Where is anyone saying a second string competition? GB should play Australia, NZ, France. Playing in the six nations apart from the French & Italian players would be the criteria for selection to GB, only GB should tour down under. The whole idea though should be run as the union clubs are, in that they have to release players when asked & International duty takes precedence over super league. That is were the trouble starts getting todays fans to buy into, attend & pay decent ticket prices for International series.

The players that you mention all came to RL for the money, not to play International RL
The cash offered by RL, at the time, was significantly more than they could make in Union. Plus, the challenge of "proving" themselves in the other code.

Totally agree with your comments on the streaming of the game though.
IF we want to get our sport in front of the masses, it has to be on "free" TV.

Even SL, which may get a few hundred thousand viewers on Sky, is dwarfed by audiences on the BBC (when games are shown).

Did you not read the original post?



That would be great, but not practical.

You forget that in order to fill 6 international teams, you need at least 108 players. Unlike union, Europe only has one professional league to choose players from. They have three. Clubs are not going to release 8-10 players each to fill these teams. You'd need free weekends, and there just isn't enough of them currently.

Until we build our player pool and the number of professional clubs we have, it will not be possible to have a big international scene.

TRUE lets make super league Bigger lets have if possible 16 teams like OZ and still have R and P 1 up 1 down

Yes I did read the original post, He & everyone else is assuming that it would be England knights, I brought up reverting to GB which would stop that. The rest of your points are valid but unless there is a rapid growth in the international game our great sport will remain a Northern curiosity & probably die off in the UK. I am not saying its easy but we have to try & save our great game & get more players at all levels in as many countries as possible.

Last week Wigan U19s versus Leeds U19s was streamed live on social media and was seen/ accessed by about 40 000 people (According to the media). That is better than Sky and BT got/get for some RU matches. " If you build it they will come."

I think you've made a very good point here with the lack of space in the calendar. Any potential tournament will probably have to see either a mid season club break brought in, or some rejigging with the fixtures/league structure.

Also, if they half it, they'll kill the competition before it starts. You have to put a full strength England side in otherwise the tournament will be treated with contempt by others (TV, media, fans), thus making sure it doesn't grow. The problem you then have is that a full strength England side [ishould[/i beat most of the others convincingly. Although with a tournament like this you need to look at it in the long term and not worry about some of the results in the short. I think France took a hiding initially in the 6 nations, as well as Italy before improving a little. France obvs improved a lot.

It would be nice to see the tournament go ahead, I'd personally like to see the game expand internationally, and think this could play a key role. I think they also have to maybe look at the 6 Nations and see where it goes wrong, one thing being that it's a closed shop. A full England side is a must as they bring the media attention to the competition and give it some profile (to a degree). Thinking further, if we're genuinely serious about expansion within Canada and the USA, then the competition needs to go there too making it a northern hemisphere tournament.

If we could muster 3/4 free weeks in the calendar then for me, the best way would be to put the teams in smaller pools of as close a quality as possible, and as the crowds are unlikely to be large, play them as a magic weekend style event over those 3 weeks. So for example (based on current rankings)Pool A
England
Scotland
France
Ireland

Pool B
Wales
USA
Serbia
Canada

Pool C
Italy
Jamaica
Russia
Spain/Holland/Belgium - wherever there is a possible expansion opportunity.

So over the weekend you'd get 6 games over 2 days at a decent stadium - you could play safe and have this at a Newcastle/Coventry/Old Trafford and use the money to put into expanding the game in other areas, or you could mix it and take it to Florida/Toronto/South of France etc to hopefully gain traction and a foothold.

Anyway, the feasibility is probably sketchy at best. Although if we were to bring this in and include possible promotion/relegation from Pools, you could maybe see a few of those countries locked out of the 6 Nations suddenly starting to think about RFL.

The standard would be absolutely dreadful. Imagine the current player pool but spread across more teams. Horrendous.

Am all in favour of a 6 Nations. Though I'd start with a 4 Nations of England, Wales, France & Scotland. I'd have each nation play each other once but don't have a final. So 3 games, every year.
We have to start relatively small and build over time. Even that 3 guaranteed top games every year would be a massive improvement on the current international calendar.
Establish a "home ground" for the other nations. So Wales, for instance, always play their home games at the same place and start to build. If nations and players both know there are 3 games every year they can plan and start to really develop a feeling of a proper national team, not just a bunch of randomly selected players who get together 2 weeks before the next one-off game.

Though it cannot be a GB 2nd team masquerading as England, as mentioned that just devalues the international setup.

We don't always have to play all our very best players. We can rest 1 or 2 and obviously the NRL players but it can't be a GB u21's. It has to be players who would at least be in or very near to the squad for an Aussie tour.

Viewing figures for the aviva premiership are much better than for superleague. Super league gets about 80,000 a game, massively down from the halcyon days when Saints and Leeds were wowing the audiences of 250,000 viewers. Who wants to tune in and watch a load of average players knock on for 80 minutes? no wonder the rfl just Bent over, spread its legs and took whatever deal Sky offered. The decline is terminal

Regards

King James

No ones fault but the clubs (including Saints and Leeds) If the chairmen didn't have their own self interest at heart then the game could have moved forward instead of standing still.

NO they are not.

if you look at the BARB website you ill see that the Rah Ra figures are at best similar.

Rugby League has admittedly gone down but the Rah Rah certainly hasn't gone up. Who wants to tune in and watch a load of blokes kick the ball into touch for 80 minutes !

I did get my figures from BARB. 80k for super league the past 2 weeks. 142k for the aviva premiership, which is even more impressive given that there are less subscribers to BT sport than Sky Sports.

You obvsioulsy havent watched union recently. The days of kicking into touch vanished circa 2004. The game is much more skilful and exciting than rugby league is these days. But as the esteemed hull kr fan said above, its the chairmens fault for letting our game stagnate

Regards

King James

BT sport happens to be free to a lot of users whereas Sky Sport certainly isn't as you have to pay the nancy ballers. Big difference that.

Touch kicking may have declined in yawnion but its being replaced by a pile of fat chaps, where one wobbles a couple of yards, falls down and the pile up forms again. Keep repeating and going nowhere until finally one of the multitude of rules is broken and we get a penalty kick. Real skilful and exciting, its a poor game getting worse because its far too easy to stop the opposition playing unless there is a horrendous mismatch in ability.