WC every 4 years

Tri Nations in between...with a mini home nations qualifying event.

Wales, Scotland Ireland and France battle it out for the right to play England....winner of that enters the tri-nations v AUS and NZ.

Or have a combined Celtic nations team and a combined Pacific Islands team enter against Eng, Aus and NZ....5 team mini tournament.

Seen a lot of posters say something along these lines. How do you explain the sell out crowds for the Six Nations every year?

The same reason there was 67,000+ at Twickenham yesterday watching Barbarians v Fiji. RL doesn't have the international profile union does, but the answer to this isn't to simply increase the number or regularity of fixtures, because we don't have a decent number of international teams who can compete at the highest level.

England v Wales, England v France etc have much more appeal in RU than in RL. I say that through gritted teeth, because I hate RU, but games where the outcome is already known before kick off aren't appealing in the slightest.

I agree but I think you've got to start competitions like a European 6 Nations and stick with them, make it clear it WILL be every year. The problems, in my opinion, with other competitions that have been tried (Yorks v Lancs, Tri/4 Nations etc) is that no-one knows when they're going to be played again, so you get less of a commitment from fans, players, clubs and media.
We've also got to get more "emerging nations" playing in the top tier competitions. A 4 Nations doesn't do much at all for the 4th Nation because they're staring down the barrell of 3 heavy defeats. Especially when the 4th Nation changes each time.

I'd go with a continuous 8-year International cycle6 Nations in UK & France
- England, Australia, New Zealand, France, Wales & Pacific Islands Qualifying Competition winner.
- 5 games then Final
- 1st games to be England v Australia & Wales v Pacific Islands nation double header at Cardiff. Plus France v New Zealand in France.
- Final, at a large stadium maybe Old Trafford but could be overkill? Maybe Man City? Maybe Olympic Stadium?

GB Lions Tour of Australia
- 40 man squad
- 6 games
- 3 Tests v Australia, 1 game v PNG, 1 game v Fiji, 1 game v NRL winners

NZ Tour of UK
- 6 games
- 3 Tests v GB, 1 game v France, 1 game v Wales, 1 game v SL winners

6 Nations down under
- Same format but with England, Australia, NZ, Fiji, PNG & European Qualifying Competition winner.

Australia Tour of UK
- same format as NZ Tour

GB Lions Tour of New Zealand
- 6 games
- 3 Tests v NZ, 1 game v PNG, 1 game v Fiji, 1 game v NZ Warriors

Mid- season European 6 Nations
- England, France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland & Italy
- 5 games, top of the table wins
- mid week games so will only take 3 weeks
- Double headers where applicable
- to be arranged with NRL so as to make NRL players available, possible rescheduling of State of Origin into 3 week period

I think the GB tours and 6 Nations are very "do-able". The European 6 Nations is the biggest step/leap of faith. But I think we have to do it. RL has had more media coverage in the last 6 weeks than in the last 6 years combined. We aren't in the position of football where the domestic league(s) generate enough/such media interest so we have to prioritise the international game. The only way to improve the "other" nations is to play them regularly (see Italy RU), to play them regularly means a concrete set of fixtures that they can build around and toward.

A mid-season European event would be as poorly attended as the Exiles games are, and would be much less competitive. Plus what do all the non-international SL players do in that 3 week period? The NRL might not want to rearrange SoO, so that rules out any NRL players coming over to play in it, so suddenly the majority of the teams are made up of part-time players. Teams playing more regularly won't all of sudden make them better, we need to increase the player pool in the developing RL countries, and they need to play more matches against other developing nations. Italy, Ireland etc getting wallopped every year benefits nobody.

For the forseeable we are going to be limited to end of season tournaments. We just need to ensure that there are matches for the emerging nations to be playing in alongside the elite ones.

Spot on. As much as people enjoyed the World Cup lets not forget only 12 months ago we had a Tri Nations event with England/Wales/France and many slaughtered that competition. A main gripe was the one sided scorelines (as we saw again when England played Ireland) and you'd only see the same again. Can people really picture big crowds turning up year after year to see England win by 40-odd something to 6 every time?

And it would be an England team without its biggest stars like Tomkins, Graham, Burgess Brothers and possibly the new halfback moving forward Widdop. With more potentially to join the NRL over the years it'll be an England B team VS a team mostly made up of Championship players, and as for "benefitting" these just look at what Wales & France did in this World Cup after last years battering from England.

England vs Ireland might've got 20,000+ in the WC......it clearly wouldn't get anywhere near that if they arranged a mid-season game with them. People have often said in the last few weeks that this WC has shown that "there's an appetite for International RL".....well yes but you often have an appetite when you've been starved and a 13 year gap between English WC's provided that along with that added thought of not knowing for sure when we'd see another one over here.

