Just to point out the club spent most of its life in Cheshire. Warrington RLFC moved to Wilderspool permanently in 1898 after playing there on and off during the early years. The county boundary was the river, and Wilderspool being south of this was always Cheshire (apart from a short period during the 20th century I think).

I actually like the fact that we are a slight anomaly. Being a bit further south and branded as Cheshire opens us up to an untapped fanbase new to RL, provided the marketing is right. You can't say the same as you head into the heartlands, where the club allegiances overlap.

Those areas south of the river Latchford etc were moved into Lancashire in 1889 due to the majority of the town already being in Lancashire

The boundary change was because of the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal which was has a much straighter course for a boundary than the River Mersey which meanders a lot..

The area of Warrington North of the Canal which had previously been in Cheshire was deemed to be in Lancashire.

The part of Warrington South of the Manchester Canal wasn`t allocated to Lancashire and hence that part of Warrington was still Cheshire.

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... e-30313586

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/ru ... e-30313586

So the owners don’t want it if that’s how I’m reading it. But the sport is happy to pay IMG a fortune but not listen to them. And yet they whine a lot there is no money

Over 2 weekends which means to me it benefits the teams that are off in the 2nd week

Same here! I actually preferred the 'Exiles' concept, home-grown v imports was a far better idea for me, each side had something to prove at least. And the exiles had nice kits!

Yeah i liked the Exiles as well

How about England v England Knights?

This could aid selection for the Ashes series and could be a full blooded battle as existing England players would have to play their best to stop the younger and fringe England players from taking their spots. The younger/fringe players would be out to bust a gut to show Wane what they can do against the more experience/current England players, and ultimately everyone will gain some experience of playing in a hopefully intense (kind of) international match.

i'd be very up for this, possibles versus probables, only issue is you've got clubs releasing twice the amount of players for say, against france.

I was in favour of the revamp of the Roses concept that David Waite tried to push as a vehicle for selection for the GB team. In the first year it was well promoted and the clubs seemed to take it seriously. I remember going to the 2001 game at Headingley, Lancs won and there was some interest in seeing how Neil Turley would get on as he was breaking all those records in the championship with Leigh, and had been called up for Lancs.

The next year though the interest had massively fallen off. You could see the concept wouldn't last. Whilst you get people in Yorkshire who regard their county as the entire civilised universe, nobody in Lancashire really has a "Lancashire" identity, certainly not in the rugby league parts which are largely Greater Manchester or plastic scouse. So nobody really cares about Lancashire. The towns which would identify more with a Lancashire identity like Blackburn and Preston don't play RL.

I'm not in favour of any "made up game" between our very small pool of UK based players. I have seen our support for these games recently & when it has come to the crunch the species don't turn up. It wouldn't work in other similar sports either ... so it's not done. Only games v. OZ, NZ and now Samoa & maybe Tonga will drag a speccies out and that's with all our best players in the team.

I fully get where you are coming from regarding player pool it’s something that really needs to be worked on as a priority, sure Wigan and a couple of other teams are getting some good youngsters coming through now. Also it’s good the likes of Tonga and Samoa are getting stronger.

War of the Roses is pretty much State of Origin and look at how massive that as become now. Now I get we can’t have that overnight but it’s something we should be looking to. But yes right now I agree it won’t work. It doesn’t mean we should just stick it on a shelf, we have to get rid of the loop fixture somehow.