Apart from the obvious troll nature of the OP did anyone really expect any of the teams to go to Aus at the height of summer and see them turn over 3 top NRL sides on their own turf. Seriously!

Over all I think all 3 clubs did OK without exactly excelling. Jean you're a very silly person.

And you would have heard that it was the Aussies first hit out whilst Hull & Wigan have had numerous pre season friendlies and 2 SL games. As I said, don't read anything into it. It was a way of trying different combinations of players. Its the same as the pre season derby Hull & Rovers have. Nothing to read into it but a chance to blow off cobwebs.

Summer is nearly over.
St George and Souths are not "Top" NRL sides according to where they finished last year.

Souths and St George games were friendlies with plenty of youngsters given a run.
The Storms tearing a new bunger for Leeds was a more telling game.

I was quite happy with the Hull game, we played a lot of young forwards who showed aggression and physicality - Jordan Lane, Turgut, Fash and Matongo. I thought we showed glimpses of attacking threat with Kelly, Connor and Shaul, so overall nothing lost by going over there really, and they will have a few days off and get ready to go against Cas on Saturday

In Manchester there is far more going on than just footy and there is still room for a SL team who could attract a decent crowd. Manchester Rangers were simply unfortunate in being stopped from being promoted as the title challengers were given the points instead after a frozen pitch stopped a game and they went up instead. But there’s still the backing there for at least the Championship long term and I think that’s where they’ll end up fairly soon. They already get crowds as big as clubs four and five divisions above.

But other than that RU is big in Manchester. Believe it or not Manchester was a rugby city up until the time City won the city’s first ever football trophy in 1904 (there’s a book by Gary James coming out about that soon). For decades before then Manchester RUFC was the city’s biggest sporting club. There are countless amateur RU clubs, could be upwards of twelve, dotted all around Manchester and Trafford. In six years there has been enough investment from the RFU to get teams at a number of junior age groups at Wythenshwe RUFC when there weren’t even any links to RU in Wythenshawe before then.

The city has more than enough people to count as a huge player pool but Mancunians RL and Manchester Rangers aren’t big enough names and probably don’t employ enough staff to reach across the conurbation yet. Outside a few postcodes in Salford you wouldn’t know Salford Red Devil’s existed across this conurbation (they may well be a city in their own right but they are part of the Manchester Metropolis and share a city centre with Manchester and Trafford). The RFL aren’t getting into schools like the RFU are neither. Swinton play in Sale now and do get into the Messenger and MEN newspapers but I’m not sure they get into the schools or amateur clubs in Manchester and Trafford.

I don’t know about how big RU is in Liverpool but I bet they have a similar situation has here.

The RFL are missing out big time on these two cities. It’s not that their efforts at Magic Weekends, Grand Finals and a Four Nations Final wasn’t attended by locals. Many of us went to Magic at the Etihad each year it was there and many of us attend the GF at Old Trafford every year. But it’s the grassroots where it is most important to entice and develop new players, not the highest echelons of the game (even though the citizens of both cities enjoy and attend those big games).

Really

So Hull playing the Dobbins is the same as Hull playing the Dragons?? Get real!!!

The Derby preseason friendly is a money maker and chance for the coaches to get the combinations working. The games for Wigan and Hull in Australia were treated the same by the NRL teams. If it meant more to Hull FC & Wigan fans then thats fine but you can't pretend it meant the same to the NRL teams.

I knew somebody would bite at this reading through the thread, but using a modicum of common sense surely you understand the point he was trying to make.

This was a pre season game for the NRL teams, trying out different combo's and different players - Hell, even mitch allgood got a game.

In the same way a Hull pre season derby does the same thing here, while still attracting good crowds and a good level of intensity.

The comparison was correct on aims & achievements of the event, not the skill/intensity level or anything like that

This.

The OP stated it was humiliating. Why? because 3 UK teams got beaten by superior opposition in on their own soil? hardly the stuff of collapsed empires.

Quite how only Albert Kelly gets mention when he wasn't Hulls man of the match, only Jean knows. Liam Watts was very much the MOM

Massive positives for Hull were seeing Matongo, Fash, Lane, Logan, Abdull take on seasoned professionals and come out with their heads held high.

at least st george treated the game a bit more serious than souths who named a squad of reserves virtually

Because he's sad with no social life and takes his pleasure from winding people up.

Had Liam Watts been born an antipodean, he would have been.