This. Very much so.

That just doesn't make sense.
We are rightly looking to use from RU what they've done well. In this case the regular playing, scheduling and prioritisation of internationals. This has helped elevate Union in this country and others.

Personally I think it's even more important that RL internationals are successful since we are a northern based sport in a country with a heavily London based and London biased media.

SL Australia/NZ might appeal to League fans but I can't see it attracting anyone beyond that and will probably just add to "ordinary" people's confusion re RL. Personally I also think it devalues the England side to play them. England should be playing other nations not a select side.

right so we are solving the problem of not playing enough internationals by playing games that arent international but playing poor approximations of the two nations we actually do bother to play.

We're not going to get mid season tests against competitive opposition, we need to do something else and beating France by 80 points does more harm than good to interest in the international game.

Mid season sl oz/Nz games would carry lots of interest and be competitive imo.

Put another way, I'd pay to watch it whilst last time we played France I didn't even turn my TV on.

Yes, because that is the only way we can get competitive games to prepare us for those fixtures.The other home nations and France are frankly light years away from providing us that.In an ideal world, of course it would be lovely to be able to play these sides but hammering after hammering is going to benefit nobody and it's not going to improve the said nations either. What would you suggest?

interest from who? the same couple of hundred k fans in the heartlands? how many more £10 tickets with a free beanie hat can we sell?

International rugby league: there are only two teams worth playing, come watch England struggle to beat their B teams in what is basically an opposed training session. That world cup legacy is really putting down roots.

if we need games, then we play international games.

Frankly our season is already packed, we already need to be trying to make space for an expanded WCS, we already need to be playing more internationals even if we win them

nobody cared about the exiles games, people werent interested, we got more for an international friendly in Avignon than an exiles game at headingley which was the best attended exiles game by a fair bit.

What England need is COMPETITIVE INTERNATIONALS, that's why they won all those test-matches and series between 2011 and 2014.

Are there enough Kiwis in SL to form their own squad?

There are no half backs. Or are they going to stick Frank Pritchard in at scrum half?

How about an annual double header at Wembley; England v New Zealand followed by SOO Queensland v New South Wales?

How about just the England vs NZ match?