I appreciate that France and England need games in order to improve to try and match Australia and New Zealand, but when there is such a gap between the two what good does it do playing each other?

France are getting worse since they have had Catalans in Super League. This is puzzling me at the moment. In the pre-Catalans era they would start games well enough before succumbing to the inevitable late on. Now they are being whiped from the first whistle, against what is a very young and feeble England side.

We build up this illusion that we're on par with the antipodeans, which as ever will be smashed once we play them next. I just don't see what stick 70-80 points on France will do for anyone? It demotivates and demoralises the entire French setup.

I don't see any point to the fraud that is international league. There are 2 quality sides, NZ and Australia then a massive gap to England, then an enormous gap to the rest of the sides. There is no point trying to pretend otherwise.

Why do we bother?

Totally agree, International league is pretty much pointless. Like you said there are 2 teams, and then England and then the rest. Theres no competition and gap between those teams is enormous. Look at this weekends Union results, Argentina beat England by 2, Australia beat Italy 31-8 (even England struggle to get that kind of scoreline against the Aussies in League), and NZ lost to France on home soil 27-22. Competative, upsets. International league will never be like it is in Union.

poor france roosters

I still think we should have played Ireland. They couldn't have been any worse than France were last night.

i say we should play
PNG
Tonga
Samoa
Fiji
they have a very big pack and very mobile backs with the experience from the nrl . we saw this when we played PNG in the WC

I'm sure nobody is pretending anything. I think we should play this fixture every year. Maybe even alternating between London and Paris. You can't take anything away from players who have earned the right to play for their country and who give their all, even if they not quite up to standard.

Eventually, France will get better and crowds will get bigger. The plug gets pulled on these things too early too often.

four nation pacific cup next year

Yes ther eis a point we cant give up on international league, it's what is getting other countries involved after all. France get the chance to learn from the best in the 4 Nations later this year. After that i do believe we need regular competition between all the celtic nations as well as France.

Ireland, France, Scotland and Wales are probably on more of a level playing field and would have some good competitive games but they do need to play England! They need to play the best side in Europe to help themselves improve.

Someone mentioned never being as competitive as union. Well Italy are almost going backwards in the 6 nations and they have to call upon many Argentines as well as Gower a league convert and some other players from NZ etc. So lets not worry to much about what union is doing. Lets worry about what rugby league needs to do to improve the international scene.

Nah, France are light-years ahead of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, though a regular televised test for those nations would help them. Just look at past European Cup results, it doesn't have the profile to attract SL "ringers" so the French dominate.

France need to field a top quality 17 man squad, which means that they need a pool of 25 international standard players. At best they have 14, 6 of which were injured for the test. Come the 4N they will have their front row back as well as Pelo and hopefully Raguin at centre and the ever so french Greenshields. Imagine England had to swap 3 forwards and a centre, trading SL quality for Championship, that's the team France fielded.

Remember that we're in this for the long run, next year France will take the lessons they have learnt from the 4N to the European cup, the winner of which will be in the 2011 4N.

We don't have anywhere near enough international games, never mind getting rid of the French games! Should certainly be an annual fixture, though it'd certainly have to remain in France until they start to get a little more competitive - would have reached 80 had last night's game been played in England.

That said, England played some superb rugby at times, and with so many first-choice players missing, it was always going to be a bit of a culture shock for the French players to step up to such a level.

I'm hardly suggesting that last night's performances brings us closer to Australia and New Zealand, but in a strange way I found it very encouraging how well England demonstrated the basics of the game (let's be honest, that has quite often been a problem!), while they certainly looked like a 'team', despite limited training opportunities.

Despite the result, the French fans I spoke to enjoyed the game.

Absolutley, the development will all pay off some day with some big upsets. I look forward to that day.

You lemon.
How are countries supposed to improve if they don't play games?
Rugby union had patience with Argentina and Italy and look at them now.

How are they suppost to improve getting thrashed every time they play England, how demoralising must it be for them.

Any professional player will take be able to take positives from the game and learn from their mistakes and see what the best players in the world can do and how they will need to improve for next time.

France will no doubt expect to be whipped by 50+ points by every team in the Four Nations later in the year but the experience players in the French Championship for example would gain by playing against the best the NRL has to offer is priceless.

At the moment Internationals are simply token gestures until the ESL has the proper infrastructure in place to become competitive. We have made the right moves as a sport IMO in scrapping the promotion and relegation to allow sides to bleed youngsters and the longer this continues the more the internationals will become interesting rather than money spinners and the experience France will gain from this along the way could help their nation become a force and possibly help the development of a French Elite league that can be as good as the SL.

Will you be paying for the air fares?


Do you know how many players France had out injured? Try looking it up.
For me France, as do most countries, need to play more than just one mid season international.
You know what? Countires like Andorra, the Faroe Isles and Malta shouldn't be allowed to play football. It's not good for them to get spanked every time they step on the pitch.
The same goes for rugby union. You should immediately cut the number of playing nations from 194 (cough! cough!) to something like 12, just to ensure there are no repeat massacres.

Compeltley agree about the union thing, Georgia got spanked by an Ireland A team that was basically players who have hardly even played for their club this year! And rugby union seems to think it has a thriving international scene and believe everyone wants to play their game!

If we get more regular competition the international scene will grow. There isnt an other way it will grow. England and France play once a year and maybe sometimes wont even play. We can hardly expect France to suddenly and magically be competitive. MORE GAMES.

This whole French thing will never go away , i think . We all know there are two real top sides in international RL .
And how are we supposed to prepare for the four nations in october , with one game against the french ! . And a possible another in the pipe line , against someone else .
We did need another country in the four nations , i think . It was getting a bit silly , as the tri nations . But the French ? . I dont know . Surely ther must be a stronger country than them .
A lot of people , have been going on about Ireland ? . Its a debate that will go on for some time , i think . The simple truth is .... apart from us , the Kiwi`s , and the Aussies ..... who else is there with strength in depth on the international scene ......

The short answer is....... no one else yet. That depth depends on a country having lots of full-time pros to pick from, and for now those almost all come from 3 countries. Building up International RL depends on serious expansion of the pro game, it's that simple. France has the next highest number of full-time pros after the big 3, and of the countries that don't have many PNG has the strongest domestic leagues. After that, everyone else has to rely on a mix of heritage players, semi-pro and amateur players until the pro game expands significantly.

I thought the point of the England v France games was that it gave England a chance to actually win a game

For a start, the RFL should not count French players on the overseas quota. English clubs may take a few risks with young french players that they would never take if they took up a quota spot. Having New Zealanders in nearly every Aussie club has no doubt improved the NZ test side.

What a crock... LOL.

Union only looks ok at international level because NZ are such a hopeless bunch of chokers going 22 years strong. They have fallen rather than other teams improving their play to go up a level.

Union also plays heaps of pointless internationals involving thrashings each year but continues playing them nevertheless.

Rugby league needs to set an international program in place and stick with it. Have some balls...

When will having Les Cats in SL make a difference to the national side? You would have thought with full time training for more French players that we would have seen France improve. seems they are going backwards. How many French teams in SL would it take to see a difference at Int level?

The French squad has improved massively, they just rely 100% on Catalan players, which means that any injuries leaves them flat.

France are not scoring better in matches because
a - other teams are upping their gam
b - they are no longer playing in only pointless friendlies.