The Exiles match will never take off, It will continue to be a ridiculous contrived farce no matter how much 'time you give it'. I don't understand why people make excuses for this match, TBH I'm surprised it has lasted this long. Though the majority of people decrying it appear to be the regular whiners, in this case they are right. Hopefully the concept will be dropped ASAP along with 'England Knights' when McNamara is removed as England coach.

No it isn't.

Then where do we stand?

Any successful concept needs a season built around it
With the magic weekend, 14 teams, challenge cup and play offs for a month where is the space

Do you include yourself in this exclusive club of whiners?...

Personally I would look to build it as the exiles looking to come over to the Super League for an easy ride and being disrespectful to the competition as opposed to 'mate v mate'. Do everything possible to try and make the England fans dislike them.

From an England POV then I would have the game played on a stand alone weekend and as a one off test match. Only the NRL based players are exempt from selection and if an England player opts to pull out then he must be assessed by the England doctor and if he deems him fit then he plays. You don't get players pulling out of SOO willy nilly. The RFL need to tell the clubs that England selection takes priority like in Cricket. It's one game. Yes injuries can happen, but they can happen in training as well.

They need to stick with this concept though because it is clearly a better game for England then playing the Knights, France, Wales, Scotland etc etc

One game vs the Exiles on a standalone weekend is all that should have happened. The 2nd game was pointless.

I think it needs to be continued with, there is no room in the current schedule for a proper series, either Exiles or County Origin, we need ONE mid-season international against quality opposition. We should also put pressure on the Aussie clubs to release Burgess, Widdop, Graham and Reed. One game watching a full strength England against a full strength Exiles would be worth watching and with sensible scheduling/ticket prices/marketing etc should be able to bring in 20k supporters. The game should have its own sponsor also!

The only problem with the future of the Exiles concept IMO is the reduction of the oversees quota and the increased NRL salary cap is going to lead to a lower player pool for them to choose from. I think it should have been brought in years ago but the RFL kept persisting with France and Wales, I'd have loved to have seen Barrett, Lyon, Jones etc playing in this fixture.

No, it's not. I didn't watch either of the Exiles matches, but I fail to see how it's better in any way, especially the second game which was pretty much a 2nd or 3rd string England side. At least nations like France will be motivated to play, the Exiles are a made up team with no incentive whatsoever and, as I said at the time it was announced, this concept is completely doomed to failure no matter how much people want to try and hype it up or make excuses for it.

Ultimately, this is a poorly implemented idea based on dubious reasoning by an unintelligent man who is extremely bad at his job. Unless a mid-season fixture is more intense than a top Super League game, then nothing will be gained from it other than being a run-through for the team. At least matches against France, Wales or others would be genuine internationals which could benefit the sport, and actually would have the potential to grow and develop into intense fixtures given time and improvement in the opposition. The Exiles is just a joke.

So what do we gain by sticking 60/70 on Wales or France?

Yorks v Lancs is not a new concept these matches were played for years prior to SL but were stopped due to lack of interest, that was in the days of winter rugby-pre super league when everything with RL was great!!

There is not an appetite for this type of contest

England have only topped 50 points against Wales twice in over 100 years.

And France?

EDIT - Our last 3 results against Wales: 74-0 48-12 42-4

Our 3 results v the Exiles: 12-16 18-10 20-32

Wonder which were the tougher games?