did'nt stop the england knights what?


theres no championship players in the england knights is there?


having a championship england team would rip the guts out of the welsh,scots and ireland squad

Why do they opt for the other home nations ?

Because it is the only way they will get to play representative RL , I doubt it would have a massive effect , and would create some excellent competition in the changing rooms

The issue you have with the Euro cup is that if you want to blood genuine Welsh,Irish,Scottish players you need a fairly level competition , you won't get that playing the three top nations , even the England seconds/knights will completely dominate that comp , as they did last time they played in it

You also have to ask the question of who are you trying to get interested in these countries from a spectator point of view ? , if people see one country completely dominate the rest , they will not be interested in watching it

You want sport to be competitive and unpredictable , you will not get that having teams made up of part time Championship players with a few ' real ' nationals thrown in against full time SL players

Even it up , have a few years of genuine competition , then look at the results and re assess , unfortunatley in RL we just keep trying to achieve what other sports have taken decades to achieve in five minutes

So only Championship players are able to play for home nations? Is that because you don't want them to compete with England?

I agree that the Championship team is a shocking idea. So are all these other joke rep teams.

We have 20 clubs to pick from , with 20 players each , that's 400 players to pick 4 teams from , not including your Aussies that claim Irish,Welsh,and Scottish ancestry , so you don't allow any overseas players in the England team , I really do believe it would work

You make the England Championship team a genuine English/championship only team , the others end up a mix of Championship/SL/Aussies

Nut job

Isnt this the same concept as the one you have been arguing with me about in terms of GB/Championship 13 teams ? except now your for it not against it?

Not me , which thread ?

Yeah maybe that was a bit misguided.... my bad.

In an ideal world we wouldn't need the ' Exiles ' , in an ideal world England [ or a genuine GB ] would travel down under midseason either every year or at least every 2/3 rd year , they would play PNG , then NZ/OZ or OZ/NZ with the players realeased by their clubs with maybe a 1/2 week break in SL

But that isn't going to happen , is it ?

So how does England/GB get a competitive match mid season on the back of a couple of weeks training by the England/GB coach ?

Wales . Ireland . Scotland dont and wont for a long time be in a position to provide that , even if it was a combined team , the hope was that France would on the back of the Catalans improve enough to compete , unfortunatley at the moment they arent

So the only option is this other nationalities team , it is the only option

So then how do you prepare your second string players for the step up as unlike football and RU we dont have enough friendley matches to ' try out ' players ?

So the sensible option would be for them to play the French and/or home nations , but once again they are quite simply too strong for those teams , and it would be nothing more than a glorified training match

The answer should be to send them down under to play PNG, NZ Maori , Indiginous aussies/country aussies ,South seas islanders as they would get both the benifit of a tour enviroment and quality opposition well fired up for the task

Then you now have the problem of how to improve the home nations/France , both on the pitch with competitive games and trying to inspire interest in local players/fans/administration/investement ?

Well , there is only one answer , close competitive matches with teams of similar quality , the French have some SL players but lack numbers with many key positions taken by Aussie/NZ player even in Elite 1 , the home nations excluding England tend to have 3/4 lower SL quality players/3/4 aussies claiming ancestry with the rest made up of Championship players

So for their benifit if you were to add an England squad made up completely of Championship players with no SL or Aussies/NZs in it you would have a reasonably level competition with any of them potentially able to beat the other

And for all those posters constantly quoting the Italians participation in the 6 nations , that is RU , not RL , in union you can play defensibly to retain possession for long periods in the hope of getting either a penalty or field position to kick a drop goal , that doesn't happen in RL , it is a completely different scenario it should not be used

erm....what??? lol


alot of championship players,who obviously are'nt good enough for super league and there for are'nt good enough for england,exercise their right under RLIF rules to play for another nations via the heritage law....bring in a mickey mouse england championship side then these players that have been the backbone of the the celtic nations for the past 20odd years might opt to stick with the england championship side instead..


do you understand???

All 400 of them Spud ?

iirc did'nt NZ 'A' play a NFP (championship) select side in 2002?...and the NFP side won?

Yes at Hilton Park

Of course I understand what you're saying. The same argument applies for England Knights. Super League players who aren't good enough for England, are encouraged not to play for Celtic nations because England Knights will give them a false hope that they will be selected for England. It's like SOO in Australia.