Club first, Its my love of watching Widnes that got me interested in Rugby league, Its that which keeps me interested in rugby league and were we still in the championship after next year it would be the RFL's treatment of that league and my club that would kill my support and interest in the game.

Rightly or wrongly i view our national team as the RFL's club, they do not realy represent our nation as players can switch nations seemingly at will. A player will be Irish one year, then welsh, then when theres a big tourny come up hey presto they are English, its a bleeding joke. I have paid many times to watch england, and have in the past supported them with the same kind of passion as i do Widnes. But my dislike of a lot of what the rfl are doing, and have done has turned me away from the national team.

And dont give me any of this, its your country blah blah. I didnt support England when we won the RU world cup, they dont represent me. I dont cheer us on in hockey, i dont care about it. I Dont care if england win the ashes in cricket, i dont like the sport so im not going to pretend i do when a big game comes up. At the end of the day its just a bunch of blokes that come from the same island as me, you could say the same is true of Widnes. But it feels different.

In short, Club first, club last. there is nothing in between.

I think the problem here is that you're asking this question to hardened fans. We're pretty much all going to be club before country; we pour lots of time and money into following our clubs and are pretty much spent when it comes to internationals.

I think what the RFL need to realise is the modern trend towards how to sell international sports; concentrating all your resources on hardened club supporters isn't going to work, you need to look for the part-timers. The hardened supporters will have spent a lot of money and large portion of the year going to home matches, popping over the pennines, going to cardiff, going to London, going to Perpignan etc etc. It all adds up.

Part time supporters might have a keen interest in the sport, but they might not be able to afford the time or money to follow a team. When a big event comes around that is marketed properly, particularly an international, they'll head to that. For example, a fella from Fev who has moved to Kent and has a young family. If the tickets are a tenner, will he take his family to a) Fev vs Skolars, b) Quins vs Salford or c) Wembley Double Header.

Similarly, you live in London, you're new to the game, got a mate who bangs on about RL, you've seen a couple of matches on Sky, which were good and you just want a good, different night out. Which of those three options would you chose?

You look at RU, Football and Cricket. The international matches are targetted at part timers. They develop a comprehensive media and sponsorship portfolio and make the image of matches as prestigious as possible. We can argue all we want about what we think about Eng/GB etc, but it doesn't really matter in a way because the international games needs marketing beyond us.

Last season there was , it was a 50 seat package

So it looks like the RFL looked at that and addressed the matter.

The lack of competitiveness can't be underestimated when it comes to small crowds for internationals in England. There are a lot of bandwagon supporters of GB/England - if we really look likely to beat Australia when it counts, people would turn up. But if we get smashed when the big crowd turns up, a lot of people wouldn't bother going again. Unfortunately the near future promises more of the same. I can't see England getting close to Australia any time soon.

People should also remember that international RL in Australia is way behind Origin and the NRL. There's more interest in NZ as they are now regularly competitive, and even the Aussie fans are starting to take interest when they play (and an added side-benefit is we're starting to see more young Kiwis who are eligible to pick either Australia or NZ opting for NZ). But there really is no interest at all in seeing England as far as I can tell.

You make a very good point about the bandwagon.
People often use the argument that a club's hardcore support can be measured by the size of the crowd against one of the lesser teams with few travelling fans. If you look at England, our hardcore support is about 12k (what we usually get against France and Wales in competitive fixtures). Should we look to build this up first, and the rest will follow maybe?