It's been more than six years since coach Mal Meninga's ancestral land – Vanuatu – played a recognised men's international match.
When Australia's rugby league team faces Tonga in Brisbane on Friday, it will have been more than six years since coach Mal Meninga 's ancestral land – Vanuatu – played a recognised men's international.
The Kangaroos are guaranteed to play just twice this year in the Pacific Championships, while the Wallabies and Socceroos play more than a dozen internationals each in 2024."It's such a long, fatiguing season with 27 NRL rounds, three State of Origins and finals," he said. The discontinuation of mid-season international games in June, and the stricter enforcement of abeyance periods, which prohibit play in warmer months, has contributed to this equation.Vanuatu sits less than 2,000km from Brisbane, and first featured in representative rugby league in 2012, when Meninga's nephew Joe wore the jersey of the Melanesian nation.
This plays heavily into the hands of Tonga, Samoa, and Fiji in particular, due to the number of NRL players with heritage in those nations. At the end of every World Cup cycle for at least the last four World Cups, developing nations have been assured increased funding would arrive from looming commercial opportunities.
If the World Cup proceeded without the powerhouse duo, there was every chance the matches would have been closer, different players would have grabbed the spotlight, not to mention an increased likelihood host England would have triumphed. Both doorways were shut after France withdrew from hosting the coming World Cup, and Brazil's encouraging domestic competition, which took a decade to build, collapsed.
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