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Message: [QUOTE="BroncsFan, post: 3411948, member: 9052"] I'm not sure how it all works, but all the calls for Tonga to become a Tier 1 nation don't make a lot of sense to me... it will effectively cut them off from having better players that don't want to miss out on the pay day that comes with playing origin. At the moment they have access to Staggs, Tupou, etc. because they're Tier 2... they lose that as soon as they move up a Tier, but do they get anything in return?? Maybe more games against Tier 1 nations, but does that give them access to more funding, etc. Are match payments for international games provided by the governing body i.e. ARL, etc.? If so then the tiering doesn't help them... the NRL is the biggest comp so they would automatically get the most money to splash to their players. Presumably the bulk of this money comes from TV rights for the games, followed by sponsorships, etc. I wonder if it would be viable to accumulate the funds associated with TV rights for international games and then distribute the money out to the participating nations, at which point you could bring tiering into it. So if Tonga did become a Tier 1 nation those players would be paid the same match payments as Australian players. That way it's an even playing field when it comes to who players want to represent. I'd also suggest that qualifications for Origin be somewhat separated to Internationals.. if you meet the criteria to play origin (i.e. age you lived/moved to Aust, Junior Rep games, etc.) then you can play origin regardless of which international team you play for. Kiwi players are largely becoming available for origin purely because NRL teams are importing them to Australia at an early age. I'm sure a lot of those guys feel passion for NZ, Fiji, etc. and can also feel equally as passionate about Qld or NSW because that's where they got their opportunity to become a fulltime professional NRL player in the first place. [/QUOTE]

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