Hey! Bury are a good(ish) team, I find it offensive you compare Bury to Wales.

I think that's the only real option. I'd go for a RL '5 nations' involving England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France played EVERY year with something like every 4 years a tri nations involving Australia, NZ and a Lions team and every 4 years a world cup.

Initailly it would (or at least should) be a walkover for England but hopefully over time the others would become stronger.

TBH to do this we would probably need a scottish and irish SL team.

Ah, but you need to remember that roses matches, they grow on you …


</nostalgic boring old fart>

Even with that scenario i'd still split England into east and west and not bother with the Irish

Even better, England v a Super League based 'Rest of World' select team.

I suppose the game in general especially if it was club player v club player for a shirt, but then I should have realised how parochial most "fans" are.

Ah well it was a thought.

And what's in it for the 'Rest Of The World' XIII?

Breaking england into 2 is not the solution imo. One of the biggest problems in RL is the lack of the international game. Also if you split england there is little chance of generating media interest. There are 2 reasons players leave for union. One is money, the second a decent international set up. Playing for East or West England hardly has the same appeal as plying for your country. As an RL fan, i would watch an east v west game but frankly wouldn't care about the result.

it's not the answer, but it might help, and it's a good idea
Yorkshire > Lancashire

How would it mean RL being ignored further? Surely having another show piece game would give the media more of a reason to talk about RL?

It's far easier for the media to ignore a game between Halifax and Wakefield (no disrespect to either) than it would Yorkshire v Lancashire. Particularly if such a game was talking place at Wembley in front of 90000 fans and if you invited along famous celebs such as Geoff Boycott and Jeremy Clarkson to stir up a bit of publicity.

Yorkshire and Lancashire are two of the biggest fish in the English county set up. What you perceive as your weakness is actually one of your greatest strengths. Instead of turning your back on your heritage, you should use it as the foundation on which to build.

When Sl goes to 2 conferences you can have an east v west allstars game yanky style

Why not pay players a (very) large amount of money to play. Speaking to my local landlord, who used to play for Wire, he said the reason people aimed to get into yorkshire/lancies is because the pool was smaller, and the money was better. If you transfer this across, offering perhaps £3 Million to the winning team, and offering large salarys for reps, you could get great competition, and great rivalry between the fans. Allow French Players to Play for Yorkshire, and Welsh to play for Lancashire, and you could also develop them.

In answer to the original question

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NO!!!!!!!![/size


The problems England/GB have are far far deeper than that, but myopia is a disease that is more and more prevelant in this country and becoming an epidemic.

There are so many on these forums who suffer from it, it is quite alarming!!!

Why can't people understand that organising meaningless matches involving made-up teams will not enable England to beat Australia? Do you know why Australia always win? It's nothing to do with the fact that they play 3 mid-season representative games. It's because they have better players, better coaching, a bigger pool of players to select from and a much stronger RL culture in their country. Until England expand the game to their level, then no amount of contrived representative matches is going to help.

I'd agree with your post except for it's ending. I think a 3 game rep series between 2 sets of English players would help since the State of Origin series in Aus helps with the transition from club to country. Plus it's another opportunity to market the game and get on TV.
However, as you rightly point out, until we change the RL culture we currently have, along with the coaching from the grass-roots up and expansion of the game we aren't going to consistently compete with Australia.

Spot on comment,to be honest I can never see us competing with the Aussies,and with their new TV deal just around the corner I fear the gap is going to get wider.

Origin only 'works' in Australia because RL is already so strong there. There's no need for a 'transition', it's not a model that's used anywhere else in international sport and if Australia didn't play Origin, they would still win just as many matches because they have a better squad. Trying to mimic it just smacks of people not having a clue, apart from the fact that a 'British Origin' would probably have less intensity than an average Super League match, you can expose inferior players to representative competition all you want but that doesn't mean they are suddenly going to be able to beat a team of naturally better players. You could have a 5-game series between Wales A and Wales B but that doesn't mean they would then be able to go on and beat England. To me it seems like people have tried to work out the difference between England and Australia and Origin is the first thing they have seen, so they have assumed that it is the reason that they constantly win. It's not, they win because they have better players playing in a better competition and the only way to increase the player pool and the standard of Super League is to expand the game.

What about this.

Have internationals every 2 years
the years in between

Have a West side (Welsh included)-East side (French included) (like discussed)

Then have them 2 sides go to Aus one year and UK the next and play NSW & QLD

Having QLD/NSW here and having our teams going over there could generate some tasty interest.

I'm sure players would want to represent then, i'm sure the Aus fans would love smashing us and i'm sure the RL fans here would love seeing the best of the best over here.

WTF is the point? Who would want to see these matches, and what would playing them achieve? I'm hoping your post was tongue in cheek.

We already have a great way of getting players representative experience. It's called international competition. Something every major sport has, other than RL because we've been too busy messing about for the last 40 years with stupid ideas like this one.

A roses games or any other option already discussed would be no more than a glorified friendly, most top players would have an "injury" that week.

Playing standards need to be addressed from the bottom up and that means starting at Junior levels, ideally round the u8 age groups.

Get some proper coaching structures in place with clubs having some say in coaching and development at junior/feeder clubs not someones dad whose passed a level 1/2 weekend coaching course and get em in the summer ffs.

Without thinking about it too much and obviously more thought needs to go into it but id make every semi and professional club run juniors from u8 to u16 in some form of competitive rugby then natural progression takes them through to academy after that.

I make that 9 junior teams, some could play pre game as curtain raisers, the rest could play the morning of games at a convenient venue close to the home club.

Hastily written down but you get the drift

Oh yeah the roses match which ended Steve Prescott's career....yeah lets do it

We need to see England play in competitive games in order to be best prepared for the end of season competitions. The only way we'll manage that is against a top-tier nation (Australia and New Zealand) or a select side made up of quality players.

Splitting England in half will not increase the competitiveness of the team. And it will not help England build strategies and tactics for future internationals. This is where we fail against the big teams. We can't rely on our forwards to win games, only to make the platform.

And at the end of the day, it's only a friendly, so why does it matter if the team they play is contrived or not? If it's there to do its purpose (prepare us by playing better opposition) then it's a good idea. I'm sure it would be just as big an event as playing one of the European sides or the Roses games (i.e. 10k max, so not very), so it's definitely a better option.

And it doesn't mean we're abandoning France either. They can play Wales, which has proven to be a much better game and very well attended, so everybody is a winner.

no

What incentive do the amateur teams have to run teams if they are going to lose all of their best players to the pro teams from 8 years old?

This idea would fold lots of junior set ups. Hence making the player pool smaller and weakening the game in this country.

If the pro teams took more of an interest in the amateur game it would be a start. Organising coaching clinics, taking sessions as guest coaches etc.

Week 1: England vs Wales, France vs Lebanon, Ireland vs Scotland

Week 2: Wales vs France, England vs Ireland, Italy vs Scotland

Week 3: England vs France, Italy vs Lebanon, Wales vs Ireland.

No competition as such, just a mid-season series of friendly test matches. A bit like the rugby union 'Autumn Internations' in terms of set up, and following the three weekend scheduling like origin.

That's what I'd prefer anyway. This way, all players have something to play for and pride in representing their country, and it gives the other European sides some much needed competition.

I think England do need more competitive games, but IMO that isn;t solved by a roses match, it's solved by helping increase the standard of our neighbouring countries.