After Saturday I'm more convinced than ever that YvL should never return, scrap the Exiles game too.

We need a mid season close down on both sides of the hemisphere simultaneously for 3 to 4 weeks and fill that slot with international games.

World Cup every two years - alternating between northern and southern hemispheres. Surely 8 years is too long to wait before we have a RLWC back in this country?

Would be good for England, good for the global game (qualifying competition in the alternate years), would attract many more players to RL (eg many more from Wales where there are loads of players with inherant rugby skills).

Try it. Nothing to lose. If after five or ten years it's decided it's too much, just revert to having the World Cup every 4 years.

A series against the Celts would be quite good. Not individually but combined. Best of Wales, Ireland and Scotland would give us the tests at a better standard than they could do individually.

Oh, and reducing SL and keeping it smaller. More intense games in the league program would prep the players better.

The other long shot possibility would depend on the Aussies having a mid season break in club matches and playing playing the three State of Origin matches on consecutive weekends. Then Yorkshire v Lancashire could be played in Aus as curtain raisers with the winner of the three match Yorks v Lancs series playing the SOO winners.

Anyone.

International RL is the end, it isnt a means to an end.

England beating Wales, France, Fiji, Samoa, whoever is the point of England playing Wales, France, Fiji, Samoa, not as part of a learning progression to beat Australia and NZ>

We need the 3 Nations comp, 4 games and a final, or an ashes series every year

All great but Who?

New Zealand will not travel half way round the world in mid season
NRL clubs will almost certainly not release NZ players to play in the match either.
Exiles is a dead concept that will get less and less competitive as the years go by
France are no challenge
A combined Celtic team is more convoluted than the Exiles and probably offer less challenge than France

I think a Roses clash backed by strict selection and availability rules is the best concept and the only one completely in our own control

Maybe we need to make a decision over whether we are prepared to make the sacrifices needed to build our international team. Maybe we go to them.

If Aus put in place their 3 week break for Origin then there is a three week opportunity for us to go out there. Play Fiji, Samoa and NZ.

Again, the reason for playing France is to play France, it isn’t our preparation for Australia. We need to stop treating other nations so disrespectfully.

What about the players who aren’t from either Yorkshire or Lancashire? What about those from Oxford, or Cumbria or Cheshire or Wales?

Exactly. Can we just stop being such a small-minded little sport, just this once? We need big Internationals ... between countries, naturally

... and we need a big international club competition too - not a little end or start of season jamboree, but a competition that gets into the fibre of the sport, like the Champions League. Every ounce of effort from the UK game should be spent on making those two things happen, not on contrived rubbish to make up for our failure to put in place what the game really needs. The biggest barrier? No doubt the NRL. If they can't be a***ed, and/or can't see the value in helping the broader sport, then it's up to us to change that, and work our backsides off to make competitions that are lucrative and attractive to all. Lots of heads to bang together and lots of objections to overcome, some legitimate, some daft, some just self-serving, but that is precisely why we need excellent and dynamic leadership. Wood et al? Well, there's no denying the RLWC was much better than I (for one, but I think most) expected, but I'm still not at all convinced they're the best we can realistically get to lead the sport.

Maybe we do, maybe we should if finances and SL clubs allow it.

I think that would be a great idea as long as we treat it like a full blooded tour and everyone buys into it 100%

No disrespect to France or the other Nations, my post is written from an England preparations and development slant not one looking at how we develop France which is another subject

I'd love to incorporate Cumbria and I'd love to see them with SL representation but I'd start with a Roses concept. The SoO hasn't been hindered by it being confined to just Queensland and NSW.

In my opinion most of the improvement will come from the fact players are spending time with each other, training with each other, putting in place the sets, the game plans etc. A one-off or 2 game series will help us measure that improvement, it wont really be the cause for it.

There needs to be internationals throughout the year to build the international game. Clubs are going to have to make the sacrifice for that. They can choose not to but the result of that is a struggling international game.

SoO is a quirk. It isn’t something that can be reinvented over here and even if it was, there is a limit to its usefulness.

Yorkshire v Lancashire is as relevant as having a Saxons v Normans game

Going to Aus would help the players, but it will not give us an annual international environment for the fans.

England Football get fixtures every year at home.
England RU have the 6 nations.

This all helps build them in the public's mind. With no fixtures in the Uk for 2 years. We could easily fall back from the current position. In a way there is nothing that can be done about that.

Long term Wales and France are our only options for regular internationals. If you could make it a Celtic combined force, great but would the fans swing behind that, what anthem would the scots/irish and Welsh agree on?

In the short term whilst Wales and France increase their player pool and possible number of SL clubs, we need something. Call it East v West. But some Home nations trail would add to experience and allow us to build going forwards into proper full blown internationals each year.

If you can get the fans to buy in England v the Celts would be my pick.

