Anyone else think we should have this game back but best of 3 like SOO? But just English lads in and have it at every level u16s,u19s,u23s & SL very intense as the aussies play the game and then the best of the players should be selected for England on merit off the back of these games & not pick players for the wrong reasons ie Chase.

No. I learnt yesterday that rugby league means a lot to people in areas other than Yorkshire and Lancashire. Let's not retract in inroads down south by making a pinnacle of our game and only allowing northerners to play

The problem with this is that Lancashire has been broken up. We don't have that affiliation with the county that you Yorkshire folk have with yours.

It's been done before and failed, but we do need something.

Im not saying southerner's should not play just that most of the England lads are either white/red rose & it would just be another few run outs together mid season as the NRL boys do I for one think this would be good for the game as a whole and Steve Mac or whoever is the national coach could do this with maybe Wane running the Lancs side & Brian Mac running the Yorks side. It could be run in the mid week across 3/4 weeks mid season & its not to many game already because if the aussies can do it and back it up by playing 24/48 hours later I am sure our lads can also.

What about a Tri-series with a 3rd team of Others ??

But at the minute the players coming through outside of yorks/lancs are not capable of matching aus/NZ so what would be the point in a tri-series it would not benefit nobody.

My point was more to do with shaking the perception of being a northern sport and promote it as a sport for all of GB

As has been mentioned numerous times, the affiliation between players and geographical areas is completely non-existant. It's been tried and failed.

Well if the players take it serious as the NRL lads do it would de more beneficial for our international state...& if the England coaching job stays fulltime it would warrant some of his wage along the way because I know hes putting structures in place & visiting state of the art camps for the boys to train at globally & watching as many SL games for free & swanning off down under to check on the English NRL stars.............I wonder if he needs a side kick sounds a decent job.

We definitely need something to raise our intensity. Unless we are prepared to cut SL to 12 teams, really hammer the quota so we have a max of four southern hemisphere players in the squad in total (no exemptions, no Kolpak or other method of discounting a nationality) and ensure two of the teams are French we won't get any quality northern hemisphere competition.

I would like to think we could bin the parochialism and give the French the second team on the proviso that it at least 20 of the 25 slots in their first team squad are for French players and make Catalans adopt the same approach, with both teams exempt from relegation. We need to give the French every chance to develop up a nucleus of full time professionals to give the national team some impetus. I would go so far as to say the other 10 SL clubs have at least one Frenchman on in their 25 to assist in this pro growth.

If we can get the French to a similar level and fund their game against RU they might be able to give us a run at international level worth the while.

We have to do something.

Exactly. It's the lack of intensity in the games. Yesterday was a Test match in every sense of the word but the other games just don't test us.

East of Pennines V West of Pennines
Hardacre v Tomkins
Hall v Charnley
Watkins v Goulding
Crooks v Percival
Lynham v Swift
Widdop v Ratchford
Brough v Smith
G Burgess v Graham
Clarke v Roby
Crabtree v Hill
Ferres v Farrell
Westwood v Hock
S Burgess v O'Loughlin

I know we'd struggle to get the NRL players here but I'd pay quite a lot to see that game

But the aussies & NZ are only tested when the top 2/3 play eachother so it goes back to the entire season playing with intensity for the entire 80 mins as we was shown yesterday.

Well there needs to be something put in place for them to return for England or rep games so they know we are to take it serious.

Probables vs. Possibles? England vs. England Knights basically?

Exactly that but just think the banter would make better with Yorks v Lancs (fans & players)

Yorks v lancs has been done before, many times, and it has failed, neither the players nor tge fans will ever have enough passion for this fixture to be viable.

We need more internationals that is for sure, but even the current idea of the exiles is better than a yorks lancs game as at least it gets our best players playing together as a team.

I'd like to see a mid season test against NZ whilst tge Aussies have SOO.

But exiles are old test players but we still struggle with them as England don't seem to take them serious... they maybe should be playing under a coach/manager who puts the fear of god in them.

Here's an idea. Play some ing international matches instead of contrived bull.

England don't need to play against contrived non-entites to 'raise intensity' or 'recreate Origin' or anything like that. I can't believe, after the WC that we've seen, that people are still coming up with the sort of thing posted on this thread. You people must be legitimately stupid.

Do you kiss your sheep with that mouth?

Point proven.

Plus there is no teams to play around England as there all gash the top 3 in the world are light years ahead of everyone else & its done England no good playing any other teams other then AUS/NZ as they matched them but when they played france etc lowered to play there standards. imho

Well who can England play mid season then?

The likes of Wales and France deemed not good enough opposition.
Australia and New Zealand won't come over here mid NRL season.

Would either of those be bothered about us going over there? They already have their mid season test plus Origin, why would they want to add to their fixture list to play England?

What kind of contest would it be anyway? You couldn't just pop over for a week and play 1 match against those teams, we'd be comfortably beaten, you need to make it a several week thing.

And how would that impact on Super League? Could clubs afford to have their best players away in Australia for several weeks, what will it do for attendances if for example Leeds vs Wigan with them both missing 5 or 6 of their best players each?

How would it effect the salary cap too? Would it be fair if one or two club has 5 or 6 guys away on international duty for a month or so and others clubs maybe only 1 or 2 or none? Would you have to make allowances for this financially? How would clubs plan ahead in pre-season not knowing who of their players might get picked for England duty in June?

By who, idiotic fans?

People need to get out of this mindset that international RL consists of simply NZ, Australia and England, and that everything else is worthless or a waste of time. Has the RLWC taught you nothing?

Quote ="headhunter"By who, idiotic fans? People need to get out of this mindset that international RL consists of simply NZ, Australia and England, and that everything else is worthless or a waste of time. Has the RLWC taught you nothing?'" www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/25081735 Tomkins "we need more tough tests, we are only going to get better that way" "The Aussies and Kiwis are playing each other mid season, whereas we have a year off when we are playing Wales and the like and it doesn't help." The group stages of the WC were great, but because the groups were set up in a certain way. Once the quarters started the ones involving Aus/NZ/Eng had an aggregate score of 136-10. Whilst you can look at what USA and Scotland did, what kind of tournaments would they have had if they'd of been in Group A instead of Ireland? What the WC has shown is that one big tournament involving all the other teams barring the big 3 would be a good and tight contest. But the gap between the 3 and the rest is still too big.

Quote ="headhunter"By who, idiotic fans? People need to get out of this mindset that international RL consists of simply NZ, Australia and England, and that everything else is worthless or a waste of time. Has the RLWC taught you nothing?'" www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/25081735 Tomkins "we need more tough tests, we are only going to get better that way" "The Aussies and Kiwis are playing each other mid season, whereas we have a year off when we are playing Wales and the like and it doesn't help." The group stages of the WC were great, but because the groups were set up in a certain way. Once the quarters started the ones involving Aus/NZ/Eng had an aggregate score of 136-10. Whilst you can look at what USA and Scotland did, what kind of tournaments would they have had if they'd of been in Group A instead of Ireland? What the WC has shown is that one big tournament involving all the other teams barring the big 3 would be a good and tight contest. But the gap between the 3 and the rest is still too big.