England vs New Zealand would be a great spectacle to get people interested. Getting regularly battered by the Australians isn't going to have the same attraction. Nor will thumping Wales or France.
Actually, after watching that Matt Damon/Morgan Freeman film on the '95 RUWC, a colleague of mine started watching a bit of RU on Sky - he'd only ever been interested in football before. To save his soul, I recommended he watch Wigan vs Warrington, which happily turned out to be a cracker. He asked a bit about International RL (his ignornance is perfectly understandable in Leicester), and I did struggle to put a positive spin on it.
Keeping foreigners out isn't even half the problem. We need to get more kids involved. The 8 club-trained rule gives them more of a chance, but doesn't itself increase the pool of talent available. Smokey often talks about looking harder or spreading the net more widely to find talent, and on this I agree with him. To be effective certain structures have to be put in place and plenty of good work has been done in this area. Without more money and media exposure there is a limit to what can be achieved - it is probably short of us overhauling Eastern Australia, as things stand.
Kind of back on topic.

Is the difference the amount of grass root clubs, then? I grew up in Ormskirk which is very near St Helens (hence my allegence) and Wigan, but I played rugby union. i played it at school and then joined the local club when I left and managed 10 years of 1st team before I retired last year. So I obviously will take an iterest in the big RU internationals.
Where I now live in Liverpool, I can think of 3 RU clubs in a stones throw (Sefton, Liverpool Collegiete and Mossley Hill) and a couple more in the surrounding area. I've played games of RU in St helens (Ruskin Park, LSH & West Park), in Wigan (Wigan RU and the Orrell Anvils, who are now all that's left of the Orrell Club) as well as Warrington and Widnes.
The vast increase in grass roots being played in the london area will go a long way to increasing our profile in the face of other sports and is the key to promoting us, but its a long term plan.

good thread this, quite rare to see a sensible discussion between mainly hull and rovers supporters. as far as im concerned i dont have a problem with rovers or any other club doing this as long as its in the rules. the rfl can't bleat about clubs having too many overseas players if they create the rules whereby clubs can take advantage of certain loopholes. if they are serious about the international game they should put the ground rules in place to prevent clubs taking on too many overseas players.
and its also interesting that as the aussie dollar strenghtens against the pound, less of the 'average' players want to come over anyway.

the other point about the overseas vs homegrown debate is of course that the aussies don't have anything like the amount of young sportsmen 'lost' to football as we do over here

can i just say that rovers have contributed to youth players turning pro such as ian kirke leeds john wilkin saints paul cooke wakefield before i get slated he was a rovers youth until hull offered him better terms kirk yeamen also rovers youth because he went with his brother but again snapped up by hull whelam at rovers watts rovers ellis at quins netherton at castleford so dont say rovers havent had good enough youth just they cant hold on to every one and hope they are good enough can they get a grip people we have been in superleague for 4 seasons not 14 like some teams so our set up is no where near as good as some but we are getting there so lay off

Is this the monkeys first attempt at shakespeare?

Dont waste your breath mate...let the children have their fun

yea your probably right the green eyed monsters cant stand it can they lol

Are the no amateur teams in hull? No teams to supply the respective academies? Hull KR, that is just embarassing but Hull FC arent exactly great either, unless you are a tongan or over the age of 35

Watts is from Cas. Do not try and claim him as your own.

so what he come through as a academy player.

you are claiming fans and players who came through at other clubs as players developed by Hull KR, what absolute nonsense.

as for you being in SL for only 4 seasons and not having the academy to bring through the necessary players yet, it doesnt explain why Hull KR needed to bring in Rhys Lovegrove instead of a player like Kyle Amor, Ben Fisher instead of a player like Bob Beswick, why you arent giving a go to a player like Danny Allen

there isnt an excuse to immediately go abroad, why pretend you dont have other options, you do, there are young players not quite getting a game at some SL clubs, and some decent players in the lower leagues.

Kyle amor was poached by leeds! ben fisher played for rovers before super league!!! dim witted or what