In various threads time and time again we see the same valid point crop up… That England don’t play enough competitive fixtures. This is because no European nation can compete with us.

I believe we found an answer in the exile matches… No they don’t quite tug at the spectators heart strings and yes it seems a bit gimmicky but England need to be tested mid-season full stop. We can’t expect to compete against NZ/Aus at the back end of the season after they’ve already had the anzac test.

I don’t think it should replace playing a French international but we should be doing both. Maybe using the French match as a warm up for the exiles game. These are a big 2 years for English Rugby League and we need to give ourselves every chance to reach the final of the four nations next year and win the worldcup the year after that.

That first game at Leeds a few years back was a cracker.

We need the games. We've only played 30 international games this decade! Wales/France/Scotland/Ireland probably fewer.

Why not have England V Exiles and England Knights v France ?
That way the senior international players get some time together and decent opposition and the French/Knights get some international experience too for the future.

We can then give players like Gale, Williams, Bateman, Manfredi, Percival etc to use examples, of playing in an International environment without just chucking them in.

Gidley
Vidot
Inu
Moon
Sio
Carney
Kelly
Simms
Aiton
Murdoch-Masilla
Pritchard
Taylor
Stewart

Minichiello
Toupou
Rapira
Falloon

Would make a competitive side that.

Why not play teams called SL Australia or SL New Zealand, at least that way you are giving the side we play some real identity which is where the Exiles concept fell down for me.Put SL Australia in green and gold strip, play the national anthem before the game, and watch how intense those boys will then go at it! Iv'e no idea how those sides would look BTW but a couple of tests against those 2 would be interesting.

You beat me to it. That's a cracking idea. Both games should competitive. The RFL should make sure our NRL contingent are available.

I agree England need a mid season work out. But i see a problematic stumbling block with the NRL based players getting a months leave for the showdown.

However its a great opportunity for fringe players to make a name for themselves and give selection headaches to Macbanana.

You're not going to get the NRL players here mid season.
The only way that'll happen is if they go to a consecutive 3-week break for SOO. But I really can't see them ever doing that.

I'd rather see us bring Yorks v Lancs back. I know it's not perfect but I think it's better than the Exiles concept. Plus it gets 34+ England players involved rather than half that.

Didn't players start getting miraculous knocks stopping them from taking part? The other issue is the NRL based players being unavailable, nearly half of the best England 17 when everyone is fit come from the NRL

To stop players having miraculous knocks we could make it an end of season thing or something like that. Thing about the England team being weakened I that the exiles aren't exactly top quality Australian or NZ NRL players either so both sides will probably be evened out in terms of quality.

I agree with HIM, bring back War of the Roses. It gives 34 players a chance to strut their stuff, but its got to be organised and marketed better than previous. If i'm honest being a Lancashire fan last time we didn't take it serious enough.

Deffo something I want to see back as well, marketed and organised properly we can make this our state of origin (obviously nowhere near the same scale and attendances of course lol) 1 game in Yorkshire, 1 in Lancashire and take one on the road as well, great tool to market the game!

bad idea.

the first game was great yes but it was a new concept which fans and players bought into. We all saw how the following games looked like extended training sessions. The lack of intensity was clear to see!

The best thing is for england to play france in a french city. Its not ideal but cant see anything else working.

If they really do wanna bring back exiles, make it available to all non english players. scots, welsh and french should be up for selection!

I'd certainly go watch a 3 match Origin series if it were taken seriously by everyone and used as a Test trial with a panel of selectors sitting after the 3rd game.

Tomkins/Hardaker
Burgess/Hall
Watkins/Shenton
Percival/Atkins
Makinson/McGillvery
Williams/Sutcliffe
Smith/McGuire
Graham/G Burgess
Roby/Houghton
Hill/Walmsley
Greenwood/Bateman
Farrell/Whitehead
O'Loughlin/S Burgess

McIllorum/Clarke
Savelio/Ferres
Cooper/T Burgess
Crosby/Singleton

Same here. I think a lot of people would. It would have an instant rivalry that you don't have to try and create and it has a purpose - to decide (or go a long way toward) the England squad.
Play it at the same time every year. Market it from the beginning of each season. Play the games on Friday nights over the space of 6-8 weeks.
Make it a condition of being in SL or the RFL that clubs must make their players available and that an England place is contingent on participation except for legitimate injuries.

Add in 3 or 4 mid-season England games v France & Wales and I'd be a happy man.

I would like to see a short mid-season break and England fly out to NZ to take on the Kiwis during the Origin period.

Lancs / Yorks as a pre-cursor to that, probably in a one-off game, would be interesting if both sides were strong.

Also agree that if Eng ever took on the Exiles again, it would be best to hold it on a Sunday afternoon / bank holiday Monday and make a double / triple header with Knights v France and Wales / Ireland v Scotland or something or other. Maybe somewhere like Blackpool!

Problem with a Roses or Origin series as a Test trial is when do you play it?

If you play it too late in the season, it's going to be disrupting the Super 8s, playoffs and CC Final. Play it in the middle of the season though, and it's no indicator of what form players are going to be in come November.

Yes to the Exiles, no to not playing the European nations. The only way they will get stronger is if they are regularly given the opportunity to play the top teams and eligible players have a guarantee of test match football. International rugby is our bigest growth opportunity, but no-one cares about a friendly sreies against a contrived team.

