Yep.

Tomkins was born in Milton Keynes but grew up in Wigan. Not like Mason Caton-Brown (only recently moved north from London), Sinfield (captained Leeds but born, grew up and lived in Oldham) or Singleton (moved to Leeds only after being signed up to the club's academy, born and grew up in Barrow).

Maybe there's a shout for a 'qualification period' (e.g. Darrell Griffin becoming eligible for Yorkshire after all those years at Wakefield, Huddersfield and Leeds) but saying it's Yorkshire v Lancashire will become a bit of a joke if it's basically just a 'dream team' of the sides from the county - and contrariwise, you'd have to exclude players from the counties playing at clubs outside of them.

Have also worked up a schedule for the season I proposed above that could work:

(Test Season 2016)

31/1 - Champions Kick Off
7/2 - Magic Weekend (SL R1, counted as a home game for one club, will get swapped every year)
14/2 - R2
21/2 - WCC / R3 *Whoever played Champions in opening game to sit this week out.
28/2 - R4
6/3 - CCR2 (64 teams)
13/3 - R5
20/3 - R6
27/3 - Yorks v Lancs /R7
3/4 - R8
10/4 - CCR3
17/4 - R9
24/4 - R10
1/5 - England v Barbarians / R11
8/5 - R12
15/5 - R13
22/5 - CCR4
29/5 - R14
5/6 - R15
12/6 - CCQF
19/6 - 5 Nations Round 1 / R16
26/6 - 5NR2 / R17
3/7 - 5NR3 / R18
10/7 - 5NR4 / R19
17/7 - 5NR5 / R20
24/7 - CCSF
31/7 - R21
7/8 - R22
14/8 - Super 8s Round 1
21/8 - S8R2
28/8 - CCF
4/9 - S8R3
11/9 - S8R4
18/9 - S8R5
25/9 - S8R6
2/10 - S8R7
9/10 - Play Off Semi Final / Million Pound Game
16/10 - Grand Final
23/10 - Rest Week / England Warm Up
30/10 - Test Match Weekend 1
06/11 - Test Match Weekend 2
13/11 - Test Match Weekend 3

Was it Lancashire that picked Dom Peters one year, because the England coaching staff wanted to have a look at him?

Only in rugby league would the solution to the problems our international game faces be to not play international games.

Whats the point in pushing these failed concepts again? Best case scenario we get a counter-productive parochial series with limited accessibility usurping the growth that can be made through the international game.

There is a limit to the £10 tickets we can sell to the same 200k people living in the suburbs of Leeds and Manchester.

Because people are stupid.

But I don't think anyone has said don't play internationals. I think most have people have advocated more internationals. But we aren't going to get Australia over mid-season. And unless the NRL move SOO to a 3-week consecutive series then we aren't going to get NZ over either (and the NRL are highly unlikely to do that).
So most people are advocating internationals against France and/or Wales mid-season.
But we all know that currently they don't provide much opposition. So an Exiles game or Yorks v Lancs series may be a way of getting players into representative rugby with a decent, relatively intense game.

It can be as accessible as we like. As far as I'm concerned all federation trained players who are eligible for England would be eligible for the Yorks v Lancs series in the same way as NRL players are for SOO. The small minority of players this would really affect wouldn't have much if any impact on the credibility of the series since it would be 1 or 2 players. And would anyone really object to someone like Brad Singleton playing for Yorkshire or LMS playing for Lancashire?
As long as the players aren't allowed to switch allegiances and are eligible and trained in England who cares?

I'm opposed to letting Londoners and Cumbrians play just because those are growth areas for the game and eventually we want to see players brought up their representing those areas rather than being appropriated by the (already fairly strong) Yorkshire and Lancashire.

But (as above) I'm in favour of these *as well as* more internationals, not instead of them (that would, as rightly pointed out, be stupid).

Again, it must be pointed out that France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, PNG, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa etc aren't going to get any stronger if we never play them and eligible players instead choose to play for Aus/NZ/England.

The England team (minus all NRL players) actually isn't that great I don't think:

1. Hardaker
2. McGillvray
3. Watkins
4. Cudjoe
5. Hall
6. Williams
7. Smith
8. Walmsley
9. Roby
10. Hill
11. Ferres
12. Farrell
13. O'Loughlin

14. Clark
15. Huby
16. Taylor
17. Ablett

They'd probably still win the 5N the first few times but it'd be close, especially if exemption were given on overseas/fed trained to players eligible for home nations e.g. James McManus, Kevin Gordon, Peter Wallace and Luke Douglas (Scotland) or Ryan Morgan, Ben Pomeroy, Ben Jones, Sam Williams & Tyson Frizzell (Wales).

The Barbarians game would be a real challenge and then there'd be the AIs at full strength against the tourists.

Could always have England vs SL Australia and France vs SL New Zealand?

SL Australia
1. Gidley
2. Vidot
3. Fonua
4. Moon
5. Monaghan
6. Carney
7. Walsh
8. Achurch
9. Hinchcliffe
10. Cuthbertson
11. Taylor
12. Minichiello
13. Stewart

SL New Zealand
1. Inu
2. Gelling
3. Sa
4. Webster
5. Sa'u
6. Tuimavave
7. Chase
8. Tasi
9. Roberts
10. Rapira
11. Pritchard
12. Taia
13. Manu

Quite like the idea of SL Australia and SL NZ, but would it potentially alienate us further from the actual Australian national team in terms of developing a strong International calendar? Not sure how the suits and the media over there would react to such teams.

Who cares? It wouldn't be for the benefit of Australia/NZ. You'd certainly get far higher attachment to SL Aus and SL NZ than some form of Anzac team of exiles.

I don't think the county concept works because not enough people are interested - including the players.

Good sides them. That NZ half back pairing would probably create more problems for England than the one we just saw in the full internationals!

Yes bring back the exiles game and still play France, but only in France.

Like the SL Australia and SL NZ idea, far more interesting than the exiles.