A handful of increasingly competitive teams are expected to at least provide intrigue in what is likely to be the best tournament the sport has witnessed
Critics will dismiss the men’s Rugby League World Cup as a provincial oddity, or a forgettable postscript to a long NRL season. Worse, they will question its legitimacy.
A “world” cup, they will taunt, pointing to participants hailing exclusively from the trans-Tasman coastlines and Pacific archipelagoes, with a sprinkling of northern Europe. And, oh yes, Lebanon – even if it is largely via Lakemba in western Sydney.
