No , The clubs would veto the idea.

The trouble with us is we've not natural born leaders in pivotal roles sinfield chase or roby never pulled us around the pitch on satdy. Look at the Aussies smith thurston Lockyer all do it at the same bloody time. To try an catch up to there level we need hard quality high intense games every week which in S/L we don't! Then just to keep them on there toes is origin football the most competitive rugby in the world. Look at our playoffs first 4 games was crap! massive scores should never happen in them games there should always be tight games that's why there called playoff rugby. Rant over.X

Who would we play in these international breaks? Wouldn't be oz or NZ so we'd be down to Wales or France and they're as competetive as round 3 of the challenge cup.

We need to get something to equal origin and unfortunately if we tried it would just be a novelty event.

I agree - we need a proper Yorks/Lancs series that is followed through and marketed correctly. It's probably too late for 2012, but 2013 we could do with at least 2 high intensity games (and not just trials to see who is possibly going to get in the WC squad). One at Hull, one at Wigan (then moved around to other grounds in following years), promoted to hell and with cheap (ish) tickets. We've had half d events in the past. Now is time to go for it properly.

Something in my mind tells me that Origin wasn't earthshatteringly popular when it started, but they stuck with it and now it's the biggest event in RL.

I quite liked the Exiles concept. If they stick with that for a few years it might take off and it would be more use to the England side than a Yorks/Lancs game.

Quite possibly. Whatever, we need a series of near Origin intensity to improve us as a national side.

Exiles versus England would be good with some having a point to prove.
Many many years ago I think one of the RU Countries used to have a Probables versus the Possibles as a sort of trial to see who got into the National team.
3 games at that level should rival SOO.
Where to fit it in would be the challenge although you could get one round in from the Magic Weekend fixture.

Part of the success of Origin, I suspect, has been down to the lack of competition for Australia. They got bored of winning before we tired of losing, I reckon.

Magic Weekend can be dropped for me. It will be handy for me in Manchester next year, but on the basis that it was to publicise the game in non-traditional areas, its done a world of good



I also don't see why we can't have a big game on a Wednesday one week then back up on the weekend. Plenty of players do it in Oz, more than once a season.

So did we when we used to play the Floodlit trophey games mid week backed up by a league game on the Saturday.
The youth of today, don`t know they are born meh.

I think we need to build a rivalry in order for the game/concept to take off. Possibles/Probables wouldn't achieve that as fans wouldn't feel any long-term affiliation with either side.

I do like the England-Exiles concept and right now I've no doubt the quality of the game would be higher than Yorks/Lancs. Only problem I see is that it limits the number of English players that would get exposure to that high intensity 'big game' experience (if we could ever get it to that point).

I don't think reducing the amount of clubs would be beneficial, you'd lose supporters, sponsorship and juniors which would be very hard to regain.

I would reduce fixtures though.

i would scrap the international game because its a complete waste of time its not changed since i went to watch GB V AUS at boothferry park in 82 as a young lad give me more SL games anyday

Then we'll never compete with union and the player drain will grow.

I like so many have watched the Aussie dominance of the sport grow wider in recent years and for very good reasons. You can blame imported players or coaches but its down to numbers and we do not match them in key area's.

Australia is populated by 22.7 million people mainly concentrated around a few urbanised area's,The national sport is Rugby league and most Aussie lads want to play for there country and wear the green and gold. They have more teams attached to say Penrith Panthers then we have in the entire country and people can play at every level.

Our game is concentrated across the north of the country and very few players have been produced outside that area. The population of W & E Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and bits of Merseyside come to around 8 million or about a third the Aussies have. The Aussies RL do not have to compete with football who in this country take the vast majority of young men available. The Aussies do not have to compete with any other sport at all really as the media is right up on RL where as here its the other way around. We have union which is still hell bent on destroying us, down under they get the scraps left over or the over the hill who cross for a few extra pay days.

We can not expand as we are hemmed in and controlled by our bigger, richer and more powerful big brother who even today has got the services of one of our stars to parade out at one of the big events. Our game has been strangled at the base level through lack of investment, interest and will continue on much as it has done since its birth in 1895, It will survive, evolve and move on and we will support it, but its time we faced the harsh truth we not going to close the gap with the Aussies and we will struggle to keep up with the Kiwi's.

Is playing the Aussies actually doing our game overall more harm then good ?

Should we look to another format for internationals, perhaps at club level where we may be able to compete on a better level playing field.

That might actually help us on an international level as well. You can only get better by regularly competing against the best and learning from that experience. It needs to be given a proper go though rather than the usual knee jerk 'what a disaster, let's not do that again' reaction we usually get. As has been said, Origin wasn't popular at first. Look at it now.

I'm all for shorter seasons too. Less stress on the players bodies, injuries taking their toll on performances, general fatigue. Lets face it, it's a long bloody season to keep up the level of intensity that we'd all like to see week in, week out. I'd like to think fewer games would result in more quality games.

The Roses concept would give another 17 /20 players to look at . Also I'd like to see the Knights tour down under and play the Aussie and Kiwi u20's in test matches every 2 years with the knights then playing either of those at home .
The French would benefit by having regular games against the knights or a touring u20's rep side.

RL is not the national sport in Australia Ian, Aussie Rules is.

The big difference is there total focus on winning, in the UK it's enough to take part and be a plucky loser, it's why complete failiures like Henman are still "sporting heros".

It might not be their national sport, but it enjoys a much higher profile than it does here. Many thousands more people play the game at all levels in Aus, meaning that they have a much broader base of talent to choose from.

indeed, but there are also other factors to take into account, like their climate etc.

people have been arguing this for years, when it comes to sport the Aussies are just better at it than we are (on the whole)

Not really. We are better than them at football. We just panned them in the Ashes. We are better at a number of olympic events. To say they are 'better at sport' is inaccurate and simplistic. Hell, we've even won an RU world cup more recently than them.

How do you explain NZ's RL team then?

I think they're in a slightly different position in that most of their players play in the top club competition in the world. I think a lot of South Sea Islanders qualify for them, too, though I don't know how many are selected in practice. That said, they don't have the same depth that Australia have. Although their top 17 players have, in the past, managed to win big games against Australia, they don't have the same number of quality replacements that Australia have in the event of injury.

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From Wiki:

Australia:
- In 2008, a total of 423,584 Australians participated in rugby league. Junior league registrations have grown climb from 79,000 in 1999 to 120,667 in 2008.

England/UK is one of a number of sports vying for (distant) second place to Association football in the nation's affection. The MORI Sports Tracker consistently reports that rugby league interests around 15% of British adults. It was the fourth most popular team sport in the February 2005 list behind football, cricket and rugby union; 12% of British adults watched it regularly.

- In 2004 the Rugby Football League reported 62,463 registered players (this is a UK-wide figure). However in 2008, the RFL noted that there were only 2,000 registered club players aged 30 or over.