Its great to have international football back on our screens, really highlights the potential of our game. The Italy team shows that if all eligible players are available for each country then it increases the competitiveness of each team and in return the sport as a whole. An international window in mid season would make every possible international player available. Italy against England and France in Rome, Milan would be a tough competition if you include all if the heritage players from Italy and France's continual development especially when Toulouse enter super league. Let's not forget Wales are also making some progress and the game against the Azzurri yesterday showed the potential of the european game.

There is a real chance the international arena can be developed out of this competition, why cant we see England V PNG instead of the Exiles? Or against Tonga, Samoa?

The current restructuring of SL and lack of sponsorship shows we have taken the domestic league as far as it can go commercially and to bring in new investment to the sport we have to engage sponsors and fans at elite level and develop it.

of the above teams mentioned, if they have quality players in their squads then they will play nrl, nrl clubs arent going to let players come to england to play a mid season friendly

According to the laws of the game clubs have to make their players available for internationals if selected, having international windows will go some way towards enforcing it as the clubs wont have the excuse of club games taking place.

The sport needs to tip the balance of power from the clubs. One of the priorities of the new NRL commission is to prioritise and have more internationals so in this type of scenario im sure they can force there hand.

Agreed. Martyn Sadler suggested that if State of Origin was played on consecutive weeks that England could play an annual series against New Zealand at the same time. This would also give time to France, Wales, Samoa etc to play internationals.

I agree the clubs would argue against it, but the past week has shown that if our game is to get media attention it needs to have strong, meaningful international competitions. This should have a positive impact on the club game as a result.

We need a strong IRLF to force the clubs to give international RL the time and players necessary to stage games.

Hope International Windows do a better job developing RL than West Yorkshire Windows did with Trinity.

According to the laws of the game the Aussies would have been penalised for about 50% of their tackles yesterday, until we see the rules being fairly adhered to on the pitch, not much point pushing the off pitch ones is it, although I do agree with your point, if we are to allow 3 aussie teams in the WC, they should play mid season to help develop the sport internationally

Who are the three Aussie teams?

The start isn't getting NRL-based players into their sides. It's making the home nations teams a viable option for players, where they'll get regular opportunities to play international rugby against the best in the world.

It's also easier to sell international RL to a public who don't know the intricacies of the club game than it is the SL, even top-level clashes like Leeds v Wigan.

The starting point needs to be a regular 6 nations competition, played in high summer between England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France & Italy.

If RL was really serious about growing Int RL it would find a way to bring in another France and Wales team to SL and a PNG to NRL. Only by having at least 40-50 players from each country exposed to the two highest leagues will we see countries start to challenge the big three.

I agree, if we can start a tournament like this, and make sure it is a regular fixture, then players will be more likely to play for their home countries more often and we will get reduced nation switching. So what if we've got NRL players flooding the national teams currently, if the squads are competitive now (Italy as an example) then this may lead to the growth of the game in Italy, and eventually these players being replaced by domestic players in the medium - long term.

It actually wouldn't be that hard if SL was set up sensibly. Two ten-team leagues will be reasonably competitive, and will free up weekends for international rugby.

Currently there's 27 regular rounds.

Ten teams gives 18 fixtures. Make the 'Magic weekend' the season opener at OT, leading up to a GF rematch (all other games to be random draw); and have an 'on the road' game every week, where a chosen expansion city will play host to a regular round of every team.

Gives you 20 regular rounds, so there's a much bigger window for internationals.

They key to doing is ensuring:

1. There's no club rugby on at the same time
2. The venues picked are appropriate (not LSV)
3. The games are on the BBC.

This will need expenditure. England need to be playing home games at OT or Wembley, Wales at the Millenium Stadium, Scotland at Murrayfield or Hampden, Italy at the Stadio Flaminio and France at the Stade de France or Stade de Velodrome.

The future is Wales and France.

I'm not going to say how it can be done, but it's something we need.

England for me has been a case of taking GB and calling it by a different name. It's left the rest of the home nations with those not picked for England.

There is no way I want to dilute the English side, but for year after year of internationals in the UK we need a Welsh or French side that can compete with England. Until we do this then we only get internationals every 2 years on home turf.

Could we do a 12 team super league, play each other once home and away (22 fixtures) then the magic weekend to make it 23 games, then the extra 4 games we have now, have a 4 week mid season international break?

I think strengthening the home nations will for a time mean weakening the depth of the England, Australia & New Zealand teams. For Ireland, Wales and Scotland to put out their strongest squads, some players will have to transfer allegiance, e.g. Sean O'Loughlin, Darius Boyd, David Williams, Keith Galloway, Ben Harrison, Michael McIlorum & Garreth Carvell all leaving Australia / England.

As for how the season would work, ideally something like this:

SUPER LEAGUE - 10 teams in 2 divisions

18 Regular Rounds
1 Magic Weekend fixture @ Old Trafford v Random Opponents
1 'On The Road' fixture v established rival

TOTAL - 20 fixtures

CHALLENGE CUP - 64 teams

20 SL teams
10 Elite One Championship teams
34 Open Qualification spots

TOTAL - 6 weekends

This gives us 26 match weekends. Add in two further free weekends - one for the WCC, and one for a Yorkshire v Lancashire game, and that's 28.

Can then easily fit in five weekends for an international round-robin tournament between the six European Nations.

6N matches to happen in mid summer (June-July-August) on free weekends, the WC to happen every 4 years in October, after the NRL & SL seasons have finished.

