At the time of writing, my gut feeling was that if anyone were to pip the Kiwis it’d probably be Tonga. Having said that, I still backed New Zealand when I previewed the game, so I can’t completely claim that I called it! However, the Fiji upset surprised the hell out of me. I stand and applaud anyone who called that one.

This World Cup had so many great stories. The Kumuls’ home-town heroics. Ireland’s upset win over a star-studded Italian side. Fiji, Tonga, Lebanon. The war cries. The hymns. All of it, fantastic! A true credit to the people involved and to rugby league as a whole.

In covering this tournament, I’ve stayed overwhelmingly positive in the things I’ve written because these tournaments come around so infrequently and I wanted to enjoy it while it was on.

Now that it’s all over, I think this is an appropriate time to point out how the tournament can improve in the future.



Neutral referees

There is one thing that makes international rugby league a laughing stock – and no, it’s not the eligibility rules! Having neutral referees is commonplace in most international sports in the world. The fact that rugby league does not do it is a joke, and it must be rectified immediately.

Of course I understand that rugby league is not football or rugby. All the top referees come from two countries (plus Henry Perenara). There are not world-class officials from all over the world.

That’s why I’m prepared to cop Gerard Sutton for the final. It’s the biggest game. It deserves the best ref. But for the semi-finals, quarter-finals and group stage there is absolutely no excuse.

If you have one referee from New Zealand (Perenara) and one team from New Zealand (the Kiwis), surely it’s not that difficult to keep them separate. I mean, all you have to do is assign anyone else to referee the Kiwi games.

And surely it’s not that hard to adopt a policy, which involves Ben Cummins (for example) officiating all the England games, with the same policy being adopted for Phil Bentham and the Kangaroos’ games (and Perenara for the England versus Australia game).

I’m not for a moment suggesting that untoward officiating on the basis of national allegiance was an occurrence at the 2017 World Cup. But the fact that the referees are not from neutral countries means that people – justifiably or otherwise – will ask the question.

That is a bad look for the game. While it doesn’t affect the game itself, it does affect people’s perception of the game, which is bad enough. Given the ease with which the change can be made, I think it’s a no-brainer for the RLIF to enact it ASAP, for all international rugby league – not just World Cups.



16 teams, four pools, top two through

This change has already been made and I applaud the RLIF for doing so. The 2017 World Cup saw the farcical situation of Ireland winning two of its pool games and failing to qualify for the quarter-finals, while Samoa won zero and did qualify.

Although when taking into account quality of opposition, and given the fact that Samoa would probably beat Ireland quite convincingly, the above result does not seem so ridiculous. But to the uninformed observer (of which there are many) this occurrence would look quite strange.

The 2008, 2013 and 2017 formats were all far from ideal – obviously having a number of teams that is divisible by four is preferable. But these tournaments were formatted as they were arguably out of necessity – the tournament would’ve been too lopsided if it had too many teams.

But now, having 16 teams will be of great benefit to the World Cup. I’m not sure how the seeding is going to work. But I would like to see it happen based on 2017’s quarter finalists, meaning that Australia and Samoa would be together, New Zealand with Fiji, Tonga with Lebanon, and finally England with Papua New Guinea.

This would make for a fairer, more balanced and more competitive tournament, as all the best teams are spread out evenly among the groups.

The speed of the game

This was a big one for me. I watched many games on delay deliberately so that I could zap through the stoppages. Coming from watching NRL every week, it was very hard to adjust to having no shot clocks for scrums and drop outs.

It was also extremely frustrating to have the video referee at the ground, being fed footage extremely slowly by the broadcaster, rather than the lightning quick access to footage that centralised bunker technology has given us in the NRL.



Centralised bunker technology is not likely to be at either of the next two world cups, given that English and North American rugby league do not have access to this. But I cannot for the life of me fathom why the NRL’s bunker was allowed to gather dust for six weeks, while video referees were struggling to get the exact footage they wanted from Channel Seven.

Bunkers aside, shot clocks for scrums and drop outs must be implemented into international rugby league immediately. There is no excuse for not introducing these simple measures – they should’ve been in place already.

Equal pay for all nations

Ah equal pay. Wouldn’t it be fantastic? Sadly, I cannot see this happening anytime soon, for two reasons.

Firstly, the RLPA (rugby league Players’ Association) will never agree to have match payments for Kangaroos matches decreased. Secondly, the RLIF cannot afford to pay players from 15 other nations what Kangaroos players earn per match.

It’s unrealistic to expect players to be paid $10,000 per game like the Kangaroos are. The Kangaroos are the best in the world and have been for a very long time. To be quite frank, they deserve to be the highest-paid team in the World Cup.

However, the other teams do deserve more. I don’t have access to the books. I don’t know where this money will come from. But as an outside observer, I do find it difficult to believe that a combination of the RLIF, ARLC, NZRL and the RFL couldn’t find enough to prop up second-tier nation player payments to say $1500 per game.

Perhaps more for the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final.

I think that the goal should be for these bigger organisations to supplement the minnow nations to the extent where their players aren’t losing money by playing in the tournament, and in fact they’re making a little bit for their efforts. I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all.



Greater American presence

The USA and Canada have been confirmed as hosts of the 2025 edition of the tournament. Concurrently, there has been plenty of talk lately concerning American teams entering the English rugby league system as the Toronto Wolfpack have successfully done this year.

The likes of Sam Burgess, Jarryd Hayne, Paul Gallen and the Walker Brothers have been linked to a possible New York franchise. That’s all well and good, but what’s more important than the recruitment of ageing NRL stars is the recruitment of local players to learn from the superstars.

If several franchises from America and Canada are able to infiltrate the English rugby league like the Wolfpack have, it will open up more pathways for local players towards elite rugby league, which will result in the Canadian Wolverines and the USA Tomahawks being more competitive in the long term.

In the short term, we look towards 2021 where there will be two, or possibly three North American teams. Three teams will compete to qualify – the USA, Canada and Jamaica. The top two, of which one will presumably be the USA, will qualify automatically while whichever team finishes third will fight it out in an intercontinental tri-series against the seventh placed Asia/Pacific team – likely the Cook Islands – and the top Africa/Middle East team – likely South Africa.

I hope all three North American teams qualify for 2021. I believe it is more important that the USA and Canada are there than Jamaica, seeing as they are hosting in 2025. But an appearance from the Jamaican Reggae Warriors would be fantastic for them, and would open up the possibility of them hosting a home game or two at the 2025 edition, like Papua New Guinea did this year.

In the meantime, while all these clubs are hopefully being set up across North America, the NRL and Super League could assist by taking the odd game abroad, either pre-season trials, Nines tournaments or proper season games.

While this wouldn’t do much for the game at a grassroots level, it would generate interest and start to put rugby league on the map a little bit in the lead up to 2025.

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