Dunno about you but I've received far more emails and mailshots about tickets for Magic Weekend than I have about the World Cup. The current incumbents at the RFL aren't fit for the purpose.

London have never received any additional support from the RFL other than lip service. David Hughes requested that they "assist" with the promotion and development of the game in the south East and I believe additional RFL staff were employed in the London office on the Thames.....same staff have now been let go and the London RFL presence, that looks after the entire South of England is now 2........speaks volumes for how the RFL view anything south of Potters Bar

No probs about being wrong BTW.........us London fans are used to being informed of the bags of cash we get "on the side" every year but have never ever seen proof of it. In reality, if London Broncos had been treated the same way Melbourne storm were in the NRL then London wouldn't be an issue....except when we broke the cap to win a number of Grand Finals

People are convinced that the international game and hopeful England success will be the key but it won't really. The problem it has it that we really only have 3 teams and that just isn't enough even if the contests and results were more even.

Two other sports (below the obvious number 1 in England of football) Cricket & RU both have much better international scenes but they have the advantage of several top teams followed by a few more lesser nations. If we only play the Aussies and Kiwis (because if we play any other teams it turns into "a joke fixture"icon_wink.gif it won't be enough......NOT IN THE 21st CENTURY. Already the cricketing Ashes has a strange kind of feel to it as they're going down under again in a few months to do it all over again and both those sports would struggle much more if their international was pretty much made up of ENG/AUS/NZ and not much else.

The also have play more, which would only be achievable if we follow suit and have international players missing chunks of their club season to do this......now considering people (including Mr Eve himself) have said that Season Tickets aren't value for money and one of the key reasons is because of the quality of player on show then how will sales go if fans know several 1st teamers will be away for several weeks on tour. How will it help the sport if you have Leeds vs Wigan with both sides missing 5/6/7 1st choice players?

Whilst the Aussies are cashed up, then there is no need/desire for them to play internationals other than the Kiwi ANZAC tests.

The result of this is that when England run out against Australia in Cardiff in 2 months time, it will have been 706 days since they will have played an international against a higher ranked team. 24 days short of 2 years is a farcical amount of time to wait between "meaningful" international games and places England at a massive disadvantage at the RLWC.

In a normal season, Players return to their clubs around the 2nd week of November, so I see no harm in running the Challenge Cup from December to Easter, with a final on Easter Saturday. The new 12 team SL could start and finish earlier feeing uptime for international series to be played.

I would also invest heavily in sending the England Knights and the 2nd tier of the other 2 out to developing nations.

The return of GB will do little to enhance the game outside of the heartlands unless when they are away touring, the home nations + Englands 2/3rd tier and France1/2nd play a regular 5 nations tournament at the same time.


BTW.....I'd have this 5 nations and anything else possible available of FTA TV..........being on satellite TV only is killing the game.

That was England's fault. If they had wanted to they could have toured PNG and NZ at the end of last year but chose not to. MAybe it was a financial decision but it was still a decision made by England irrelevant of the fact Australia decided to rest its players.

The storm don't own their stadium and there are plenty of better stadiums in London

Well i'm all for going back to Cardiff. Play it at night with the roof closed.