I think we need to give the promotional game some respect and especially the stress put on players at 5000 feet and 30 degrees.
On the game itself Wilkin made the right comment that it took England 20 mins to adjust to the climate and the hot start from the kiwis.
For me Whitehead was our best player, Bennett made a great substitution in bringing on Connor and Makinson against a tiring Kiwi defence. Lomax should have been taken off earlier when he got that late whiplash tackle, he missed a crucial tackle 2 sets later.
The conditions effected our players mostly in the pack O’Loughlin, Roby, Hill and Taylor found it tough. Graham was immense similar to Whitehead.
As for the Kiwis they just fell to pieces once they ran out of gas and there offloads were reduced.
It will be interesting to judge the England players on there energy levels in the next super league, luckily no injuries just tired bodies on the plane back home.

I mean if we are gonna pull the plug because a crowd of 19k turned up then boy oh boy the 100 year experiement of an M62 sport should have had the plug pulled years ago

Watkins, Burgess, Currie, Gale, and Hodgson would've definitely been in the 17 IMO. Williams would've been in also if he'd been fit, but I wouldn't have picked him.

Could you imagine if RL were to be a success in the US. All of the star players would disappear over there, the ruling body would soon be American, there'd be numerous rule changes to suit TV advertising requirements etc etc. So, be careful what you wish for.

Nonsense, football has been successful over there.

Yes, but football is a much larger fish than RL. There is no lack of money in the European game and the player pool is big enough to accommodate any US requirements.

Rugby League in the UK would be a sitting duck, the game here doesn’t, have much value or stature unless mushy peas is a top brand in the USA.

So you don’t want to take the game to the USA and Canada because you’re worried they will be better than us in the future, talk about a small town attitude.

It's not small town to consider the possibility that there would fewer and fewer RL clubs to watch and support in this country if we're not careful.

Football started in this country but is now a global sport, has that resulted in fewer football clubs in this country?

Rugby Union also started in this country but is now played across many countries, has this led to a decline in Rugby Union in this country?

And did those two sports spend their time trying to shoe horn in foreign teams (outside of the UK) into their domestic leagues at the expense of established clubs?

Yes Rugby Union created the Pro 12 league with teams from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Italy. Obviously when the league was created teams in the top flight Irish, Scottish and Welsh leagues missed out on getting into the Pro 12 league.

The Super 15’s league was expanded to include teams from Aus, NZ, South Africa, Argentina and Japan. Other NZ or Aus teams could have been added instead of teams from Argentina and Japan.