In my opinion, it has to happen.

I just looked at the England team and subs from yesterdays match again Australia. Of the 17, 9 were born in Yorkshire and 8 were born in Lancashire (or thereabouts).

Are RL fans and administrators in England seriously going to argue that we can't have a series to match what the Aussies do with Queensland and NSW?

And please don't give me any excuses such as "Oh, people aren't that interested in being Lancastrian" or "such a place isn't actually in Lancashire anymore" etc! You're never going to get anything completely pure in sport, but an English origin series would be a whole lot more legitimate than a Scotland RL team (I've just checked, and was astounded) that contains only one Scottish born player - the rest having been born in England or Australia!

So what would it look like & when would it be played??

Call it "West vs East" (or East vs West) and you get away from the County titles. If someone is from Wales they play for the West, someone for London plays for the East. Same if they're Scottish: Glasgow born plays for West, Edinburgh born plays for East. The Pennines are the natural border between the "Lancs" teams and "Yorks" teams.

I knew we would get this thread within 24 hours...cutting it a bit fine but we got there in the end

As there isn't one rugby league club in Lancashire in the top seven leagues in this sport, i agree with going with a West v East game. There is actually a bit of a genetic split between West and East England which has been the same since about 600AD (West being Brythonic; East being Anglo-Saxon) and has surprisingly barely changed.

Of course it would.

The league's elite players playing more elite level games is needed.

Well, match 1 would be played at Huddersfield in front of 500 RL fans. Meanwhile, the stay at home RL fans would sit in their armchairs bemoaning the fact that 80000 hooray henry's can fill Twickenham five or six times a year for what they regard to be an inferior sport played only by posh southern tw*ts.

Do you think Burgess x 3, Sargison, Jammer......... would fly back for it and would there clubs let them come to games that historically get low crowds and little interest?

Didn't Peacock amongst many more moan there is to many games as it is?

Sorry, i'm not aiming my comment at you in particular at all, just the fact that this is dredged up after every inevitable defeat to the big two. Facts are, we have tried it a few times, there was no appetite for it from the fans or the players in general back then and it's hard to see how we recreate the feelings that those two states have towards each other for starters, which make it what it is.

Personally I'd get rid of Magic Weekend and play it then instead. I dislike the uneven league which magic makes anyway so it would be ideal to get shut of it. I'd also only have players who are currently playing and contracted to UK clubs

It's okay, Biff. I understand the points you make. I guess I'm just trying to think of ways that RL can improve. It was pretty demoralising yesterday to see England against Australia in front of 35000 in a stadium that holds 60000. England RU played SA on Saturday in what effectively is a friendly match (in the sense that it's not part of the six nations or world cup), and yet the place was a sell out as always. I've already said before that I like RU as well, so I'm happy about that, but I just wish that the England RL team had the same backing.

I'd make it so Magic Weekend is just one of the normal games and half the teams lose one home game this year then swap the fixtures the year after (this sport needs MW, the money it generates must be third only to Wembley then Old Trafford) and then fit in the Origin game as well.

The problem with our sport (it's the biggest problem of all, not Union's money or NRL's pull, nor the lack of teams outside the heartlands or anything else) is that we just don't stick to anything. Any signs that one person in the press or a pundit or one player says any sort of negative about anything and we sack it off.

Get Lancashire v Yorkshire back on the cards and ing stick to it.

Bill it as an England/Great Britain trial.

I remember this discussion a couple of months back as well, nothing has changed, we will put on a three match series that none of the nrl boys will fly back for, play in front of sub-10,000 crowds in 2/3 empty grounds and scrap it after a couple of years and when we do people will complain that it was rubbish and RFL are useless and it was nowhere near as good as state of origin which is a ridiculous comparison to make because it would be impossible to recreate.