Quote G1="G1"The World Cup has shown the public have an appetite for meaningful international rugby league (not stupid exiles fixtures). Sadly, there won't be any meaningful international rugby league over here for some time.
At the games I've been to there have been very large numbers of people that were not rugby league fans. The best we could do would be market those that bought tickets with details of big games, league games or televised games and try and get attendances and viewing figures up. I doubt we will though.'"
Geography is a big problem here.
Anyone who watched Saturday's first game could not possibly admit that they wouldn't want more of it. As a game, it had everything and as an occasion, it was fantastic. The last time I went to and England v NZ game, it was against a reatively average NZ at Huddersfield in front of barely more than 20k. To go from that to 70k at Wembley is incredible.
The problem is how we get "more of the same". There is too much self-interest from clubs on both sides of the world for a mid-season test or tour, so that is out of the question. That leaves England looking to play much poorer opposition in the form of France, Wales or an antipodean invitational XIII at Leigh or Salford - and then we're back to square one.
Bring the best in the world to our biggest cities to play in big events. Personally, I'd bin-off the Four Nations (I don't think the additional of a fourth nation really does much good for anyone at this moment in time) and replace with tours every winter.
2014: England v Aus Ashes series at Wembley, Elland Road and Manchester
2015: Five-six week England/Lions tour of Australia and NZ (eg, warm up vs Pacific nation, 1 test vs NZ, 3 tests vs Aus)
2016: England v NZ at Wembley, Elland Road and Manchester
2017: RLWC in Australia
Repeat ad-finatum....
What the RFL ultimately needs to decide now is whether it wants to acknowledge that there is a demand for top-level internationals or whether it wants to bumble along letting badly-run clubs dictate how many domestic games our players should play.