m.foxsports.com.au/league/whats- ... 6777891743

m.foxsports.com.au/league/whats- ... 6777891743

Stupid idea, Mr Wood would have been better spending his time sorting out domestic issues than arranging ' Gimmick ' games

Does seem a strange one. Who would have predicted this?

If they played it in my back yard I would draw the curtains.

the amount of money it will raise will be fantastic and may help to promote the rl product more. If they beat the wallabies then maybe people will start to think this is the better more skilful game. i think its an idea that could be more beneficial to rl than ru. People need to stop being so narrow minded.

After watching a terrific Rugby League World Cup tournament what else could I possibly want than to watch some Rugby Union? If this isn't the most cretinous RL strategy I don't know what is. Love how the London Broncos are carted out as a possible reason for hosting this hare-brained scheme?

Daft as a brush Nigel Wood.

You're joking, right?

What is narrow minded about not wanting to waste a valuable opportunity to promote the sport of rugby league by hosting an international rugby league fixture at Wembley as we have done twice now with increasing success? That's right: there's nothing narrow minded about it at all.

If this is a genuine report then it makes Nigel Wood look a bigger plonker than he was starting to look already and I'm starting to have sympathy with Leneghan and his cronies.

How strange and I don't see it capturing enough interest (certainly within league) to get anywhere near a full house but I'd loved to be proved wrong and it make us a fortune.

I'd play a quarter of league, a quarter of union, a quarter of netball and a quarter of lacrosse if I thought we were going to make some much needed cash out of it!!

So a GB team put together in the middle of pre season ( quite possibly without the NRL players ) playing against a Wallabies team ( that I am fairly confident are more familiar with RL than the other way round ) at the end of a tour, more chance of a union win than a league one

A bore fest of panalties and drop goals

its an event in the capital that will draw interest as a day out. And the money thats on offer is silly!! you couldn't say no to it and i doubt any player will say no to earning an extra 35k for a one off match. Only problems will be the NRL based players if they will be allowed to play and the fact every union team plays touch which is league with out tackling anyway.

Sounds like bs to me. The guy who wrote the article is one of the biggest slaters of the RLWC, so it's probably just a poor attempt at trolling. Where 92k fans at Wembley (it can't hold that many for a start) are going to come from is beyond me, not to mention it's England rather than GB.

All this would do is put Burgess x3, Tomkins, Widdop etc. in the RFU shop window from the post WC windfall.

Reunification?

It will be league rules in one half and Union rules in the other half and I predict league to win their half and union to win their half. Therefore proving nothing.

It may prove a few things,
The RFU and the RFL are willing to work on joint projects
The Kangaroos, All Blacks, Wallabies, RFU, RFL, IRB, RLIF, Lions have all been involved at some stage of negotiation, significant because the stumbling block to reunification has always been making it global.

The RLWC has just proved that it's game is more attractive than its Union counterpart
The RLWC has just proved that, despite it's relative success, it needs a wider reach and greater Promotion which Union has.
League is in a vulnerable state domestically in the UK, Salford, Wakefield, Bradford, London, HKR, Castleford, Widnes have all been on the brink in recent years.

Sounds completely made up tosh to me. A very poor article that I would have been ashamed to put my name to.
Where has the extra 2k capacity appeared from?
Why would the league half of the game be played to NRL rules?
If the original idea was to play in Australia why the move to Wembley?
Wigan didn't play Bath in a hybrid game.

Difficult to take it seriously.

The date talked about is also Grand Final day...

I'm finding it difficult to believe that 90k people would be interested in this. Would England RU fans be eager to watch this? It would be interesting to see where their allegiances would lie: towards their code or country?

What would RL get out of this? Apart from the financial benefits it is claiming, it's hard to see what else we would gain from it.

After what has been the most successful RLWC of all time, which has shown how important international RL is for growing the sport worldwide, & both established and developing nations now urging the powers that be to provide them with more regular, meaningful international games (of RL), the first thing Nigel and the boys at Red Hall try sort out is a b***dy joke game against an international team from another sport. You couldn't make it up.

Don't stop there Nige. How about expanding the concept into an alternative 4 Nations tournament by inviting the Chinese national badminton team & the Polish speedway team for a '4 sport' tournament.

Please stop wasting time and effort on hare-brained schemes that do nothing for the development of international rugby league & put the same effort into developing our game. In my opinion, gimmicks like this have the potential to damage the integrity of the game.

If the players are each going to be paid the 50k the report says why won't the NRL players be involved?

Don't believe it until the RFL announces something.

Rothfield is wrong more often than he is right and like Pinkerton says, he spends most of his column inches talking up soccer and talking down RL...

If we lose the game it makes us look inferior, do we really need the confirmation?

Proved to who, yourself? Thats one quote that shows the intransigent arrogant nature of a large amount of RL fans.

If true, I think it's a great chance for RL to higher its profile. If there is no financial downside I don't see what we have to lose.

I think if both codes are looking to creating or experimenting with some kind of hybrid game then the 7s competition is the route to go. Its mostly just pure open running rugby, a few little tweaks to the rules and you have a decent product IMO of course.

Will the NRL release them?

The RFL have already responded to various Aussie journalists with a flat out denial that any such talks have taken place.

Rothfield is a poor excuse for a journalist.