The sport needs a strong international game. Simple as that

It sounds like the International calendar is set for this year.

England will play a 3 test series against Tonga. The venues will be St Helens, Huddersfield and Headingley.

Australia, NZ and Samoa will play a tri series in NZ.

PNG, Fiji and the Cook Islands will play in a separate tri nations

Got to say, not much to moan about with the Tonga series.

Venues are in the heartlands, but we should sell all 3 out easily and hopefully have some good games & atmosphere's to boot.

Games still close to seasons end, so players will still be in playing condition, but enough time for a bit of a rest and some training sessions together.

The pricing is fair and realistic, and the 3 venue's being in relatively close proximity with no daft outliers like one game on london means they can do offers such as the 3 game bundle they are offering. Which is great value for money imo and should be popular.

Looking forward to this series, will be interesting how some fresh faces go in it, should be quite a youthful England team. Think me and my mates are going to go for the 3 match bundle from discussions this morning, 3rd game is only £2.50 with that offer.

My only concern over this great news is that the NRL clubs will influence selection of both teams, particularly Tonga.

If that was to be the case, then it would be very obvious that the NRL was attempting to maim us and Tonga, as opposed to it being about looking after their players.

It would be very hypocritical of them to run their own tri-nations series (which will no doubt be packed to the rafters with NRL talent) whilst at the same time blocking English and Tongan players from playing their international series.

Slightly O/T but for those travelling to the games against France tomorrow, where is the best place to park these days around the HJ?

We used to use the back of Matalan before cameras were installed circa 2016.

5 Saints players who pulled out with injuries, straight back into their squad for a game 6 days later.

Wellens did make sure to point out Dodd and Lees haven’t trained yet and might not play.

We believe you Paul, we really do

quelle surprise

No issue with Walmsley, Makinson etc. I just can’t buy the yearly pull outs, only for them to turn out the following weekend being a coincidence. Has Lomax made a miracle recovery as well?

Let’s be honest here, Saints as a club see this as a mid season break and have done since Woolf came in. I hoped it would end under an ex England international and assistant coach but sadly not.

Just to say that I don't defend Saints over everything, there are a lot of things I disagree with that we do and I've made my feelings known on that.

However in this instance, initially I could fully understand the thoughts of other fans, in particular Wigan who provided a large number of the team.

It's no secret that Woolf and Wane didn't get on. Rightly or wrongly Woolf put Saints first over the international game and his focus was 100% on Saints. Wellens is a different matter, he worked with Wane as England assistant for years and they get on really well.

When I look at the withdrawals, we already know that Makinson, Walmsley and Percival were injured and hadn't played for Saints the week before. Knowles was suspended. Welsby played so is not applicable.

That leaves Lees, Lomax and Dodd. I think that Wane and Wellens came to a compromise. Lomax for whatever reason isn't fully committed and will be too old for the next WC anyway. Williams is clearly the No. 1 choice at 6 and is the captain.

Dodd has been poor this season and Smith was deserving of his opportunity given his form. Lees was the surprise omission as he has been outstanding the past few weeks. However given Wellens comments and the minutes that Lees has played then I think he has come to an agreement with Wane. Lees has clearly been playing with needles the past few weeks purely down to the injuries we have had.

Lets be honest the best of the lot is Welsby and he was probably the one player that Wellens wanted to rest and not risk an injury but he was allowed to play.

Wane's comments were interesting when asked about the withdrawals. He doesn't strike me as someone who says what people want to hear yet had no issues and even said that "Saints have been doing it tough". Previously he has had no problem with calling out SL coaches and expressing his disappointment that they are not supporting the international game.

Did Woolf put Saints first, or did he put Tonga first?

The mid-season International has no prestige and that needs to change. Whether we make this a case of "play or you don't get picked later" I don't know, but as I mentioned somewhere else I would have an independent Dr/physio for England that decides on the fitness of players and takes the decision away from the clubs.

England have no competition in the NH so I would love to see a Euro Nations with France, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and then have Lancs v Yorks. We could maybe have England v England A in a trial scenario with the teams mixed as best as we can but I'm not sure how popular that would be with the paying public.

Either way, sticking 60 points on France or Wales missing 4 or 5 players does nobody any good.

All we can do is look at it going forward I suppose. These debates have been going on for years now and they’ll only end if a time comes where Saints players aren’t made unavailable on mass for a game, only to turn out the following week. We can look at cases on an individual basis all we like but there are always at least a couple of dubious ones and that has to change IMO. Players from other clubs have played through niggles or delayed treatment to turn out for England this past few years but there are very very few (if any) examples of Saints players doing that.

The debate will die down now and then we’ll see if it pops up again around the time of the Tonga series. I suspect it will but we’ll see.