Next world Cup

KevIRL

Australia 2008. Can we do better than our one and only World Cup finals appearance in 2000 when we got to the Q/F's?

BigDragon

KevIRL wrote:

Australia 2008. Can we do better than our one and only World Cup finals appearance in 2000 when we got to the Q/F's?

The Irish team will have a min of 8 Irish Conference players. There will be 6 in this years European Nations Cup.

Possibly 2 from a team called Kildare Dragons....hmmmm...Dragons...sounds familiar.

NIBBS

so does the Irish team have any players coming through from our own league ?????
I remember watching some of the European Nations Cup and it seemed a more balanced side with more Irish lads on it, although I can understand the need initially for just adding players to make up a team, some of the links to Ireland were a little weak....

where can I get information on the Irish setup, league. teams etc ?
cheers....

BigDragon

NIBBS wrote:

so does the Irish team have any players coming through from our own league ?????
I remember watching some of the European Nations Cup and it seemed a more balanced side with more Irish lads on it, although I can understand the need initially for just adding players to make up a team, some of the links to Ireland were a little weak....

where can I get information on the Irish setup, league. teams etc ?
cheers....

Look at the links section for the link to Rugby League Ireland.

The Irish team are increasing the number of Irish based players in the senior team every year. This is a concerted effort on the RLI and Daryll Powell's part to develop the game here. There is no point in being masters of your own destiny if you ignore the international team and don't include the irish based teams/players. Believe some of the current crop of 9(soon to be wittled to 6 for the European comp) will surprise alot of people in the game.

Daryll Powell has attened the last 2 RLI Grand Finals and expressed his delight in the obvious improvement that the league is making.

The the last few years a few players have played/ still play in the top divisions in England. These include Brian Carney (obviously), Carl deChenu and Oran Darcy to name a few.

unfortunately a lot of the quality that was previously available is old or retired
O'Connor, Cassidy, Connolly, Martyn, clinch, Williams, eager, Luke whats his name, prescott, joint and a few more...im thinkin ireland wont be putting any sort of challenge in, we simply dont have the players!

KevIRL

Deleted User wrote:

unfortunately a lot of the quality that was previously available is old or retired
O'Connor, Cassidy, Connolly, Martyn, clinch, Williams, eager, Luke whats his name, prescott, joint and a few more...im thinkin ireland wont be putting any sort of challenge in, we simply dont have the players!

I see the numbers are more limited this time around. ITs yet to be decided but probly only 8 teams in the finals. Will we even qualify?

Yeah i dont think that will be a problem but you never know - your lookin at NZ, Oz, Samoa, england, Wales and Maoris as certainties then you got the ireland, scotland, Papua new guinea, russia, lebanon, S.A.
The only thing is when a world cup comes around a lot of guys will declare for ireland from Oz etc - Wigans new signin for next year Pat Richards has an irish passport so you'll probably see him, he's quality.
A lot will depend on Darryl Powell proabably hunting them down