This would be a very competitive side:

[iMatt Bowen

Ken Sio, Joel Moon, Junior Sa'u, Justin Carney

Todd Carney
Albert Kelly

Adam Cuthbertson
Mark Minichiello, John Zebolon Ta'ia
Ashton Sims, Paul Aiton, Mose Masoe[/i

Interchange: [iIan Henderson, Dane Tilse, Louis Anderson, Corey Patterson[/i

I'd have Mitch Garbutt in their somewhere. Only been here a short time but is making some big yards and plenty of tackles. Also doing some really good minutes so an advantage over Masoe.

Next year it'll be even better.

You can't use adopted Englishmen Cuthbertson and Carney



In all seriousness, please never bring this concept back, its a load of tosh and in the end the fans gave it the big V.

People just aren't interested. There's no intensity or meaning behind it no matter how the media spin it. The antipodeans aren't playing with a level of international pride for a made up team, badge and concept. It's only ever going to be a stop gap in international RL if it comes back. Money/resources need to be spent developing other nations to make them more competitive where there is interest. The ins and outs of which are probably very complicated but as a general strategy surely the best one.

An England Possibles v Probables would be a decent game but, whether it could attract enough fans is a different matter.
Of course we could always go for Yorkshire vs Lancashire

To many short names there Jean, couldn't you have included middle names?

I wonder if an SL based Tri-Nations would suffice for a warm up? The southern hemisphere players would then be representing their country albeit unofficially.

Plus any excuse to create a few more teams whilst bored!

Nope, there will never be a supporter base for the Exiles so no rivalry.

Yorks v Lancs is the only way we can generate that.

Off the top of my head, i can't imagine there's enough Kiwis (say) in SL to make a 17.

Or we could just play France, may take a few years to get them back to standard but you have to speculate,

I'd do both, and play Wales too.

No to playing Wales or France, anyway should be Britain, and only Britain. Never gonna gave good Welsh or Scottish teams made of mainly players born in those States.

I don't see the Yorkshire/Lancashire game as dead in the water, but it needs to be done properly if it's ever brought back

Maybe call it Lancs vs Yorks on a "county of origin" spin , but I'd be tempted to open up the catchment area to vaguely West Pennines / East Pennines (Keeping it within the UK of course.)
The Taffs and the Cumbrians would qualify for Lancs, and the Laandaners and Jocks would qualify for Yorks.

Not sure people would get behind that TBH.

At the same time this is played, it'd be good for other rep teams to be playing, like Scotland vs Wales, France vs Ireland etc.

Other Englishmen (Cumbria, London etc) could maybe be done based on the first current SL side they played for. LMS for Lancashire, Dixon for Yorkshire etc.

The original idea developed from ideas posted on this board, and others, and was eventually taken up. By that time the boards had turned against the idea. If we could not be bothered then I doubt that we will be a second time, especially if it affects our team performance.
The moral of the story is that you should not post a good idea if you are not happy for everyone else to ruin it. I have just looked at a nearly 10 year old post on another site suggesting that an alternative to licencing would be to split the top two divisions into three parts after an initial round. The problems associated with that idea have still not been addressed.

Both of those ideas were tried previously. As much as liked the Roses matches it did little to engender enthusiasm from the Lancs, & consequently from the punters.

The modern re-boot of the roses match needed more time I think.

It needed more marketing, more of an origin feel created around it, a regular fixture in the calendar, played at decent stadiums and even financial incentives for the players. It was all half-d as usual.

It needs to be a genuine trial for a test spot as well, rather than a half assed run around from Lanc players too sure of their test places.

Surely it's Matthew Bowen, Marcus Minichiello and Kenneth Sio?

Matthew Jeremy Bowen
Markus Antonio Minichiello

My goodness. You are correct on two of them.

Mark Minichiello could be Marco Minichiello. I will check with his brother Antonio at first light.

Possibly but there isn't a current England team who could match them.

Why I'm not sure but ther maybe a clue somewhere