Well, I enjoyed it personally, so I'm sad to see it go. I like seeing matches with the better players around irrespective of the story people want to make up to make it happen. Hopefully something else with potential comes along and manages to convince people to watch, such as midseason internationals.

Though knowing RL crowds, convincing a decent amount of them to do anything is a tough job.

A fact that crosses my mind, every time an exiles thread emerges. What a trickle bunch us rugby league fans are!!!!!!

The fact remains, when we play France everyone complains the challenge isn't there, then when the closest thing we have to a challenge is playing the exiles and everyone still complains. We're now calling for a return to Lancs vs Yorks, but the players, and fans alike, never bought into that concept. At least the players seem to care about the Exiles fixture.

The only other worthwhile option is to play a test against New Zealand whilst SoO is being played. The match could be a curtain opener to the SoO match.

You've posted two teams now and in both you have had Shannon O'Donnell in your reserves. Do you mean Shannon McDonnell? And if so do you realise he hasn't played for 10 months and doesn't even appear to be at Hull anymore?

I did mean Shannon McDonnell, you are correct.

No I didn't realise that he hadn't played for 10 months.

In that case I will remove him from my list of reserves forthwith and never mention his name again in my lists.

Nevertheless I am glad that you have not expressed any displeasure with the team of 17 I selected to play for the Exiles.

I assume that you agree that it would be a reasonable guess that such a selection of Exiles could beat England if the Burgess brothers, Graham and Tomkins were unavailable (as would be the case in a mid-season contest).

Shame really. I enjoy any England match and this one was no different.

Yes, whatever the fixture is called doesn't matter, it's all about giving our players chance to test themselves at a higher level and giving the coaching staff an opportunity to try some different options.
As I mentioned earlier, without any fixture, we put ourselves further behind Aus and NZ.