or here's another thought you take the top 30 teams

you split them in to 2 leagues of 15 a west teams and east teams league similar to American football

[uWest[/u

1. Saints
2. Wigan
3. Warrington
4. Leigh
5. Widnes
6. Celtic Crusaders
7. Salford
8. Barrow
9. Whitehaven
10. Workington
11. Oldham
12. Blackpool
13. Halifax
14. Huddersfield
15. Toulouse (purely because it would be unfair on the east going to france twice and Quins)

[uEast[/u

1. Leeds
2. Hull FC
3. Hull KR
4. Quins
5. Wakefield
6. Castleford
7. Bradford
8. Catalans
9. Featherstone
10. Sheffield
11. Batley
12. Gateshead
13. Doncaster
14. Dewsbury
15. York

top 4 of each in the playoffs.

This way everyone's involved and teams will get better, just a thought though before i get ridiculed into existence

I'd love to see an England vs Exiles type match.

Hopefully some of the Aussies would be up for getting one over on the English and we’d see something near to state of origin intensity which lets face it is what we are lacking.

I’d also love to see a possible vs probable’s match with possible England squad players playing against the players who currently hold their jersey

Burrow vs Myler
Roby vs Diskin/Moore
Atkins vs Gleeson
Briscoe vs Wellens
Fox vs Gardner
Mcquire vs Pryce
Westerman vs Sinfield

There would be a few interesting battles going on and players like Atkins, Moore, Myler & Fox may have a greater chance to impress with that extra bit of quality around them.

I think it'd be a shame to just include Aussies and Kiwis though.

Part of the draw would be that players opting to play for Scotland/Ireland/Wales would have the chance of top quality representative rugby at least once a season.

Assuming a 17 was split up as below, who would be picked now?

No more than 4 players qualified to play for Australia
No more than 4 players qualified to play for New Zealand
No more than 3 Samoa/Tonga/PNG qualified players
At least one Scot, one Irishman, one Welshman, one Frenchman...

Agree with what you going for.
For me if something like this is ever to happen it should be County of Origin or England vs Super League XIII

They can go in the Lancashire cup like Fulham did



The accents the same anyway

Simple Yorkshire v Lancashire instead of the magic weekend and 1 game over Eater, 2 less game so teams will have to play some opposition once (happens in the NRL I think), would be 2 good teams too.

Yorkshire: Smith, Fox, Shenton, Atkins, Hall, McGuire, Burrow, Peacock, Diskin, Crabtree, Westwood, Burgess, Westerman

Lancashire: Briscoe, Ainscough, Gleeson, Wheeler, Aspinwall, Tomkins, Myler, Morley, Moore, Graham, Hock, Clough, Sinfield

tbh, that would probably make a cracking game.

All this county of Origin stuff has never worked in the past, and does not provide England with decent mid-season opposition.

The "Barbarians" style team would.

People knocked the last County of Origin game but I went to Headingley and it was superb.
Great atmosphere, but with the uncertainty and the limited number of games it wasn't as intense as it could have been.

I dont know about a Barbarians style team.....I just cant see it working.

I think people wanted it to be instantly this think to rival SOO, which was obviously never going to happen. I think if you re-introduced the lancs and yorks teams to play france, not only would it help france's development by giving them a "middle rung" in terms of opposition, but if they are attended (and I'd go to the lancs one), then sooner or later you'd start getting the inter county banter "we beat france by more than you, our county's better" going, perhaps providing the spark for a roses game.

people knocked the last few county of origin games...but they where some of the best attended best attentded origin games in the history of the roses games

Thats like saying KR fans behaved pretty well the last time they played Hull FC. Sure only three people died....but still.....

Problem with the roses game is that only the backward types who chant "yorkshire, yorkshire" at their home games actually care.

Us the right side of the pennines don't give two hoots.

I think with a decent coach France would be a much better team.

I also think Ireland can give England a decent game if they are allowed to develop and select their best side.

See England is nothing special at all, its just playing games against semi professional sides mid season and its making them look a lot better than they are.

Keep in mind that France and England were the two worst performing teams at the World Cup.

you're actually on the left side of the Pennines we are on the right side!

I like the idea of a Barbarians game and I like the idea of a War of the Roses game. In order for either to work the Rugby football league and super league would have to fully commit on a long-term basis.

Either concept should be backed and marketed as a premier event and the clubs and players should be compelled to take part.

