I find it easy to agree with most of your posts Sal, but you are wrong to state that the 1982 tourists came when rep RL was in its heyday.

You would need to go back at least another 25 years for that period to be exact.

That was when we really did see well contested and bitter rivalry games enacted and they were brilliant for the fans, who DID turn up in great numbers, both for the tests and, the matches played against the clubs also.

As spectators we pay to watch the best players - why should I pay to watch games where the best players have been forcibly removed? If I want to watch an academy game I can pay my £3 and go.

With P&R you can't imagine the lesser teams wanting their better players to go on tour mid season

Scrap a weekend and replace with a 5 week tour- How does that weigh up?

Let's say England take a 24 man squad to Australia for three Tests and a couple of country games (one warmup, one midweek between the 1st and 2nd Tests, so four playing weeks of the tour).

Maybe half a dozen of that squad are going to come from the NRL anyway (Tomkins, Graham, Widdop, two remaining Burgess boys would be automatic, then you have the likes of Cooper and Hodgson)

Wigan provided 7 players to the 2014 England four nations squad. Leeds provided three. No other SL club more than two. Clubs could be without that many of their top players at any one time in the season due to injuries anyway. It's not going to have an adverse effect on the product to take these players out of SL for five weeks in the middle of the season IMO.

Don't use facts, we can't moan then!

Internationals won't move forward significantly until they're played mid season IMO. It should be the pinnacle but it's currently just tagged on the end as some sort of after thought.

I would have no issue with Wigan losing 7 players mid season. I would like to think clubs would be given a bit more leeway on the cap to cover those circumstances but if they were then it would be fine.

Agreed. A few years back, when Leeds were in their prime, we often had 6/7 players in the England/GB squad. I wouldn't have an issue with us losing them to a higher cause for a few weeks. Most teams lose 5/6/7 players to injury in a season anyway.