Would an England World Cup win really make any difference?

England have made the World Cup final for the first time since 1995, yet you wouldn’t know anything about this great achievement.

The media have hardly mentioned it and you could probably watch a full hour of Sky Sports News with no mention of our great game. Let’s not forget that Sky are the flag runners of rugby league, but they haven’t batted an eyelid at what has been a tremendous RLWC tournament thus far, regardless of if they are showing the coverage or not.

Even the BBC – the broadcaster who are showing the tournament – haven’t done the RLWC justice. You could be forgiven for knowing nothing of the brilliant achievements of Ireland, Tonga, Lebanon and of course Fiji because those games have only been shown on a poxy highlights show in the middle of the day.

It speaks volumes what the world really thinks of our sport. It’s a sad reality that has become all too real in recent weeks. The achievements should be celebrated but are instead pushed aside for pathetic headlines such as ‘David Moyes gains first West Ham point’. That’s how little the sport and the tournament means to those not already in love with our great game. A headline like the above doesn’t even matter in the football world, yet on the Sky bulletin the RLWC and England’s achievement of reaching a first final in over two decades wasn’t even mentioned!

With the best players in our sport playing in this tournament we’ve witnessed shock results and special moments even before a ball was kicked, and yet West Ham’s first point under David Moyes is clearly more celebrated.

The only way our sport will get national recognition now is if we do the impossible and beat Australia in their own backyard. Even then I feel it’ll get overlooked by the Ashes or some marbles tournament in China.

It’s time we stopped looking for the recognition and focus on ourselves. We’ve survived without the limelight and we’ll continue to do so. Too bad that regardless if we win or not only a small number will have witnessed something fantastic.

Anyway, good luck to the England lads. Bring the trophy back and you never know, our great game might finally get the recognition that it deserves!