No sign or mention of an Exiles game this year, is it another abandoned initiative?

Apparently.

Who would be in the team anyway? Although the number of exiles has diminished in 2014, I think that the Exiles team could be a strong oneMatt Bowen

Justin Carney, Joel Moon, Jake Webster, Joel Monaghan

Blake Green,
Luke Walsh

Willy Manu
Trent Waterhouse, Iosia Soliola,
Roy Asotasi, Michael Monaghan, Mose Masoe, [/i

InterchangePaul Aiton, Kylie Leuluai, Anthony Laffranchi, Brett Delaney[/i



Reserves[i

No doubt half of them would pull out with mysterious injuries anyway

No Mick Weyman or Mickey Paea? Yet you put Asotasi in who from what I can gather, has had a poor season so far.

I thought Weyman was injured.

If that is wrong, then I would definitely put Weyman in ahead of Asotasi.

Justin Poore is out injured (indefinitely according to the club) but Weyman has been our outstanding prop along with Adam Walker this season.

Put out in the long grass forever hopefully, one of the most pointless concepts in RL in the past decade.

It was a really bad idea, not as bad as the 8x8x8, but really bad. Hopefully gone and forgotten.

As bad as the idea is/was, it does give the players some game time together and some preparation for the 4 nations.
At the moment it appears that the English players go into the 4 nations "cold" whereas our friends from "down under"
will be far better prepared (and they are already better than us !).

It wasn't that bad an idea. It got better crowds than most international friendlies, and the game was far more competitive. The result was actually in doubt!

Promoted and marketed wrong. It was never going to be a top fixture, but it definitely had it's place. People's expectations were way too high. I'd still like to see them play the odd game.

In fact, would be good to see the NRL run a similar concept every now and then.

Yet 4 years ago most of this forum thought it was a great idea until the RFL actually took it on board rather than the France friendly

The NRL has had the Allstars concept that did ok and then faded some what.
Who would make up the Exiles in the NRL?
There would not be enough English or French players to make up a Team regardless of their quality.

Maybe the Catalan experiment is bearing fruit & they will play the French national side .

France all ways was and should be a better option, however a full strength England side is currently too strong for France. We should bring it back play them home and away. But mainly play fringe players and not select players who are nailed on for a test spot.

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.