The incumbent England manager and a selection committee should only be allowed to choose players who have participated in these games, a period at strict adherence to this rule would soon spell out to the players that they cannot opt out.

Unlike previous incarnations this war of the roses this would be staged during a period of full-time professionalism from every club and competing player and that in my opinion could make a real difference.

This type of Event is how modern-day sport's are driven and we should use these events as a trial to sell tickets via the clubs in the same way that the Rugby football union do.

The benefits to the clubs and the game could be massive if we could really get this event off the ground. Like the challenge cup final, the grand final and the Magic weekend these games could really be a vehicle for pushing the sport on to the back pages of the tabloids and into all the media.

I think the reason NSW v Queensland works is that they are huge areas encompassing the bulk of a county's populations and big cities in Sydney and Brisbane.

Lancashire v Yorkshire just looks silly as a trial for GB IMO and perpetutates the small time northern sport line that the press like to trot out.

correct me if i'm wrong but are'nt the 2 areas of lancashire (inc GMR,merseyside etc) and yorkshire (inc humberside) the 2nd & 4th most populous areas in the country??



hardly small time

Yorkshire is also the biggest county in Britain

Origin wouldn't be worth having as it doesn't mean a damn thing to anyone outside of "Yarkshrie, Yarkshire, Yarkshire". I'm from Warrington so obviously support St Helens. Both would be in 'Lancashire' in the Origin series, but for me Lancashire is a cricket team based in Manchester that I have no interest in. I am not going to support 'Lancashire' anytime soon and I can't be the only one, you don't ever hear supporters chanting "Lancashire" whenever their team commits a bad foul do you?

Even when it was played it was terribly supported.

England v Super League forigners 17 would be terrible as well. It would have the intensity of a training run as there is no incentive for the foreigners to put their bodies on the line for it is there. You would see scores of players pulling out as it would and always did with Origin.

just a quick tally up..


LANCASHIRE inc GMR,merseyside,cheshire & cumbria has roughly 6.8million people

YORKSHIRE inc humberside (i know it's the east riding) has roughly 5million...


just to compare that to queenslands population of 4.2m and NSW population of 7million


not a million miles away are we? it's one of the great myths when aussies say we should be producing better players cos we have a larger population......NOT IN THE AREAS THAT PLAY THE GAME WE DON'T...LANCS,YORKS,QLD & NSW all have roughly the same population

And about 9 Premier league Teams to compete with

The Barbarians concept could possibly works if it is genuinely the best of the rest of the World - perhaps the week after the RLWC final, and that's about it. Invitational teams do not compete as they neither have the combinations of their opponents, nor the desire of representing their nation. The Union game last fortnight was a telling example of this.

[url=http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3831_5366528,00.htmlBaa-Baas no match for Wallabies[/url



Barbarians and former NZ All Black Scrumhalf Justin Marshall did say the Barbarians team had a great time in Sydney's nightclubs though.

The proposal to replace a test match with this is knee jerk reaction, especially since the odds were heavily stacked against the French.

Sorry if this has been mentioned before cos I've not read the full thread but..................Surely, considering a game mid season is what the rfl want for the benefit of the international team, to let the coach form the basis of his squad, a week has got to be set aside for that to happen ! To take a couple of players from a selection of super league sides to play an international just seems a complete waste of time to me, it won't reflect on the coach's first choice squad anyway and the quality of opposition will not give him the slightest idea of where the team is competitively ! I personally would set one week aside for the game, play a probables v possibles game. That way the coach sees a full squad of 34 playing against each other, creat a lot of interest as they're all playing against their direct opposition for a place in the final squad, all in the same match for gods sake, seems obvious to me ! I could pick two sides that certainly would compete against each other but don't have the time now, maybe you guys and girls could come up with your own choices re the two opposing teams, should be interesting. Sorry if it's been mentioned before !!

Possibles v Probables is surely the only way to go. We can't have an Origin game unless we attach the same sort of importance to it i.e. international selection hangs on it. Even then I still say we'd be better seeing the current encumbents take on the challengers. There's far more motivation that than, say, East vs West.

Or you could have England vs France and England vs Wales and select two different teams to represent England and judge on that accordingly, rather than having a match that no-one would be interested in watching and no-one would care who won. In fact, all it would do is set up the game for criticism if the first choice team lost, and it would highlight how poor the England coach is at selecting a team and producing relevant tactics. Probs v Poss is a terrible idea and I don't understand why people keep thinking we should do it.