His kidding himself. The only way I want to see a return to the tour's
- is if the Kangaroos do what the Wallabies do and play the home nations as well as the top 4 ESL teams and then France.
- if Great Britain like in the other code as well, it's only once every four years (year prior to the World Cup would be perfect) play PNG x 1, Samoa x1, Tonga x 1, Aus x 3, NZ x 2-3
- Kiwi's the same as the Aussies

I'd much rather see the following set up from england's point of veiw

Year 1 : 3 match series vs Aussies
Year 2 : 3 match series vs NZ
Year 3 : Year off Aus and NZ to play other nations. Perhaps a tour of PNG and the South seas, or a combined South seas team touring England, France and Wales.
In the same year, Aus vs NZ 3 match series.
Year 4 : Tri (Quad) Nations
Year 5 : World cup (but to be honest, I'm not too enthusiastic about that)

At the moment the World Cup is not sustainable. There's not enough international teams playing at a high enough quality. The international game needs to promote the big fixtures to generate enough income to fund the developing nations to a point where the are able to compete.

GB is dead ffs....

Paul Kent is a know nothing. He often loves to have a pop at England / GB whatever when it comes to sport. Insecure aussie alert.

i thought there was a lions tough as GB in a few years? 2011?

The problem with International tours is the amount of matches that the team has to play. Someone on the International board put up the fixture list for the 1988 tour of NZ. The tour included five matches in PNG and ten in NZ. That's just too much. Its too costly for the touring team financially and also for its players. There's already widespread consensus that SL players play too many matches in the season, which is thought to be one of the reasons why we struggle at International level.

After this tournament I've been wondering if the 4N's is a good idea or should I say an annual competitve International tournament. If we look at the Onion code, they have the 6N's and tri-N's annually with lots of regular International friendlies in between. These matches take place at the same time as club fixtures, so International players are taken out of their club teams. They have a history of doing this, so its not unusual. In League we have the 4N's annually and very,very few International friendlies. Internationals are also purposefully entered into the calendar so they don't clash with club maches, meaning capped players can play for their nation and also as many club matches as possible.

Here in lays the problem, SL players are already playing far too many games with the best players getting the most matches because of CC and P/Os and the best players are expected to play Internationals on top of that. I can't see clubs being happy with the thought that their best players have to absent for SL matches because they've either been called up or the amount of SL matches a player can play in a season is capped. SO, can we really be talking about extensive tours?

I also wonder if we have too many highly competitive International matches; would we not be better with regular friendlies and the 4N's and WC each operating every four yrs with a season gap between the two comps. We having an annual comp like the 4N's or a test series we expect results and we expect them now. Its clear that England is being built for the WC 2013, its clear that the squad didn't go out there to win, they were there to learn from each other and learn how to cope at that level. But, we as fans expect victory, no matter what, regardless of what the overall plan is and really we've shouted our own players down for their methodical thought out approach and said that the aren't good enough time and time again. Is it worth putting our lads through that every year as well as the annual smacking from the Aussies on top of the long hard season they already have?

For me, one of the big problems with the current four nations set up is that it simply isnt enough. England have just been comprehensively beaten by australia and NZ in what are basically one off games, and now wont play a truly competitive international again until 1 year from now. By that time anything the players will have learnt from the two losses will be completely forgotten.

I think there should be two international periods every year; one mid season period of ~ 3 weeks where teams from the same hemisphere play each other ( thus minimising travel mid season), and the second at the end of the season where teams from different hemispheres then play against each other.

Proposed end of season international structure

Year 1 - World Cup
Year 2 - Eng v Aus Ashes series; NZ v France series; separate qualifying tournament between other nations to determine 2 teams to compete in 5 nations tournament in year 3.
Year 3 - 5 Nations: Eng, Aus, NZ, plus european qualifier, plus oceanic qualifier.
Year 4 - Eng v NZ series; Aus v France series; World Cup Qualifiers.
Year 5 World Cip.

Mid season should be a series of friendlies ( over a 3 week period) every year between teams from the same hemisphere. Not one single game between eng and france for example.

Agree with shaver, from December 2009 to October 2011, we'll have played Australia once, and NZ once. I don't think that is enough games against the best to improve enough. I think this is where the Tri Nations proves to be a better concept than the 4 Nations.
The flip side is France, PNG etc need to improve somehow and the 4 nations is the best way for it.
But should the RFL concentrate on GB or France/PNG? Its tough because the RFL are looking at how to improve the game as a whole.

Thanks for the anti-international rugby league perspective.

Yet again.

I think we get your position now. Biased.

Kent is a twit.

The fact he can cotton on to the fact we need (a combination of World Cups, 4Ns and) traditional tours shows it isn't exactly rocket science. The fact he suggests throwing the baby out with the bathwater is again indicative of yet another person without a clue about international rugby league.

Joke article. Even bigger joke drawing conclusions from it.

I also love those suggesting a five year WC cycle after about 50 years of fighting to finally set up a proper four year cycle...

lol

Here here (again)

nah...its the 4 nations again next year (2011)

then england v NZ in 3 test series (2012)

and the RLWC in 2013...