I think most people agree this is the best form of international RL, but how would it work in the summer era? The two nations used to play our domestic seasons at different times, so GB could tour Aus during their season and Aus could tour here during ours, but now the two seasons run concurrently there would be a major conflict of interests if you wanted to arrange a mid season tour involving matches V clubs.

Hypothetically, now that Warrington would make a reasonable contribution to any GB squad, how would people feel about allowing the international squad to take 6-8 weeks off mid season to go to Australia? People always compare international RL with RU, and RU does have central contracts and the clubs just get on with it when their players are away with their national side. That is an alien concept in RL though, so would we allow it to work?

On one hand there is the carrot of the Kangaroos coming over here every fourth summer, playing a match against your club if you've earned it (the previous seasons top six perhaps?) and playing three genuinely appetising test matches against Great Britain at bigger venues than we tend to use now. I think Old Trafford might be too big now, but surely a big one at Wembley, then two "local" tests at Eastlands and Elland Road would work.

The players could still represent their clubs on non-test weeks, with the season being extended to mid-late October (no post season internationals needed, so just push the play offs back a couple of weeks and scrap Magic Weekend in Ashes years) to allow three stand alone test weekends - hopefully on the BBC - with the GB players being "in camp" for the week leading up to each one while the non-internationals at each club play a midweek fixture against the touring side.

On the flip side every fourth summer when it was Australia's turn to host the series, we would have to accept that the best players in the game were leaving Super League behind for a while. I know some people whinge about the regular season being "glorified friendlies" at the moment, but I reckon that attitude would soon change if we had four or five players away in Australia and lost a couple of games against teams with few or no internationals that we would normally expect to beat and this ultimately cost us a decent play off position or possibly even the LLS.

In real terms now you simply can't have it both ways, so would the wider RL community be prepared to accept the latter scenario if it meant we could also enjoy the former?

I loved the 1994 series which was the first one I remember - I went to Wilderspool for our game against the tourists, and will never forget watching the Jonathan Davies inspired Wembley match on telly. In 1997 it was different because it was the Super League team during the Aussie civil war and no club games, but we still managed to have a big enough series to hold a game at Wembley which I went to.

By 2003 it had lost the magic though. The venues were downgraded to Wigan, Huddersfield and Hull - the three biggest grounds in RL yes, but not on the same par as the football grounds used previously - and combined with no club games it just felt like an end of season tournament. I went to the game in Wigan where Moz (who at this point was not a legendary Warrington captain so I wasn't happy with him!) got sent off after 12 seconds, and GB still gave a decent account of themselves in front of a full house so it wasn't bad, but it wasn't anywhere near the pulsating level of 1994. Sadly it felt like the end of the road and it was.

The tournaments now are rubbish. England don't have the same RL history as GB, and even if the GB team are all English anyway (which wouldn't neccessarily be the case despite what people say - you never know who will emerge in future) it's the jersey that matters not the player. Nothing will match the Ashes for excitement and public enthusiasm, so can we possibly make them happen again in their true format?

Warrington players having a great game in this afternoon's match. France seem to be kicking a lead ball.

Nice of Hock to get MOM just so the BBC can ask him about his alleged move to Parramatta.

He had a poor game and was nowhere near the best player on the pitch.

The pitiful crowd did not prove you right to not go - expecting the crowd to be poor should not be a reason not to go. However you do have a point about the mis-matches - sadly these games are not doing much to improve international RL credibility.



They didn't. They went to SA as part of the preperations for RLWC2013. The team needs to spend as much time together as it can so that when the big games against Aus and/or NZ come round, they are ready. It was interesting to see the Warrington players comment on how things they did in Aus in January were still in their mind before and during the Grand Final in October. These intensive training camps can do so much to prepare players individually and as a team for big events.

It is a great shame that the otherwise successful inclusion in SL of Catalans has not helped (yet) produce a more competitive France team and obviously it's extremely dissapointing we don't currently have a Welsh team at all in SL. But I still don't see the current and recent weaknesses as reasons to give up. International RL does have a place and it can be successful with a bit of tweaking. And I'm convinced RLWC2013 is going to be a good event with mostly competitive matches.

hmmm, I see England hammered Fiji today in that other type of rugby. A one-sided, meaningless game - surely no-one bothered to turn up, right? Er, hang on, this must be wrong. I've just looked it up and apparently 81,000+ were at Twickers! If only RL had fans like that! Then we'd get more attention, more money, more sponsors, more attention, more money, more players, better facilities, more money, more attention etc. Many RL fans moan about what is provided for them and about how the game is run - if only they'd turn up to games then perhaps they'd have less to moan about?

Maybe the fact that one-sided meaningless games are very infrequent in RU leads to more people caring about the national side, and therefore turning up like we would for a wire match against a team (I know we don't get 81k but you see my point).