Rugby League Four Nations - Scotland - Page 2 - Rugby - Tartan Army Message Board Jump to content

Rugby League Four Nations - Scotland


Hovis fae Sunderland

Recommended Posts

On ‎29‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 6:23 PM, George Saint said:

I like rugby league and I watched a lot of the Four Nations, but the so called 'Scotland' team is a bit of joke. I think there's only one player in the team that was actually born in Scotland. All the rest are Aussies or English. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I don't think I'm far off. I understand that international teams in all sports nowadays include players based on ancestry rather than place of birth, but when it's almost the entire team it gets a bit ridiculous.

Furthermore, none of the Scotland matches were even played in Scotland. Australia and New Zealand are two of the three biggest international RL teams in the world and yet Scotland's games against them were played in Hull and Workington. I can only conclude this was because it was assumed that there wouldn't be a good crowd if the matches were played in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Don't get me wrong, I would love it if rugby league was played to a high level and was popular in lots of countries, but sadly that just isn't the case. Given the make up of the team, Scotland's inclusion in the Four Nations is, in my opinion, a nonsense.

Rugby league needs to stop trying to emulate rugby union. It just doesn't have the support base to do so. England against Australia is the biggest game for English RL fans, and yet the match in London only attracted 35000 fans. England rugby union had 81000 for what is effectively a friendly game against Fiji.

I think you have some fair points in there - especially re the Scotland team- but its basically RL trying to expand its horizons. Cant see them doing it in Scotland though as there isn't a playing base there at all. They have brought the Magic Weekend to Newcastle for the past couple of years - fantastic occasion but any rugby playing schools in the North East will be playing union not league -whereas schools in Wigan, St Helens , Warrington , Leeds etc will be playing rugby league.

As a former player of both but mainly rugby union - I think rugby union has become a dire game to watch  -just like British Bulldogs - no attempt to beat a man skilfully or by passing  -all just driving in and repeat. Ive been to various different rugby league grounds and the atmosphere between the rival fins is terrific - no trouble but lots of singing - slagging each other off - its a great game to watch - id particularly recommend a game at Castleford before they move to a new ground.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think George Saint has a point too. English rugby fans can be a bit one-eyed, or even downright hypocritical, in pointing out other countries using the granny/residency rules, while happily ignoring their own nation's use of it. Given the size of their playing base they, if anyone, shouldn't need to use it; then again  the All Blacks happily take who they can from Fiji and Samoa, so everyone is at it. But that is all of a different measure to cobbling together a national team to 'represent' Scotland which basically has little or no meaningful attachment to this country, in a sport that pretty much no one plays here. I can see that they desperately need to broaden the appeal of a game that has such a narrow playing and support base, particularly looking at the growth in the Union game worldwide, but really do wonder if this is the way to go about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 29/11/2016 at 6:23 PM, George Saint said:

I like rugby league and I watched a lot of the Four Nations, but the so called 'Scotland' team is a bit of joke. I think there's only one player in the team that was actually born in Scotland. All the rest are Aussies or English. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong about that, but I don't think I'm far off. I understand that international teams in all sports nowadays include players based on ancestry rather than place of birth, but when it's almost the entire team it gets a bit ridiculous.

Furthermore, none of the Scotland matches were even played in Scotland. Australia and New Zealand are two of the three biggest international RL teams in the world and yet Scotland's games against them were played in Hull and Workington. I can only conclude this was because it was assumed that there wouldn't be a good crowd if the matches were played in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Don't get me wrong, I would love it if rugby league was played to a high level and was popular in lots of countries, but sadly that just isn't the case. Given the make up of the team, Scotland's inclusion in the Four Nations is, in my opinion, a nonsense.

Rugby league needs to stop trying to emulate rugby union. It just doesn't have the support base to do so. England against Australia is the biggest game for English RL fans, and yet the match in London only attracted 35000 fans. England rugby union had 81000 for what is effectively a friendly game against Fiji.

Qualified for it fair and square

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad that some people realised that I wasn't attacking the proud and historic nation of Scotland in my post. I was merely pointing out that the obsession that rugby league has with 'expanding the game', is mostly pie in the sky stuff. Scotland played in the 2000 rugby league world cup with a team made up of Aussies and English, etc. Sixteen years later and can you really say that much has changed? From what I read on here, you have enough problems with getting kids to play football instead of spending time on their Xbox or whatever. It's not really realistic to expect that Scotland is suddenly going to take to rugby league on mass, given that the sport has existed for well over a hundred years and it hasn't happened before now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...