Quote: SmokeyTA "Yes, i think the international game should consist of international teams playing against each other. '"
The latter has nothing to do with the question.
You think Italy, a national team with very little experience and made up almost entirely of amateurs, should be playing Australia, New Zealand and England regularly?
Quote: SmokeyTA "So why waste one of the very few international dates we have, not playing international rugby?'"
I explained why in the post you quoted.
Quote: SmokeyTA "And they dont have the chances choosing to playing for the Celtic nations. A players options are chose a celtic nation and play in secondary international tournaments and never have an opportunity to play in the primary ones or the play against the tier one nations, or chose to play for the Knights and play in the same tournaments and have the opportunity to play against tier one nations. It does incentivise players to chose England to the detriment of the celtic nations. Which is a bad thing. In isolation there is nothing wrong with a Knights side. When added to everything else there is.'"
This has more to do with the lack of an international window. A decision to make a reserve side for an international team should have nothing to do with the presence of nations around them that would want to capitalise on their heritage.
In an ideal world, England would be playing the European nations more. But the fact that we'd stuff them pretty much every game (and the ones we don't, we'd still pretty comfortably win) would mean a lack of interest, a lack of attendance, a lack of profile, a lack of sponsorship and a lack of money. International RL doesn't have that luxury. We need to do what we can to keep it going, and having England play Italy, Russia, USA, Kenya, Germany, Serbia, Ukraine, South Africa, Canada, Jamaica, etc. all year won't be cost effective, and probably won't help anyone in their development.
There needs to be avenues for nations to progress (which there are more now than there has ever been) to playing against the top nations in competitive games in non-WC years. Look at Wales and PNG. But not everyone can play the top 3 teams, and it's in most nations best interests that they don't. I think it's ridiculous that you do. Is it even possible to have everybody play the top 3 in a year?
Quote: SmokeyTA "They dont compete at different levels, they compete at the same level. There is only one International Level. Competition will dictate largely that the better teams will play each other more often because the latter stages of competitions will only include these sides. But we dont have that. Kenya RL dont have the opportunity to earn their chance to test themselves. One northern hemisphere side every 4 years gets that chance. Its a less than token effort.'"
Kenya RL can arrange matches, build their international ranking, earn themselves places in more prestigious tournaments, and work their way up that way. It's a bit like the licensing system in SL were you have to earn your stripes in more ways than one. And I'm pretty sure you're for that.
You can pretend there is one level of international competition if you like, but there isn't. It might be that way in football, but it isn't in other sports. How often do England RU play teams outside the top tier?