The international calendar needs to look something like this:

-5 Nations: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales & France. Round Robin competition played in high summer (June-July). Regular season games to happen at same time, with selected players for international teams not playing for clubs.

-Autumn Internationals: Either touring Aus / NZ or playing them here. Perhaps also a combined 'pacific islands' side. European sides to play tests against Fiji, Tonga, PNG with one test against the big nations.

e.g. England v Tonga, England v New Zealand, England v Australia.
Scotland v PNG, Scotland v Samoa, Scotland v New Zealand.

-Roses match. One-off test played at Wembley, should be early season and a first chance to stick a hand up for an England shirt. Only England-identified players eligible to play (e.g. Adam Walker plays for Scotland, so not eligible to represent Yorkshire).

-Exiles match. Could be a success if branded as 'Barbarians' - we should actively look to get BFC involved in RL. First England trial game, again early season.

So the Calendar would look something like this:

February: Season Starts
March: Yorkshire v Lancashire
May: England v Barbarians
June/July: 5 Nations
August/September: Super 8s
October: Playoffs
October/November: Autumn Internationals

N.B. Also should be noted that Michael McIlorum would be playing for Yorkshire as he's from Leeds, and Brad Singleton (along with Kyle Amor, Shaun Lunt, Lee Mossop and Ben Harrison) is from Cumbria.

Between us, meaning both fans and the RFL, we managed to kill off an otherwise interesting idea. The negativity of us fans was matched by the incompetence of the RFL. Trying to squeeze extra games into an already busy season was always going to result in cry offs and anamosity from clubs fearing the loss of players.

So under a Roses set-up, players from Cumbria, London, Milton Keynes (Sam Tomkins), anywhere there that's not Yorkshire or old Lancashire, has to sit around picking their nose?

Yep.

Tomkins was born in Milton Keynes but grew up in Wigan. Not like Mason Caton-Brown (only recently moved north from London), Sinfield (captained Leeds but born, grew up and lived in Oldham) or Singleton (moved to Leeds only after being signed up to the club's academy, born and grew up in Barrow).

Maybe there's a shout for a 'qualification period' (e.g. Darrell Griffin becoming eligible for Yorkshire after all those years at Wakefield, Huddersfield and Leeds) but saying it's Yorkshire v Lancashire will become a bit of a joke if it's basically just a 'dream team' of the sides from the county - and contrariwise, you'd have to exclude players from the counties playing at clubs outside of them.

Have also worked up a schedule for the season I proposed above that could work:

(Test Season 2016)

31/1 - Champions Kick Off
7/2 - Magic Weekend (SL R1, counted as a home game for one club, will get swapped every year)
14/2 - R2
21/2 - WCC / R3 *Whoever played Champions in opening game to sit this week out.
28/2 - R4
6/3 - CCR2 (64 teams)
13/3 - R5
20/3 - R6
27/3 - Yorks v Lancs /R7
3/4 - R8
10/4 - CCR3
17/4 - R9
24/4 - R10
1/5 - England v Barbarians / R11
8/5 - R12
15/5 - R13
22/5 - CCR4
29/5 - R14
5/6 - R15
12/6 - CCQF
19/6 - 5 Nations Round 1 / R16
26/6 - 5NR2 / R17
3/7 - 5NR3 / R18
10/7 - 5NR4 / R19
17/7 - 5NR5 / R20
24/7 - CCSF
31/7 - R21
7/8 - R22
14/8 - Super 8s Round 1
21/8 - S8R2
28/8 - CCF
4/9 - S8R3
11/9 - S8R4
18/9 - S8R5
25/9 - S8R6
2/10 - S8R7
9/10 - Play Off Semi Final / Million Pound Game
16/10 - Grand Final
23/10 - Rest Week / England Warm Up
30/10 - Test Match Weekend 1
06/11 - Test Match Weekend 2
13/11 - Test Match Weekend 3

Was it Lancashire that picked Dom Peters one year, because the England coaching staff wanted to have a look at him?

Only in rugby league would the solution to the problems our international game faces be to not play international games.

Whats the point in pushing these failed concepts again? Best case scenario we get a counter-productive parochial series with limited accessibility usurping the growth that can be made through the international game.

There is a limit to the £10 tickets we can sell to the same 200k people living in the suburbs of Leeds and Manchester.

Because people are stupid.

But I don't think anyone has said don't play internationals. I think most have people have advocated more internationals. But we aren't going to get Australia over mid-season. And unless the NRL move SOO to a 3-week consecutive series then we aren't going to get NZ over either (and the NRL are highly unlikely to do that).
So most people are advocating internationals against France and/or Wales mid-season.
But we all know that currently they don't provide much opposition. So an Exiles game or Yorks v Lancs series may be a way of getting players into representative rugby with a decent, relatively intense game.

It can be as accessible as we like. As far as I'm concerned all federation trained players who are eligible for England would be eligible for the Yorks v Lancs series in the same way as NRL players are for SOO. The small minority of players this would really affect wouldn't have much if any impact on the credibility of the series since it would be 1 or 2 players. And would anyone really object to someone like Brad Singleton playing for Yorkshire or LMS playing for Lancashire?
As long as the players aren't allowed to switch allegiances and are eligible and trained in England who cares?