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Karizma

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Anyone catch today's World Club Challenge? Stuart Fielden made it clear why he should be considered the best forward in the game today, he's wasting his talent up there playing with the likes of Meyers. Should be downunder playing against the world's best players consistently - he could still improve.

Wests looked awful without Marshall.

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Mwahahahahahahahahaha

Excellent! Although I have Welsh heritage somewhere (ugh) I hate hate hate the Welsh, particularly the Welsh rugby team.

Going into a Welsh pub as an Englishman is deeply unpleasant.

The common attitude to the English seems to verge on derision at the best of times.

If I had my way England would win 6 Nations, Italy second, France third, Scotland fourth, Ireland fifth and Wales sixth.

As it is, looks like Scotland might get an even better finish!

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I can see England performing better this year, maybe winning it, now they have realised that there are more players in a team than Wilkinson, so the pressure will be off Hodgson to be the next Wilko and he'll be a better player.

Its obvious to see that League coaches are teaching Union players. Which is good because League are better at technical running (hitting the gaps etc). Basically, League is better than Union :)

So its between France (despite their loss) & England

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Someone else cares right? Liam?

Yeah, I care, I just wasn't able to watch the first two matches of the tournament as my bastard ex (the one I don't like) came down to Brighton to see me.

It's good to see England beat (an admittedly under-strength) Wales, and hopefully we can carry our form throughout the tournament.

What I saw of Scotland, they were good, but I think it was also a little bit that France had an off day as much as anything....but I didn't see the whole match, so maybe I'm wrong.

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  • 5 months later...

A lot of people (including rugby league fans) won't know this - but the 2008 Rugby League World Cup is scheduled to take place in Australia in 2008. After the somewhat abysmal failure of the sixteen team 2000 World Cup in England, the tournament is scheduled to return as a commemoration of the centenary of the game in Australia.

So far five teams have been given qualification due to their world ranking. These are Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, England, and France. The remaining five spots will be decided by a series of qualifiers, with the aim to produce a competitive World Cup to further re-establish the game on an international level following a fairly disastrous twenty years or so. Many people aren't aware that the rugby league world cup dates back to 1954, making it an old tournament as far as international sport goes.

Qualifying this far has begun in Europe, with the following outcomes in round one.

Russia 40 defeated The Netherlands 14

Georgia 45 defeated Serbia 10

Georgia 57 defeated The Netherlands 16

Russia 44 defeated Serbia 6

The Netherlands 38 defeated Serbia 26

Georgia vs. Russia was cancelled

Russia took part in the 2000 World Cup (in which they were spanked by all comers, including a 110-4 loss to Australia), whilst Georgia managed to draw a crowd of ten thousand and nationwide television coverage for their clash against the Netherlands.

Both Russia and Georgia will advance to the second round of European qualification, which looks like this.

GROUP A

Scotland

Georgia

Wales

GROUP B

Ireland

Lebanon

Russia

The two first nations will progress to the World Cup. In Group A it's a toss up between Scotland and Wales, whilst group two will be evenly contested by the Irish and the always unpredictable Lebanese side. They'll be a threat as long as Hazem El Masri remains in action.

The two runners up will enter a repecharge round.

Pacific Qualification will include Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. The top two will progress to the World Cup and the third placed side will enter the repecharge with the two European runners up and the Atlantic winner.

Atlantic qualifiers will feature Japan, South Africa, the United States, and the West Indies. This is a fairly open group - really. South Africa put in an abysmal performance in 2000, whilst the United States came close to beating Australia (albeit an underdone and lazy Aussie side) in 2004. The West Indies are newcomers to international rugby league, and the US have had little trouble with Japan in the past.

Ultimately I think the make up of the tournament will be something like.

Australia

New Zealand

England

Papua New Guinea

France

Wales

Ireland

Tonga

Samoa

Lebanon

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Guest Anti-Hero

I want Malta in there, purely for the fact that many of my mates are Maltese and massive league fans.

Unfortunately Malta, Greece, and Italy were all ruled ineligible to play a part in this World Cup. One of the requirements (to avoid the farcical sides of the previous World Cup) was that each nation attempting to qualify have its own domestic league and that it feature team members selected from said league. That will stop the likes of Lebanon from fielding an all Australian based team (as they did in 2000).

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I think I'd be content to see someone other than Australia win it. I'm Aussie through and through, but a Kiwi or English victory would at least shake off some of the 'only Australia can win it' stigma.

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Greece pulled out after leading their group, they are now concentrating on building a domestic league instead, which is class :)

Should be a good competition and cant wait for it, hopefully the game will expand naturally instead of forced like the 2000 WC.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

For those interested, Tonga & Samoa both won their opening clashes of Pacific qualifying. I haven't been able to find a score for Tonga's win over Cook Islands, but Samoa held on to beat Fiji 30-28 after St. George/Illawarra's Daryl Millard was dragged into touch to prevent a match-winner for Fiji.

Other NRL players involved include Andrew Emilio (Bulldogs), Wes Naiqama (Dragons), Hutch Maivia (Cronulla), and George Carmont (Newcastle). There were also a lot of Sydney based juniors from the Dogs and Roosters particularly.

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