Hi everyone
Some of you will have seen the press release from International Rugby League last week about the on-going work to compile a list of Recognised Senior International Matches: https://www.intrl.sport/news/international-rugby-league-to-recognise-over-1600-historic-international-matches/
This is a huge step forward, and I’m delighted that IRL has decided to compile such a list. The international game has been somewhat neglected when it comes to an aligned approach, with different National Governing Bodies (NGBs) applying their own criteria for what matches to recognise, and whilst it’s obviously at their discretion how they want to recognise their own players (with caps, or heritage numbers and the like), from a statistical point of view this presents something of a challenge!
A deliberate decision was taken when compiling the list to avoid the use of the spurious ‘test’ term, which causes much confusion and has no current nor previous firm definition, at least as far as I’ve ever been able to determine. IRL also wanted to cast the net wide to include as many games as possible, whilst still ensuring these meet a certain minimum standard . The upshot is the application of the term ‘Senior International Match’, which is something currently defined in the IRL operational rules; the challenge of course was judging historical matches against this.
I’m pleased to say that having been involved in the compilation of the list, I am permitted to share this with members. This is still in draft form, and is being shared in confidence, not for wider publication, which I am sure everyone will respect. All the NGBs have been contacted for feedback, with a deadline of end of February, so soon after that the full list will be published.
Due to the approach taken, the list includes matches which would not previously have been defined as Full Internationals, and included in player career records, such as the 1995 Emerging Nations World Cup; it also includes matches between ‘minor’ nations who are observer or affiliate members of IRL and its predecessors, or who were not at the time a member of the game’s global governing body. Whilst it’s entirely appropriate for IRL to include such matches, this leads to a crucial question about the categorisation of these for statistical purposes. IRL have stated they intend to apply no such categorisation, but will leave that up to bodies like the RKC to determine.
I propose therefore that the IRL list is categorised into: Full Internationals, which are matches between member nations, one of which must be a Full Member, or are part of a tournament involving another match that would be classified as a Full International; Other Internationals, which is everything else. Whilst there is a school of thought that all games on the IRL list should be counted towards player career records, this would change the long established precedent, and include matches that have previously been explicitly excluded (including some involving BARLA, and others in early Pacific Cups where there is virtually no information available). The information shared below allows you to see how each game would be categorised, and I would appreciate feedback from members on this.
In the attached information you will see a number of lists, on the following tabs:
– “IRL list w. RKC class.”: the draft Recognised Senior International List compiled by IRL, with the RKC classification as Full or Other International noted
– “Excluded”: various other matches which were considered for inclusion in the IRL list, but ruled out; in each instance the reason why is specified
– “IRL list by NGB”: the draft Recognised Senior International List sorted by NGB (some NGBs are / have been responsible for more than one international team). This is useful for seeing all recognised games by NGB without the need to sort the main list. Each NGB is separated by a double red line; individual teams falling under the same NGB are separated by a single orange line. Yellow highlighted lines are where the ‘home’/’away’ teams & scorers have been reversed in order to always show the NGB’s team first
– There is a separate Word document containing the criteria applied by IRL, together with the proposed RKC definitions of Full and Other Internationals.
Note, the information is still provisional and subject to change: for example, it’s already been noted that Japan-Hong Kong on 16/06/2018 should be excluded as neither were members, whilst USA-Samoa 06/01/2013 has been missed; there’s also some corrections required on the 1990 Pacific Cup. There will likely be other amendments before the final list is published.
Please let me know by the end of February if you have any comments on the list, or the categorisation applied.
Work is already underway compiling & verifying the match records for all these games, but we need some further assistance to complete this. If you would like to volunteer to help inputting data to finish this task, please drop me a note.
All the best
Neil
