Rugby league, since 1895, has made an art form out of false dawns. The international arena might be the area that has seen the most of them.
The running joke is that the league-loving child learns the meaning of the word ‘inaugural’ well before their mates, because everything is inaugural, then never seen again.
The sport, as eminent rugby historian Tony Collins put it, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and it was perhaps understandable that the widespread reaction to the global governing body, International Rugby League (IRL) releasing a fully formed, planned out, agreed, set in stone international calendar was: I’ll believe it when I see it.
Rugby league fans, especially those of an internationalist bent, are well accustomed to having their hopes raised and then dashed.
To paraphrase another eminent Tony C – the socialist historian Tony Cliff – the international game rises like a rocket and falls like a stick.
Tonga beat the Kangaroos in a…