Sir Adam....

Do you think a World Cup without the 2 best teams has any point? Even though the second best team is from a country with so little interest in the sport that they only have one club so it has to play in another country. England will win it for the first time but it would be meaningless.

 

I think it's disappointing but for the players it's still their World Cup and it offers smaller nations the chance to do better than they might have. I don't recall the 1980 Olympics generating significantly less interest due to 65 countries boycotting them, I bet Ovett, Coe, et al still cherish their gold medals. As is often said in football terms, you can only beat what's put in front of you.

 

True. But look at all the comments about England not deserving to win the Euros because they had not beaten anybody, though they beat 2 previous winners of the tournament. In this case the only 2 teams which have won it have pulled out.
In the case of Coe and Ovett the only ones who mattered were there. Which was them as they were best two in the world.

 

Lucky then we didn't win.

Slightly different tack, if I was an Aussie RL player I might prefer to be in UK than Aus given the bollocks the Aus govt are making of dealing with covid. They can all be vaccinated if they come here.

 

Its a dogs dinner which ever way the media and the RL try and dress it up. Even with Oz and the Kiwis taking part it wasn't really a 'World Cup' was it ? Not when nations have to be loosely cobbled together to make the numbers up.
The only games which had a bit of interest and would have attracted a crowd were England v Oz or the Kiwi's. No-one in Middlesboro is interested in watching Fiji v Papa New Guinea, not even if they were paid to attend.
i think one of the reasons the main two competitors have pulled out is because there is no money in it at all. It is going to be a financial disaster and Sir Adam said as much on RH today.
Shame for all those who have spent time and money arranging it but the hard facts are that a competition which was on thin ice to start with is now sunk without trace and a few fingers have been burnt with todays decision.

 

As the Great Philosopher Taylor Swift once said.
Haters gonna Hate , hate ,hate , hate , hate , hate !

 

It's definitely a dogs dinner now with Aus and NZ pulling out. If it does go ahead it'll be interesting to see how many do turn out to watch.

 

It's such a big occasion I only knew about the rugby league world cup happening when I heard Clare Balding on the radio this morning . This sport is so big it's Cup final was played last weekend and I didn't realise until Tuesday when a work colleague mentioned it.

 

Not a fan then!

 

When younger I have been to Craven Park and Boulevard to watch the rugby , and have enjoyed it sometimes. You have to admit though that even when compared to Union , rugby league around the world is very much a 2 nd class sport at best .

 

It's pretty much a non-event now. Though the Tubbies might be getting excited at having half a chance of winning it.

I went to a Rugby game once. KR beat Wigan and it was okay. Just like alcohol free beer or diet coke is okay.....

Nowt wrong with if you're into that sort of thing.

 

RL certainly gets less exposure and hype, although in a funny way I think it's a more honest game than RU. It's rough, tough and rowdy, end of. So is RU but it gets dressed up as some sort of sophisticated, gladiatorial conflict between nations when in fact it's just a bunch of over-muscled blokes bashing **** out of one another, just like RL!

 

Sorry, but union is bigger and more widely played.

 

Remember the time when anyone disagreeing, not liking something or being interested in something wasn't immediately branded a hater?

 

That is the difference with union. Those sort pf games get good crowds. In the last RU World Cup a game at Brighton, an area not known for union, had over 300,000 applications for each of 2 games there. Hardly ones with big names either, one was Samoa v Uniited States.

 

Remember a time when you wasnt obsessed with the so called Tubbies game ?
Remember a time when you wasnt a boring repetitive twat ?
Weve heard it time after time, after time , after time , after time , after time , after time, after time, after time ,, after time , after time etc etc etc etc

 

Yeah. Now they just boycott stuff.

Boring ****s

I blame cancel culture.

 

Union is virtually dead here in Aus unless it's the Wallabies playing. The domestic league was on the verge of reverting to amateur status last year.

 

Remember a time when anyone gave a **** what you thought?