A friend suggested playing France twice a year at a weekend free of SL games. The idea is to build it up over the years and make it our SoO.
I think it is a very good idea and we now know that we need the French almost as much as they need us. It was said about the French that they could only last 40 mins. At Wigan, England were 26-0 down by then.
The Murrayfield Tragic could be dropped as it's irrelevant and we could take a week out of the play offs by making the top eight a straight knock out and therefore a three week competition.
I do think we have to get together with the French to work something out to our mutual benefit for the good of International Rugby.

IMO our international game is embarasing so i dont see the point to be honest. We have got 3 teams who are any good and France are in a bracket on there own below us Aus and NZ. I wish it wasnt, i really dont, but this is the reason why Union are more of an apeal than we are (as boring as i and all others think union is to watch). They have a good solid 10 teams internationaly and thats were the difference is. Until the likes of France, Wales, Ireland, Fiji, PNG, Samoa, Tonga and so on become more competative with the bigger nations our game wont move on Internationaly. I personally would rather have an Ashes Series at home at the end of 2010

A mid season international should replace the Magic weekend IMO. The magic weekend does nothing to improve the standard of play here nor does it do anything for the international game and you can hardly argue playing it in Scotland is a worthwhile exercise in promoting the domestic game..

A regular mid-season game v France should replace it.

As it is RL internationals seem to pop up out of nowhere and don't seem to have any firm roots in the sporting calendar. We need regular international games so fans (and the media) get back into the habit of internationals being an important part of the RL sporting calendar.

Eventually an England / France game would hopefully reach a standard where the rivalry would be as good as England v France in RU and be good preparation for both sides for things like the four nations or world cup.

It would be one sided to start with but then provided the right development priority is given to it there is no reason a French side could not emulate the pretty rapid rise of Les Cats to becoming competitive.

EDIT: RU introduced Italy to make the six nations and they were very poor. They didn't give up despite some thrashings the Italians got and viewed the whole thing as a positive step. They stuck at it withItaly and now they can win against the home nations. We show far too much impatience with the likes of France and PNG - the two sides just outside the top of international RL.

Argentina are going to start playing in the southern hemisphere version of the six nations. They will get murdered but RU will stick at it.

Dave

I agree totally. We didn't have enough test standard players to fill the squad this year. Until our league has a scenario where a team finishing top can be struggling to get into the play offs a year later and vice versa (like the NRL) we won't compete.

Its is not just about those nations being competative though. Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, South Africa... they all fill stadiums of 60,000 or more for pretty much every international they play, and thats even more than our biggest 3 teams!

International RL is a mess, the problem stems back much further than we think. Had the governing body years ago realised what was really important we would now have alot more roots to grow from. I also think our own international RL stadium would help alot!

The biggest blockbuster event in Australia is State of Origin and that is only 2 teams, the same 2 every season. England, Asutralia and NZ is enough teams if they are playing out fantastic contests. For a starter a Australia v New Zealand 3 match series would be fantastic and if England can get to that level then we'd have a great event.