So England are to face France and Wales in October.
Are these fixtures really testing enough as a pre-cursor to the World Cup.
Although the Exiles games came in for some stick in certain quarters surely they would provide stiffer opposition ?

Except that team doesn't really exist, and all the players are back home in Australia. I can't believe the negativity surrounding this tournament, RL fans baffle me at times.

The negativity comes from the lack of quality opposition for England.
France are not good enough yet and Wales are some way behind France, so as preparatiion for the World cup these fixtures are extremely poor.
I went to Doncaster a few seasons back to watch a half strength England team demolish Wales and it just wasn't competetive.
The England Knights are good enough to beat them and the full England team need to be tested !

I have no problem with the fixtures. It's the lateness of announcing them (a month before it starts), the choice of stadia and the complete and utter lack of build up that annoys me. I think that's it's a disgrace that professional organisation would announce an international event in tiny stadia one month before it starts. It's been set up to fail. How can the RFL win with this?

Spot on. It's clearly been in the pipeline for a long time, why wasn't this all sorted earlier? Still trying to convince a SH nation to make it 4?

Would be good to see England knights vs england. Not sure if this has already happened.

How would that be good in any way? Jesus Christ.

Is there any reason this thread keeps being created. Third time lucky? Come on, let's get this one to three pages!!

We could have 2 "England" teams playing each other as a selection process.
It could be an interesting match up with some of the young guns staking a claim for a starting berth for the world cup ?

I dont know how the reams would be picked but as a concept it may have possibilities.

They could line up 34 players and have a schoolyard pick, in public of course !

It's just backwards to me that some RL fans would seem to favour nothing matches involving made-up joke teams ahead of legitimate internationals. And then they wonder why the sport gets no recognition in the national media. It's just stupidity beyond belief.

No it probably isn't beneficial watching England smash Wales & France, but unfortunately we were limited in our choice. What would have been an ideal opportunity a I've said elsewhere is to finally give our star players an off season and let them have a full pre-season and let the fringe players take on Wales & France. But Looks like Mcnamara is going to play a full squad.

Its great that they have announced these matches so early as it really gave the fans time to make arrangements to go to these games. The RFL have also done a great job of building up these internationals and you really get the impression that these games are important rather than some afterthough.

I agree BUT it's Super League that's suffering. Everyone's attention is on this tournament and the play-offs are getting ignored.

So this is how you think it should work in professional representative sport?!

NZ RU has regularily staged ' probables v possibles ' matches for years