First three moves for me:

1. Get a firm financial commitment from all RL bodies to establish a proper RLIF with the power to market RL itself, unify rules, fund expansion etc

2. Get an agreement from professional clubs to have a dedicated representative window in our summmer (mid season) across the globe, of 3/4 weeks. The content isn't too important, if Australia wants to use it to play themselves in Orgin, that's fine, it undeniably brings in the money and has a bunch of prestige over there, and the potential to become a TV event far beyond Australia. But we need the space for club loyalty and representative matches to exist without tension.

3. IMO (more controversially), bias the salary caps on each side of the globe towards development in new areas (as well as existing areas). If a player formally declares allegiance to a nation, their salary is indexed to the ranking of that nation in the NRL/ESL for as long as they continue to play for them. If we are going to have mercenaries, we may as well incentivise them to play mercenary with the nation they are elligible for that could do with them the most. And longer term, it should incentivise NRL clubs to seek out more Fijians, Samoans, Tongans and Papuans (plus Lebanese and Italian heritage players etc) in the longer run to get a salary advantage - ditto make it better financially for the SL clubs to tap into Welsh, French, Scottish, Irish, Italian, Canadian, American etc talents - who will have to turn out for those nations to get advantages. As the weaker nations catch up internationally, the salary incentives automatically reduce as nations get internationally closer - it has a stabilising and equalising effect on representative games as well as assisting with elligibility problems.

This is where the cap on non-English players I think is bad for the game internationally. People say it's good for young English players, but it's not good for other nations.

We're seeing that experience in the big two competitions (SL and NRL) is doing wonders for the competitiveness of international RL. The more non-English and non-Aussies playing in those two respective competitions the faster we're going to have a really competitive international comp.

With an increasing number of French, Welsh, Samoan, Fijian, Tongan and PNG players in the two competitions it should only be a matter of time until they start being much more competitive with the "big 3"

Totally agree with you about having more French clubs in SLE,three should be the minimum target by the next world cup.

Theres no need to rush the Welsh again is there?.There are Welsh players all over SLE and that will continue to grow over the coming years.

By all mean help SWS and the crusaders to continue there devolopement on and off the field, but lets not ruin it again by interfering to deeply again.

I think France is going to be easier to break than Wales.

IMO too many teams in SL playing too many games, with no proper breaks to play any meaningful internationals makes it difficult to grow the international stage at the moment.

We also need all these players who have all of a sudden found Italian, Irish, Welsh and Scottish parentage to keep playing for their countries. You shouldn't be able to pick and choose your allegiance every other week... Then we can have a meaningful 6 nations competition, and proper tours for these teams too...

My point on the previous page, its no use having Australians wanting to just play in a WC in europe for a 5 week holiday, then return to bondi, never to wear the shirt again, by all means accept ' heritage ' as long as that heritage is not abused, if somebody declares they are Italian, then Italian they remain for all their career, and lets see the sport ( all of it RFL and NRL ) support these players in growing the sport in their chosen countries

Agree with most things put. The only time RL gets even half decent media coverage is for international games. Even the oft derided Autumn Internationals last year saw more media coverage and more people watching live RL than anything in the domestic season other than the Cup Final.
We desperately need to be on FTA TV in some fashion and the Cup (other than the Final) just isn't doing it anymore. The media and the "slightly interested" in "non-RL" areas aren't that bothered about Huddersfield v Warrington in a semi final or even a final really. But they will take note of England playing.

I've posted what I think is a good international 8-year schedule before, as part of that there should be annual comps both here and down under.
A 5/6 nations here of England, Wales, France, Scotland, Ireland & possibly Italy.
Same format as Union 6 Nations. Play each once. Top of the table wins. Max of 5 games. If necessary, play 2 games a week sometimes. So, for instance:
Sat - Round 1:
Italy v Ireland
Scotland v France
Wales v England - triple header @ Man City maybe? Or Elland Road?

Wed - Round 2:
England v Ireland -
Wales v Scotland -
France v Italy -

Sat - Round 3:
Scotland v England
Wales v Italy
Ireland v France

Sat - Round 4:
England v Italy
Ireland v Scotland
France v Wales

Sat - Round 5:
Wales v Ireland
Scotland v Italy
France v England

Would only take 4 weeks out of the calendar.
Much better than the Exiles games in my opinion. Especially if a GB touring side has been reintroduced for games v Aus and NZ, as that means players like Kopczak, Brough etc can play for the other nations and still be in contention for the Test Series.

The problem with that is that it puts off players from declaring for these nations if they think there's even the tiniest chance they'd ever be picked for Australia or New Zealand or England.

Which is why it is important that we play more internationals as a whole.

Players declaring for Italy Fiji or Samoa, Ireland, Wales and Scotland should be doing so in the knowledge that they will be playing 5-10 internationals a year with 1-3 of those against the big 3

I agree, but I don't think a hard and fast rule should be introduced until we've got to that point and developed the sport a bit.

I think there should be a 5/6 nations down under at the same time as here, of Australia, New Zealand, PNG, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga.

For the sake of a few weeks in the schedule I think it'd be a massive boost to rugby league around the world. As long as we stick with it and don't immediately scrap it at the first sign of a little difficulty.

Out of interest, we have a 4 nations next year, who is the 4th nation gonna be?

Having a 6 nations tournament both here with England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France & Italy
Making sure we have a GB tour thrown in every once in a while so that the home nations players dont all hold out for England.
Also on the Southern Hemisphere having Oz, NZ, Fiji, PNG, Tonga and Samoa.

The next 6 highest ranking teams left also having regular tournaments.

There's an appetite for the game so lets do it.

Year 1. 6 nations Northern/Southern hemisphere
Year 2. 6 nations top 3 from each of year 1's tournaments in one hemisphere and the the bottom 3 play in the other hemisphere
Year 3. WORLD CUP
Year 4. GB tour.

I think that could work