Quote TURFEDOUT="TURFEDOUT"Dont agree.
I dont believe a couple of games a year against credible Northern Hemisphere team will strenghten the English team.
The French national team hasnt moved forward at all since Catalans came into super league,indeed getting a 60 point drubbing from an average England team in June.
They cherry pick the Elite league for players and then add ten non French players to the squad.I really dont see how they are actually going to raise the standard of the French national team.
If you want credible opposition to test the English players against,there would be more value in having an origin type series.However,i still dont think an origin type series would improve our international prospects.
The English game is twenty years behind the Aussies and Kiwis and we wont close that gap until we invest more into the kids and get rid of average overseas players,who are hampering the development of our own youth.'"
I agree as a competition we need to rid ourselves of the average overseas players in our game. That’s why I’m disappointed with the Smith, Tony and Parker signings Wakefield have made this off season. IMO I don’t feel they will add much more (if anything) than their English counterparts.
I also agree by adding 10 imports to the Catalans side is also doing nothing for the French game, and neither is having just one team in SL. But as I said this is a long term objective and it’s unlikely we will see the fruits of the current process for a while, at the very least 10 years.
Rugby League has ignored the international scene for a while and is now suffering from it. That’s why Union and Cricket have a larger profile in addition to the fact they are establishment sports. A stronger international competition breeds interest amongst causal observers, and from that kids who hardly ever get exposed to the game suddenly take an interest, in theory increasing the player pool. The larger the pool of players the sport can pick from the chances of unearthing a real talent increases.
Like you say the creation of an ‘origin’ series in England did not work. The reason for it’s inception was to recreate the intensity the top Australian players experience in the SOO. It fell on it’s backside due to the very opposite of what it was designed to do. The games were a damp squib and were a non-event.
If a mini series involving Wales, France and England were to replace it and the result was not a forgone conclusion before hand, I feel it would go someway to creating the desired intensity the top European players need to give themselves a chance of competing against the Australians and Kiwi’s.
The animosity between the nations, particular the English-French and the Welsh-English, has the potential to generate the intensity of hating to lose you see when Queensland and NSW meet. With Yorkshire vs Lancashire, although far from friends, just didn’t replicate that.
