erm....what??? lol


alot of championship players,who obviously are'nt good enough for super league and there for are'nt good enough for england,exercise their right under RLIF rules to play for another nations via the heritage law....bring in a mickey mouse england championship side then these players that have been the backbone of the the celtic nations for the past 20odd years might opt to stick with the england championship side instead..


do you understand???

:1n2i3a5v

All 400 of them Spud ?

Similar to the team that won the Euro Cup ( not sure of the exact title ) a few years back with Westwood , Parker , Crabtree and several others without breaking sweat

RL is a sport that even with fairly small differences in quality tends to produce lob sided results , it is not a sport that you can sneak a plucky draw at

It serves the same purpose of encouraging young players to commit to England by dangling the carrot of a test cap to players that aren't good enough. You can't make that argument about SOO and not about England Knights.

You mean ' English ' players choosing to play for ' England ' , what a strange concept , never work

People moan about Origin encouraging Australian players not to commit to Pacific nations. You can't have it both ways, just because it's England doesn't make it right in this case. Players should have a choice without being coerced.

What Australia does is nothing to do with our situation

In what way is having options to choose ' coercion ' ? , John Duffy is from W1g4n , he plays for Scotland , ditto Mick Nanyn , both their choice , however there are still hundreds of other Championship players that will only qualify for England who are highly unlikey ever to get to either SL or the top tier international teams , these are the players that could help to ' bring on ' the home nations , the benifit would not directly be England , it would be the the other nations that would benefit from competitive matches

That's nothing to do with my post and I think you've completely misunderstood what I'm trying to say. The Championship team is a stupid idea too but I'm not talking about that here.

Not the first time , anyway the whippet needs to go for a walk

Dont forget your flatcap, its gone cold out

I don't understand the logic in people saying that prospective English players who aren't good enough for the first team should play for one of the Celtic nations. Why the hell should they if they? If they don't consider themselves Welsh, Irish or Scottish then what's the point? If it stops them being available for England (which is what people want the rules to be changed to, right?) then why should they? Why should we weaken the England team to prop up those around us when we can't compete with those at the top? Especially if these are bonafide English players that WE'VE developed in THIS country?

If the Welsh, Scottish, Irish, etc. want decent players, they need to develop some. If they can't, then that's life. That's sport.

We need to make England as strong as possible to compete with the Aussies and Kiwis.

No, people moan about Pacific Islanders who WANT to represent the Pacific Islands being dangled the carrot that is Origin to commit to Australia. Hopefully the Kiwi/PI series will kick off so players have a choice then.

once again you show that lack of respect to the international game outside England, Australia and NZ.

What about players who would like to represent the Celtic Nations but choose to represent England because they are the only opportunity they have of playing against tier one nations.

Who? like rhys evans? I count one thus far

How do you know what players want? There might be any number of potential Briers or Cunninghams. The likes of Brough and Bridge might have stayed with their nations. Equally they might not. Specifics don't matter though, there's no point trying to make a distinction based on what you think players want. All nations should get a fair crack. 'Competing with the Aussies' is not what development is about, it's not the sole purpose of international RL and the sooner people get out of this mentality the better for all concerned.

We have as bad a history of taking players representing minor nations and for want of a better word 'poaching' them to play for ourselves as the Australians have.

We have no need to do this and it is simply indicative of the shoddy and disrespectful way anybody outside England, NZ, and Australia are treated by international rugby league.

What about the players who would like to represent Poland, Holland, etc. but choose to represent England because they are the only opportunity tey have of playing against tier one nations? Are you showing a lack of respect to the international game outside of the British Isles and the Pacific Isles?

It's not showing a lack of respect at all. It's just life. We have the systems and we are developing the players, hence why we are tier one and they aren't. To expect them to give something back to the system that produced them isn't showing a lack of respect. In fact, anyone that thinks that we shouldn't have reserve representative teams to help our international team develop at all levels for the reason that it would force these players to play for other international teams that they may not want to is showing a lack of respect to THIS country IMO.

They may also have stayed with England had they been given the choice, and wanted to progress to the England first team that way.

Nobody said "competing with the Aussies" is the mentality. There's the Kiwis, too. If wanting to beat the two top teams in the world is the wrong mentality, then maybe you should tell us what is? I'm pretty sure it is the aim of England to be the best in the world. A fair crack of the whip works both ways. They need the opportunity to progress through the ranks in this country as well. At the moment, their only choice of representative rugby is to play for a Celtic nation before they are deemed good enough for England. Even the Celtic nations have 'A' teams.

Just to bring this topic back to "The Exiles" I find it hard to understand the concept. In theory, it throws up a potential dream team match. The likes of Chase, Mason, Monaghan coming together for a big game against the England national side but will it really end up like that?

Why would any of the current crop of overseas stars playing in Super League want to play for this team? There is no honour or prestige unlike playing for your country so why would they be interested?

Even in the Yorkshire/Lancashire games there was that honour of representing your county, but where is the honour in this side?

Why would any Super League clubs want their overseas players involved in this game, risking injury?

Also, if lets say Willie Mason was selected for the Exiles and got into a scrap with one of the English forwards again, would he be at risk of being banned for Super League games?

Maybe I'm undervaluing the reward of getting one over on the English, but surely this is a nothing game to everyone but England?

Ask Clint Newton or Justin Morgan as just 2 examples of people who have been pushing this idea as a better hit up for England rather then the French.








<-stands back and waits for Smokey to throw his toys out of his pram again