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.

We will have to wait at least until Hardaker, Briscoe, Makinson, Watkins, Escare, Fages, Sneyd, Clarke, O'Loughlin, Elima, Whitehead, and Pelissier get their justly deserved NRL contracts, before the concept could be applied in the NRL.

[uPossible 2016 NRL Exiles team[/u:

[iTomkins

Makinson, Watkins, Hardaker, Briscoe,

Fages
Sneyd

O'Loughlin,
Elima, Whitehead,
G. Burgess, Clarke, Graham[/i

Interchange: [iPelissier, L. Burgess, Casty, Cooper[/i

18th man: [iEscare.[/i

A great team, but far from yet assembled Down Under. And even if these stars were all signed up by NRL clubs (and I think that many of them eventually will be), there would still be no leeway for actual injury to any of them.

This team would be a great competitor for England -- it has some great established club combinations (5 St Helens, 3 Warrington, 3 Leeds, 2 Wigan, 2 Cas) -- and the result would be in doubt, though I think that absent the Burgess brothers, Graham and Tomkins, England would probably lose:

[iMatt Bowen

Justin Carney, Jake Webster, Joel Moon, Joel Monaghan

Blake Green,
Luke Walsh

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

Interchange: [iPaul Aiton, Kylie Leuluai, Anthony Laffranchi, Brett Delaney[/i



Reserves[i: Roy Asotasi, Neville Costigan, Travis Burns, Lance Hohaia, Luke Dorn[/i

That's ok but, the national team would still benefit from a competitive fixture(s) before the 4 nations.
Even and "East" vs "West" game (Yorks / Lancs) would be preferable to no representative game and this could also give some of the fringe players a chance to impress.
Indeed, if this were the basis for selection at the end of the season, it would certainly be meaningful.
All we need then is some decent marketing ??

How about taking an idea from "the dark side"?

Probables v Possibles?

Lets see who really is good enough to play for England and more importantly who wants to play.

A fact that crosses my mind, every time an exiles thread emerges. What a trickle bunch us rugby league fans are!!!!!!

The fact remains, when we play France everyone complains the challenge isn't there, then when the closest thing we have to a challenge is playing the exiles and everyone still complains. We're now calling for a return to Lancs vs Yorks, but the players, and fans alike, never bought into that concept. At least the players seem to care about the Exiles fixture.

The only other worthwhile option is to play a test against New Zealand whilst SoO is being played. The match could be a curtain opener to the SoO match.

You've posted two teams now and in both you have had Shannon O'Donnell in your reserves. Do you mean Shannon McDonnell? And if so do you realise he hasn't played for 10 months and doesn't even appear to be at Hull anymore?

I did mean Shannon McDonnell, you are correct.

No I didn't realise that he hadn't played for 10 months.

In that case I will remove him from my list of reserves forthwith and never mention his name again in my lists.

Nevertheless I am glad that you have not expressed any displeasure with the team of 17 I selected to play for the Exiles.

I assume that you agree that it would be a reasonable guess that such a selection of Exiles could beat England if the Burgess brothers, Graham and Tomkins were unavailable (as would be the case in a mid-season contest).

Shame really. I enjoy any England match and this one was no different.

Yes, whatever the fixture is called doesn't matter, it's all about giving our players chance to test themselves at a higher level and giving the coaching staff an opportunity to try some different options.
As I mentioned earlier, without any fixture, we put ourselves further behind Aus and NZ.