A couple of problems what is Lancashire? Wigan are about the closest to being Lancashire and they are in Greater Manchester. And could it somehow include Cumbria.

The whole representative calendar is buggered at the minute, and it really needs a proper strategy from the RFL to sort it out. Especially as the lack of an international game is one of our biggest barriers to being competitive with other sports for media & sponsorship attraction.

So how about this:

EARLY SEASON-COUNTY TRIANGULAR TOURNAMENT

Yorkshire v Lancashire v Cumbria

not representing the modern unitary authorities but the traditional counties. So Wigan, Warrington, St Helens, Widnes & Salford are the Lancashire clubs; Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Castleford, Hull FC & Hull KR the Yorkshire ones.

Play the games at the biggest grounds to hand we can manage (Etihad/OT/Anfield, Elland Road, Brunton Park), each team getting one home and one away game.

Gives an early season opportunity for the best players to stake claims, gives a nod to the heritage of the game and gives Cumbria a guaranteed rep fixture annually which can be used as a platform for going on towards SL (Carlisle probably needing to be the base for a Cumbrian side).

MID SEASON - FIVE/SIX NATIONS

England v Wales v Scotland v Ireland v France (v Italy)

England games are too often one-sided because no-one wishes to play for the likes of Ireland in largely meaningless fixtures, and because the ones they get currently are two spaced out to be contract saleable.

An annual tournament in the height of summer between teams viewers naturally have an affiliation to is something we can sell to broadcasters and sponsors much more easily than we can sell Saints v Wigan or FC v KR. Also with no soccer or Union on it provides the perfect opportunity to get high-level RL onto terrestrial TV once again.

Would need to be played at venues that suggest RL deserves international recognition (i.e. not the CoS or LSV), the England team should be based in London and have one home game in the North.

END OF SEASON-GB TOUR

Providing the very top level games regularly to incentivise players to stay in their rep teams and not all jump ship to England, an annual autumnal 3-Test Tour, alternating home/away and Australia/NZ. Take these games across GB (London, Cardiff, Edinburgh/Dublin).

That said, I doubt there's anyone within the RFL with the stones to take that forward and make it work.

Edit:

Oh, and fwiw if anyone wants to say that certain sides will just always be uncompetitve, a reminder that of current SL & NRL players there are huge numbers eligible for those sides. Even Ireland (Scott Grix, Blanch, Gleeson, Bridge, Richards, Simon Grix, Finn, Amor, McIlorum, Prescott, McCarthy, Harrison, O'Loughlin, Beswick, O'Carroll, Allen, Finnigan) could be reasonably competitive.

Lancashire v Yorkshire, The Charity Shield mid season game.

Game is played for a Lancashire or Yorkshire charity, half the profits to it and half to the RFL.

LAncashire & Yorkshire teams all wear the red or white roses on shirts all year. Teams contain player born in Lancashire or Yorkshire, and 5 overseas players possible in each from clubs based in each county. With London being aligned with Yorkshire.

We need to call it WAR OF THE ROSES not county of origin.

We need to play it on a Saturday afternoon and tickets should be well priced for all £15 and £10 concessions.

It should be properly run for a long term goal, and it would be a cracking game to go to each year. Building to a 3 game series in 10 years time.

I'm free to manage it if needed

Why don’t we just play France and Wales?

I'd like to see the Roses match/series brought back, but not half-hearted, not sacked of after a couple of years - given a decent amount of effort and time to grow. Obviously the Exiles concept is still in it's infancy, but given the strength of the NRL, I can't see the series lasting too long.

There seems to be a bigger pool of talent than there was 10 years ago too.

I think it's a great idea but would like to see it be 3 games straight away rather than 1 then 2 the next year and so on. To me, having 1 game to see how it goes is expecting failure. Have a 3 game series for 3-4 years guaranteed and see how it grows. If it takes off then instead of having magic weekend, you just take these games on the road. We need to have the attitude that it will work and we need to ensure all clubs buy in and the RFL need to have the balls to not back down to the clubs.

If you aim higher than where you want to be then you will get closer to your goal!

Lets look at the facts...

England vs Exiles, whilst a good training exercise, is a bit of a damp squib and will never be anything more than a friendly. I still think there's a place for it, but I'd have it as a warm up for the international tournament straight after the GF. Not as a mid season event.

England vs France/Wales will be uncompetitive for a very long time mid-season. Sticking 50-60 points on a team achieves nothing for either side.

Yorkshire vs Lancashire would be competitive, but would it bring the fans out? Lancashire isn't even Lancashire anymore really, is it?

Think it's a lose-lose situation to be honest. None of these will achieve what we really want: a highly competitive representative game with some meaning and passion from both sides to make into an event.

Because passion and meaning are built not invented. Our entire international existence seems to exist only in relation to Australia. Its ridiculous. The point of representative RL isn’t to beat Australia, its to play representative RL. Play France and the home nations. It is a valid use of our time, even if we win comfortably. At their best, Wales and France can be competitive, the more we play them the more we will get them at their best, the more we get them at their best the more likely they are to win. Lets play Italy, PNG, Samoa, Fiji. Lets get together with the ARL and set aside 2/3/4 weekends within the season set aside for international RL. Stand-alone weekends. If we need we can use Origin Weekends for internationals. If a player is unavailable for the international team, he is unavailable for the SL/NRL team for the next week.

Lets build an international game, prioritise and most of all, lets do the most basic building block of an international calendar, playing bloody international games
ning are built not invented.

I think Arriva sponsored the last one because I had the Yorkshire shirt. However like anything else rugby league it needs support and rugby league supporters must be the most negative people on the planet.

How about some terminology mentioning the Pennines, East of the Pennines v West of the Pennines, this could then include London and Cumbria. Surely the marketing men could hang their hat on that. Not "over t ill" though, no, not that.

Can only be Lancashire and Yorkshire, LAncashire is and allways WAS north of the mersey, that include warrington!

Merseyside, is an administrative region within lancashire, as is Greater Manchester etc...

But you are right, there needs to be a bigger endeavour to make it LAncashire and the towns within LAncashire should be shouting it from the rooftops.

I think it is a good idea, However, i think it has failed in the past for the usual reasons.

The RFL don,t promote it properly

They don,t take a long term view, SOO took some time to bed in, but the NRL persisted and its now the biggest draw in OZ

Most fans won,t buy into it, the "RL FAMILY" is a myth as the "MM Weekend" shows, most fans are only interested in their team.

If it is to succeed it has to be promoted properly, and given a good run, probably 10 years or so, and for that reason alone, l don,t think it will happen.

I think it could work but only if its the same as State of Origin where it's used as selection for the national side, it's got to be a 3-game series, it's got be made clear it will be long term, it's got to take precedence over SL games.