I think a mid season game of previous years Challenge Cup winners V England (Club before country for those eligible for both) would generate the required intensity. Split proceeds 50/50, half to RFL and other half to winning squad.

This would improve the standing of the CC and give a game of the intensity required. We could also do the same with previous years GF winners if we need a second game. It would also raise the earnings of our top players too.

or England v England knights

Part of the problem is here is the switch to summer and the concurrent seasons in both hemispheres. When England won the RU World Cup in 2003, they were able to come back and within three months start on a 6 Nations campaign to maintain the momentum of publicity.

All of our major international events in RL now (Four Nations and World Cups) are followed by a complete three month shutdown of the sport on a professional level. All the momentum generated is lost, new fans are left with nothing else to feed their cravings other than standing at the side of a park pitch in the freezing rain watching their nearest amateur side (assuming they still play in one of the winter competitions).

Two things are required. The domestic season in the northern hemisphere needs to lose 3-4 weeks out of it. The southern hemisphere needs to be brought on board to the idea of staging major tournaments in the middle of the season instead of at the end.

Shut down both domestic competitions for 4-5 weeks in July/August each year. Give the fans an opportunity to get enthused about the national team, then take the momentum it builds into the end of the domestic seasons both here and down under.

Who wold support the knights to give the kind of intensity you are looking for?

100% agree with that

Agreed - and this is where the sport really craves leadership.

The vision needs to be spelled out for every club in SL and the Championships as to what direction we need to head. Either we enhance the international calender, which means playing less domestic games, or we keep listening to certain clubs crying that they need 13 home games and a needless week in the play-offs to remain viable.

Personally, I think that a world-class international, played in front of 70,000 people and a huge TV audience does the game much more than two weeks of 6-7k crowds at Belle Vue and Craven Park. As a sport, we crave sponsorship and new fans - and yet Saturday showed that we keep our best product under wraps until November every year.

Of course, chairmen will care about their clubs - that is their perogative, but the game needs to start focusing on the 'greater good'. This weekend did so much more for the game than two weeks of games to work out who will have the 'honour' of getting their s handed to them in week one of the play-offs.

Fewer teams in SL, fewer games in SL, and a period of time blocked out for the international break will do so much more for the sport in this country. If that means some clubs modernising their business plan, then it's an added bonus.

In rugby league, much like football, the tail wags the dog. The club game is all, the international game - with all its opportunity to generate masses more positive publicity - is very much secondary.

Contrast with rugby union and cricket, where the national team is all and the club game bends to accommodate its will, even down to where and when its top players can play for those clubs.

The latter is a model that the rugby league needs to aspire to IMO.

No, no, no no. As someone from outside the 'heartlands' why should I care about this match? Why should players from outside there (Cumbria, London, Midlands etc.) not be allowed to play, and when you consider St Helens and Warrington aren't in Lancashire anymore, it seems a bit odd to use that term. The only way to have something like this would be East v West, but even then I doubt that would get people excited or interested.

The problem with playing France is we always play them in a half-filled tiny stadium on the M62 and it relegates the significance of the game. We should be playing them in front of 18k in Avignon or even 20k in Montpellier, in front of an intimidating atmosphere. In 2011, we only beat them 32-18 at Avignon, so there is opportunity for a decent contest. Have it on the BBC too.

"the Southern Hemisphere needs to be brought on board"

That's the biggest problem to be faced. Does the NRL need it? How would it effect their sponsors and the money. What would helping England and the English game out do for them, they're doing fine as things are.

And some have mentioned less league fixtures, but the clubs say they need them, that guarantee of 13 home matches. You look at the fixture lists for a SL club and a NRL club and the white elephant in the room between the two, the thing they don't have that we do that makes the top players play an extra 4 or 5 matches......The Challenge Cup.

The Aussies & NZ are not going to come over here or accommodate us midway through there season as it does not benefit them, so we need to do something on our own. We do need yorks v lancs or easts v wests what ever it takes with good build up all season with very high intensity copying SOO it works down under so we need to adopt the same thing to progress also keep vetting more youth through our SL clubs by having to have more home grown talent then over the hill foreigners as they are flooding our game and hence why we are just that little bit away from the top 2 international teams in the world.

Fitting 5 games of a 6 nations into one month is doable, but only if the NRL breaks at the same time.
We have a six nations with all the NRL/Europe eligible players coming over.
Australia have SOO
NZ and 5 other islands have their 6 nations all rep players released both sides of hemisphere.
Everyone's a winner.

Play a couple of rounds of CC at the same time but any teams with rep players are weakened, that actually makes the CC a bit more interesting.

It's not difficult to do, there is no great loss, SL can lose 2 teams which reduces rounds by 2 plus lose a playoff week. That's 3 weeks straight away found.

Anyone. Italy beat England. The majority of WC teams could provide a competitive match. Even Russia or Serbia or someone would be better than playing the Exiles or a similar made-up team, seriously.