I see that the celtic crusaders are in esl from next year. Which hopefully means more welsh players coming through into top flight rugby league. Just wondering if theyll be able to crack into the four nations arena. You would like to think that they would be able to match it with at least png and france within a few years. We could be on the brink of a six nations tournament. What are your thoughts Druzik Im sure you have an opinion?

LOL... yeah I have.

Well there is a lower tier home nations already... which Wales has won three times in the last four years. It takes the best of the conference and NL players and they have dished out some punishment to the English, actually last weekend they defeated England A 24-8! So the argument is that they do have the players already. What celtic will do is secure that and make them much more visible to the welsh public.

The Welsh team actually is very very good, and its very unfortunate that they game up against essentially an equaly good Scott team. I saw the Welsh test team (a Briers and Harris led team) beat PNG last year in Bridgend, poor crowd for what ever reasons. The funny thing is the Welsh teams historically are really awsome, they trouble the best of them, remember the 200 semi in the WC, they almost beat Australia! And they have been Europen champions in the past.

Idealy what I would love to see happen with the international format... and this may be a while off yet in terms of the money available, is to have a 4 year cycle of tournaments where teams are rewarded for their efforts with the ultimate reward being qualification to the world cup. Have a two year regional championships, so:

year 1: regional qualifications,

year 2: the regional championships, the top of these go into a...

year 3: ...6 nations format and you also have a second 4 nations below that, so at least the top 10 nations in the world are playing meaningful games. The 6N teams and top 2 of the 4 nations get automatic qualification to the WC. Ther rest of the world teams in this year are doing WC qualifications.

Year 4: World cup

and repeat. You have nice tournaments which encourage teams to perform well and reward them for their efforts and give all teams the opportunity to play not only teams at their level but teams obove them if they prove themselves.

Home nations results:

2005: Wales

2006: England

2007: Wales

2008: Wales

 

But like you say... its my opinion. :)

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France are much more deserving at the moment and should definatley be there in 2009. Catalans are bringing genuine frenchman into pro RL and therefor boosting the national team. France already have a mostly pro side when at full strength.

Wales on the other hand are like scotland and ireland ATM with not alot of scottish or irish accents in the team. Celtic will hopefully bring alot of young welsh talent before long and hopefully can get an acedemy squad set up full of young welshman. I would much rather see them use current welsh internations and welsh juniors even if they struggle as opposed to stacking the side full of aussies to compete. If they don't develop players they won't get a license come 2012.

I have seen your blue print before Druzik. You have definetly put some thought into it. It just seems if we can hold a 6 nations tournament I think we wont be a laughing stock anymore especially with the union boys. It would also give some creditability to a world cup as well.

Gillete 6 nations

Australia,New Zealand, Png,England, France, Wales.

 I can dream cant I?

I seriously think that the IRL should consider this for at least 2014.

broncomaniac84:

I have seen your blue print before Druzik. You have definetly put some thought into it. It just seems if we can hold a 6 nations tournament I think we wont be a laughing stock anymore especially with the union boys. It would also give some creditability to a world cup as well.

Gillete 6 nations

Australia,New Zealand, Png,England, France, Wales.

 I can dream cant I?

I seriously think that the IRL should consider this for at least 2014.

I like Druzik's blueprint a lot and I hope that model or a similar one comes to fruition eventually. Regarding what the Rah Rahs or anyone else thinks of our game "who cares" we generally think little of theirs it's just that we don't feel the need to express it as much as they do. Let them continue to be delusional about the global size and interest in their game it may provide RL with opportunities to better martket itself while RU's guard is down.

Regarding the topic of this thread, I would prefer to see Wales in a european top tier four or five nations format rather than joining an expanded 4 nations. I would prefer the 4 nations to be taken over by a Euro 4-5 nations and a similar southern hemisphere tournament as per Druzik's proposal. It would be great to see British Lion's tours to Oz, PNG and NZ and Kangaroo and Kiwi tours to Europe reinstated every second year as well.