Also I've seen mentioned is an extended WCC with a shortened SL season to help accommodate it. Whilst on paper that sounds fine for the likes of Leeds, Wigan, Wire, Saints etc. who are usually going to be in this bigger WCC and money lost from staging 2 less SL home games will probably be covered by money involved with competing in this WCC, what happens to the likes of your Castleford's, Widnes', Wakefield's, HKR's? Those teams who aren't ever realistically going to be in it. They lose 2 home games income. Not only that but will supporters of the WCC teams attend matches against these lower teams in the same numbers or save themselves and their money for matches against Melbourne, Sydney and Manly? Any new fans to the sport (who aren't geographically tied to a town/city) would more than likely become a supporter of the clubs in the WCC and thus widening the fan bases of the big boys and smaller clubs in a similar fashion (although not same scale obviously) to the likes of Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal etc. in football with the Champions League and then the rest of the Premiership. If some people thought that some of the bottom half of the table clubs were simply making up the numbers then wait until after a few years of any extended WCC.

International RL is important for the sport but we can't go thinking and trying to make it carry the weight of the game over here simply because they aren't enough good teams. We have 3 main teams and the rest are a few levels behind. Compare with RU and Cricket who have up to around 10 competitive nations and that's the big difference and why they can have fuller International calendars. How do you think these sports would cope if they only realistically had Eng/Aus/NZ at International and everything else a long way off? Can you imagine if we had a South African team that was as strong in our sport as it is in the other two sports? A French and Welsh team that were as competitive as their RU counterparts?

Until we get more good teams at that level then we cannot put too much on International RL. It's how we make these other countries improve that is the question. Would heavy scorelines against the big 3 every year do it? Unlikely IMO. One of the reasons the WC was successful was because of the way the groups were laid out. Arguably the part of the competition fans enjoyed most was the Group Stages, whereas the part of the tournament that disappointed most was the Quarter Finals when the big 3 went 136-10 against the smaller sides. And if you take away the games they played each other then the big 3 went 506-58 from 11 games against lower sides.

Agree with everything Starbug has to say, we should make it every 4 years and work other tournaments round it.

First of all, a hefty pat on the back for everyone involved in the world cup, it has certainly proved all the doubters wrong and the supporters across the UK (and France) have got right behind the comp and helped to make it a massive success.

Despite the success of the tournament, the simple facts are that there are only 3 top level international teams and the "second tier" are still some way behind.

Although not popular with many, we need to try and help the French improve and this can only be achieved by increasing the numbers of French players in SL, therefore, should we be inviting Toulouse to join SL, maybe in place of London ?

The one certainty is that the game needs a clear strategy on how to improve the international game and to really drive things forward, it would have to need to take priority over the domestic game, which is the major hurdle.

This is a recurring theme for many English fans. The return of full GB tours will help the finances of the RFL but will do absolutely nothing for the growth of the game.

I don't understand how people think that having more games between the lesser nations and Australia, NZ and England/GB will benefit them in any way? The 4 nations always contains one whipping boy, what's the point? The international competitions need to be 2 tiered, other than World Cups. There is absolutely no interest in watching the big teams put 40, 50, 60+ in to the emerging nations.

Look at the attendances of last year's Autumn internationals, this is a more real indicator of international RL interest rather than when people are being swept away with the novelty of a WC for the first time in 13 years.

I disagree, last years international series was cobbled together at last minute, played at small grounds against teams that wouldn't give England a test. The crowds reflected that.

the interest in proper 4 Nations games at proper international grounds is much higher.

Bring back the Lions.

I think bringing back GB would be a great idea and having a tour of Aus is the only real option. I'd love to see a 4-Nations down under with GB, NZ, Aus and a Pacific Island XIII fight it out.

World Cup should stay at every four years without a doubt, make it 3 and it completely loses its appeal to me.

Although this is drifting away from the thread, are there any players good enough to play for a G.B. team, who currently play for Wales, Scotland or Ireland, with the obvious exception of a certain Mr D. Brough (who would have played for England, had the national coach not deemed him good enough to play in the last round of international games)

Well look at Italy and Argentina in RU. They're getting hammered year on year, but the IRB are still persevering with them in the competitions. In fact, Italy didn't get the wooden spoon this year in the 6 Nations. Yes, I know they're not major contenders for honours, but it's a start and they're improving because of it.

English fans probably won't turn out for a France game, however the French will, as they've shown time and time again. The only way you'll build interest in France is with more international games and have them hosting England in front of a capacity Avignon crowd, will do wonders for the image of the sport, especially on terrestrial TV.