Australian officials want to give the players a summer off after three consecutive Four Nations since the last World Cup in 2008.



Rugby league needs its heartland areas to stand up and be counted, not hide away in the shadows. The international game can't afford to lose a team like Australia. This isn't football where you have loads of famous teams. Brazil could pull out of the football world cup but you'd still have Argentina, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, England, etc. It would be a blow but the show would go on without too much trouble.

Rugby league has Australia, New Zealand and England, plus some up and coming nations. I don't mind us playing the developing teams but most of all I want to see us playing the Kangaroos and Kiwis. It's bad enough that we don't play them at home every year as it is.

I like rugby league as much as I like rugby union, but I probably watch (albeit on tv) 20 rugby union games for every 1 rugby league game I watch. RL can certainly produce the quality (as we saw on Sat) but it has to somehow try and increase the supply.

like i said months ago......



and england v the Other Nationalities will happen next year too....

if england do tour nz they should also play PNG, and some of the pacific nations, or bring in a "b" team and let them play the PI nations midweek or something in nz

nahh take a 35 man squad or something and play 2 games a week leading up to a 3 game series, total of 5 weeks and everyone gets to play England.

suppose it all depends on cost...

take a 35-40 man squad on a whirlwind 3-4 week tour with a weekend test team to play NZ and a weekday test team to play the islands

or

a 25-26 man squad on a longer 5-6 week tour playing 4 or 5 games on consecutive weekend


i'd go for the longer tour personally

I think the players would go for anything 5 weeks and under. You could play consecutive weekends and midweek games against the P.I. with a 35 man squad