Quite possibly. Whatever, we need a series of near Origin intensity to improve us as a national side.

Exiles versus England would be good with some having a point to prove.
Many many years ago I think one of the RU Countries used to have a Probables versus the Possibles as a sort of trial to see who got into the National team.
3 games at that level should rival SOO.
Where to fit it in would be the challenge although you could get one round in from the Magic Weekend fixture.

Part of the success of Origin, I suspect, has been down to the lack of competition for Australia. They got bored of winning before we tired of losing, I reckon.

Magic Weekend can be dropped for me. It will be handy for me in Manchester next year, but on the basis that it was to publicise the game in non-traditional areas, its done a world of good

I also don't see why we can't have a big game on a Wednesday one week then back up on the weekend. Plenty of players do it in Oz, more than once a season.

I think we need to build a rivalry in order for the game/concept to take off. Possibles/Probables wouldn't achieve that as fans wouldn't feel any long-term affiliation with either side.

I do like the England-Exiles concept and right now I've no doubt the quality of the game would be higher than Yorks/Lancs. Only problem I see is that it limits the number of English players that would get exposure to that high intensity 'big game' experience (if we could ever get it to that point).

I don't think reducing the amount of clubs would be beneficial, you'd lose supporters, sponsorship and juniors which would be very hard to regain.

I would reduce fixtures though.

i would scrap the international game because its a complete waste of time its not changed since i went to watch GB V AUS at boothferry park in 82 as a young lad give me more SL games anyday

Then we'll never compete with union and the player drain will grow.

I like so many have watched the Aussie dominance of the sport grow wider in recent years and for very good reasons. You can blame imported players or coaches but its down to numbers and we do not match them in key area's.

Australia is populated by 22.7 million people mainly concentrated around a few urbanised area's,The national sport is Rugby league and most Aussie lads want to play for there country and wear the green and gold. They have more teams attached to say Penrith Panthers then we have in the entire country and people can play at every level.

Our game is concentrated across the north of the country and very few players have been produced outside that area. The population of W & E Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and bits of Merseyside come to around 8 million or about a third the Aussies have. The Aussies RL do not have to compete with football who in this country take the vast majority of young men available. The Aussies do not have to compete with any other sport at all really as the media is right up on RL where as here its the other way around. We have union which is still hell bent on destroying us, down under they get the scraps left over or the over the hill who cross for a few extra pay days.

We can not expand as we are hemmed in and controlled by our bigger, richer and more powerful big brother who even today has got the services of one of our stars to parade out at one of the big events. Our game has been strangled at the base level through lack of investment, interest and will continue on much as it has done since its birth in 1895, It will survive, evolve and move on and we will support it, but its time we faced the harsh truth we not going to close the gap with the Aussies and we will struggle to keep up with the Kiwi's.

Is playing the Aussies actually doing our game overall more harm then good ?

Should we look to another format for internationals, perhaps at club level where we may be able to compete on a better level playing field.

That might actually help us on an international level as well. You can only get better by regularly competing against the best and learning from that experience. It needs to be given a proper go though rather than the usual knee jerk 'what a disaster, let's not do that again' reaction we usually get. As has been said, Origin wasn't popular at first. Look at it now.

I'm all for shorter seasons too. Less stress on the players bodies, injuries taking their toll on performances, general fatigue. Lets face it, it's a long bloody season to keep up the level of intensity that we'd all like to see week in, week out. I'd like to think fewer games would result in more quality games.

The Roses concept would give another 17 /20 players to look at . Also I'd like to see the Knights tour down under and play the Aussie and Kiwi u20's in test matches every 2 years with the knights then playing either of those at home .
The French would benefit by having regular games against the knights or a touring u20's rep side.

RL is not the national sport in Australia Ian, Aussie Rules is.

The big difference is there total focus on winning, in the UK it's enough to take part and be a plucky loser, it's why complete failiures like Henman are still "sporting heros".

It might not be their national sport, but it enjoys a much higher profile than it does here. Many thousands more people play the game at all levels in Aus, meaning that they have a much broader base of talent to choose from.