Whippet13

A historic final

I'll throw in a representative nine's competition over a nice warm weekend mid-summer instead of Magic. England, France, Wales, Scotland, and Exiles from Aus, NZ, Samoa, Tonga.

Handy little map of current USA & Canada clubs:

Lots of strong criticism of the RFL here, but unless I'm mistaken it is the French who are organising this event. They have likely decided the scheduling of all 3 games based on their views what will do the most for them on a tight budget. It is their 90th birthday party, they are not a wealthy organisation and just getting this event on is probably quite an achievement. Let's consider this before jumping in and bashing the RFL.

PCRL fixtures have been announced, a very good looking schedule: https://www.pacificcoastrl.com/news/2024-pcrl-schedule Interesting bit at the end: More exciting news regarding the Utah season is expected in the coming days, along with the announcement of the overall schedule of a unified nationwide USARL domestic competition for the very first time

No sign of a sale, and looks an expensive liability for the RFL: https://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/exclusive-odsal-stadium-latest-with-no-sale-agreed-and-scale-of-rfl-losses-revealed

Mal Meninga is now in the rumour mill to replace JD, that is more believable than Burgess.

SKD

Burgess has very recently and publicly stated he is at Warrington for 2 years, regardless of what happens at Souths. I can see him ending up there eventually though.

If it's the NRL taking the lead with international RL by spending a little cash and trying to create something in new markets, even if they own it, then they are welcome to have a go as far as I'm concerned, because it seems to be either them or no-one.

Indeed, very experienced and no doubt well connected RL People. Hopefully this is with an eye to working more closely with the NRL, whom they must know extremely well, maybe even with their blessing. There seems to be a lot of positives happening with USARL recently, particularly in structure and governance.

I noticed that too today, they do exactly the same thing in the Internationals.

Thankfully most people put supporting British RL above petty rivalries.

Fix it by putting ambitious clubs into SL.

I'm sure It'll happen, although there is a more than fair chance the NRL will make a mess of it. Not that we can overly criticise them for that based on how we organised and ran the 2022 event which, Covid impact caveats allowing, was poor.