After years of lamenting the absence of international rugby league – in fact, yearning for it – we're finally in the midst of another World Cup.
But despite the thirst for international football and the challenges the game has had to face, it's still not good enough for some people.
Because, god forbid, after some nations have had to overcome a mountain of challenges just to appear at the belated tournament, teams made up of a mixture of amateur and semi-professional players can't compete with nations who've been at it for the better part of a century and have players in professional, dedicated leagues.
What a joke. Call off the tournament now.
What kind of self-respecting global showpiece would allow for such a gulf in class?
Not the Baseball World Cup (last held in 2011), where the Netherlands beat Greece 19-0 and the United States hammered Chinese Taipei 15-1.
Definitely not the FIBA Basketball World Cups either, where the men's competition saw scorelines including 108-66, 105-59, 103-64 and 98-45 and the Women's had results including 107-44, 106-42 and 118-58. That sport will never succeed.
Even in the water polo world championships, we're seeing blowout scores. In the women's competition Hungary beat Korea 64-0. Holland beat South Africa 33-0.
Cancel it now! Everybody, get out of the pool until we reach a more level field of competition.
If you believe the hyperbole coming out of certain corners of the media, such results would absolutely signify the death of international sport. I mean, what's the point in having a global competition when there's such a yawning gap between the best and those beneath them?
Why bother trying to close it when we could just rip out the underperformers and leave it at that? Who wants to watch something develop and grow in front of them anymore?
Pfft, boring.
That seems to be the point being argued by critics of the results emerging from the group stage of the Rugby League World Cup – which is absolutely mystifying given how many passionate sports fans and journalists love to relish the ‘underdog' tag when it applies to us as a nation.
Yes, it was frustrating that the tournament opener between England and Samoa turned into a blowout, and that set the tone for early cynicism just hours after we were able to joyously celebrate the return of international football.
What about Italy's entertaining win over Scotland? What about Jamaica scoring their first-ever points and then a try in an international tournament? Pretty good for a nation that doesn't even have a dedicated rugby league field!
You could see that the historic try meant far more to the team and their supporters than the fact that they lost by a lot. It was a victory worth celebrating, even in the context of a defeat.
But who cares about that when they lost by 62 to the best team in the world, full of full-timers? Outrageous.
For all of the criticism that has come, there have been remarkably few solutions offered - so what is rugby league to do?
Those watching the T20 World Cup might suggest a similar preliminary tournament to the Cricket competition. Smaller nations (and lower-ranked bigger ones) were divided into pools and played against each other, with the top team from each group going through the main component of the tournament.
It's a good idea, but there's no way it would work in rugby league without a considerable break between the two tournaments.
Imagine the impact on these already disadvantaged teams, who've just played through three or four bruising and exhausting contests for the right to participate, only to come up against Australia or New Zealand in their first Cup appearance.
The score would be significantly worse than 68-6.
We could reduce the number of teams in the tournament, but we did that in 2017 with confusing results. Remember how Samoa made it through to the knockout stages despite not winning a single one of their group games?
There was an uproar at the time – so which one would critics prefer? An unjust system that sees undeserving teams get to the knockout stages, or an evenly-balanced competition with a few big scores?
Former Kangaroos captain Max Krilich summed up the outdated mentality that will rob the game of growth if it's allowed to persist, calling for a reduction to the number of participants in 2025.
“Eight to ten teams, that's probably enough. Are Jamaica and Scotland going to help rugby league? Probably not.”
“I couldn't stay awake for the Australia v Scotland game. I woke up and it was 84-0. I'd rather see a scoreline of 11-10.”
Quick guys, time to terminate the game's ambition because someone in their 70s couldn't stay up for a World Cup game (which was on at 5.30am mind you) and would personally prefer a different margin.
In contrast, just listen to Greek coach Steve Georgalis following his team's heavy defeat to Samoa.
"We want to grow the game and what's happening here in the World Cup and the effort and the passion we show, regardless of the score, it will only reflect on what happens in Greece in the coming years."
Let's see... an international coach who's contributing to the growth of the game, or a voice from a different era who hasn't taken the field in nearly 40 years? I know who I'd rather listen to on the matter.
Clearly, no system is perfect. The only perfect system would be one where the gap between the best teams and the worst teams is as close to imperceptible as possible – but that's something that simply cannot be achieved without taking the path we're currently on.
While the majority of fans only see these nations when they get hammered on the world stage, little attention is paid to the massive effort it takes to get to these tournaments, to the increasing number of participants and nations putting their hand up to be part of the global community of our great game through qualifying tournaments and other clashes during the regular season.
They may not have the skill yet – and they may not for a while – but they have desire and dedication, which are absolutely essential.
If we spend too much time disparaging their efforts and calling for their exclusion, this new wave of talent might lose both – and then we'll be back where we started, wondering why the game just can't seem to grow.
After everything the international game has endured over the last two years, that's a result we simply cannot afford.
