So England are to face France and Wales in October.
Are these fixtures really testing enough as a pre-cursor to the World Cup.
Although the Exiles games came in for some stick in certain quarters surely they would provide stiffer opposition ?

Except that team doesn't really exist, and all the players are back home in Australia. I can't believe the negativity surrounding this tournament, RL fans baffle me at times.

The negativity comes from the lack of quality opposition for England.
France are not good enough yet and Wales are some way behind France, so as preparatiion for the World cup these fixtures are extremely poor.
I went to Doncaster a few seasons back to watch a half strength England team demolish Wales and it just wasn't competetive.
The England Knights are good enough to beat them and the full England team need to be tested !

I have no problem with the fixtures. It's the lateness of announcing them (a month before it starts), the choice of stadia and the complete and utter lack of build up that annoys me. I think that's it's a disgrace that professional organisation would announce an international event in tiny stadia one month before it starts. It's been set up to fail. How can the RFL win with this?

Spot on. It's clearly been in the pipeline for a long time, why wasn't this all sorted earlier? Still trying to convince a SH nation to make it 4?

Would be good to see England knights vs england. Not sure if this has already happened.

How would that be good in any way? Jesus Christ.

Is there any reason this thread keeps being created. Third time lucky? Come on, let's get this one to three pages!!

We could have 2 "England" teams playing each other as a selection process.
It could be an interesting match up with some of the young guns staking a claim for a starting berth for the world cup ?

I dont know how the reams would be picked but as a concept it may have possibilities.

They could line up 34 players and have a schoolyard pick, in public of course !

It's just backwards to me that some RL fans would seem to favour nothing matches involving made-up joke teams ahead of legitimate internationals. And then they wonder why the sport gets no recognition in the national media. It's just stupidity beyond belief.

No it probably isn't beneficial watching England smash Wales & France, but unfortunately we were limited in our choice. What would have been an ideal opportunity a I've said elsewhere is to finally give our star players an off season and let them have a full pre-season and let the fringe players take on Wales & France. But Looks like Mcnamara is going to play a full squad.

Its great that they have announced these matches so early as it really gave the fans time to make arrangements to go to these games. The RFL have also done a great job of building up these internationals and you really get the impression that these games are important rather than some afterthough.

I agree BUT it's Super League that's suffering. Everyone's attention is on this tournament and the play-offs are getting ignored.

So this is how you think it should work in professional representative sport?!

NZ RU has regularily staged ' probables v possibles ' matches for years

They've done the right thing in holding these matches at smaller stadia. Can you imagine the uproar on here if the 3 grounds were the KC, Galpharm and the DW, it would be that these were all too big and how embarrassing would that look on national TV. Now, we've got decent enough RL grounds across the heartlands that SHOULD be fullish, without them looking daft. The RFL really weren't on to a winner whatever with this tournament.

Lighten up man, the last comment was meant to be flippant.
However, two English teams playing against each other would be a stronger test than Wales.
We're almost back to Yorkshire /Lancashire or West /East.
Wales are just not ready yet !

the exiles should have been the 4th team in this comp...it would have made it interesting

Craven Park can be half-full and still look decent. It's an inspired choice. Get the stand that faces the camera at Salford nice and full and we should be fine. If they don't fill Wrexham up for this they never will.

Craven Park an "inspired choice"?! Inspired or conservative? Scared? Unimaginative?

Craven Park is not an international standard RL ground.

It would be ok if the fixtures were next season but, at the moment, its a building site.
Looking forward to seeing the new stand finished though.
Doncaster would have been a good choice, excellent facilities and a good atmosphere even if it isn't a sell out.

I think the RFL thought it would be a safe option to have it at Craven Park. With nearly 20k attending rugby league in the city you need less than half to make it a sell out. (I know a lot of sad FC fans who won't go any where near Craven Park) but add more rugby league fans from yorkshire/Lancashire who always go to internationals and you should get a good crowd.
At the Keepmoat you dont have as big a fanbase on the doorstep. However I do think it is one of the best stadiums for RL and would love to move it about 40miles to east hull.

Caravan Park is a ridiculous choice atm, no matter how you dress it up.

Problem is that there aren't many decent small-medium sized stadiums in Yarrkshire. Leigh would have been ideal, for example.

The organisation of this competition just seems to get better and better. I just attempted to buy tickets for the Wales v England game at Wrexham via the RFL ticketing website. I found instead a message saying that I am unable to purchase tickets as I don't have 'enough priveleges' on my account to purchase tickets for this game. I would be able to buy tickets for the final (which is surely a higher profile game, so should require more 'priveleges' (whatever they mean by 'priveleges')) so why am I not allowed to get tickets for that game?

I have bought tickets from the same site for previous internationals and for the challenge cup final and if doing so has not allowed me to be eligible to attend this game then how is someone looking to test the water at their first RFL event going to fare? Our sport struggles badly enough to sell its internationals without being obstructive to fans that actually want to attend games.

Yeah but we've no train station in Leigh!