FOR the last 18 months there has been talk of the NRL buying into British Rugby League.

With precisely what objective in mind hasn’t been made absolutely clear.

On the one hand, those who support the move believe that the NRL has money to invest in the British game and that their presence in the administration of the sport in this country would inevitably strengthen it.

At the other extreme, there are those who think that the NRL would like to use the British game to raise the value of its own broadcasting deal, with both competitions forming part of a combined offering that would be greater than the value of the two competitions taken individually.

The NRL CEO Andrew Abdo, who met some key figures in the game last Thursday to open discussions on how a deal may be struck, might have given the game away by commenting in one of the interviews he gave that it might be financially beneficial if Rugby League worldwide were able to offer a broadcaster a 12-month deal, meaning that Super League would revert to being a winter competition while the NRL would continue to be played during the Australian winter, which is our summer.

From a quick survey of club owners, that proposal, if it were serious, would go down like a lead balloon.

Fortunately I sense that Abdo himself has now understood that point.

A far more sensible idea would be for the two major competitions in the two hemispheres to begin and end on the same days every year, so that international competitions could be organised around those mutual dates.

It seems that nothing concrete was discussed at last Thursday meetings, with no firm idea put forward by Abdo about what exactly the NRL would want to get out of a partnership with the RFL.

The only thing that seems to have been achieved is that Abdo learned something about the way Rugby League is governed in the northern hemisphere and that the RFL directors are independent of the clubs.

Of course he should have known that before he got here.

The clubs do have some influence in two ways.

As things stand, the Super League clubs have the power to decide how many clubs should be in Super League.

And they have the power to accept or reject any offer received from broadcasters for the rights to televise Super League.

I’m sure they could be persuaded to forgo those rights if the price was right.

But at the present rate of progress I’m not sure we are going to find out.

The priority for RL Commercial, the commercial arm of the RFL, is to agree the next TV deal.

And we can’t afford to wait much longer for the NRL to make up its mind about what it would like to do with the game in the northern hemisphere.

RFL to announce England coach

The RFL is expected to announce the name of the new England coach by the end of this week.

In fact the ideal day to make the announcement would be this Thursday, which happens to be St George’s Day, the feast day of the patron saint of England.

I assume that the RFL has to agree a contract with the new coach, whoever it happens to be, so it may not be possible to meet that deadline.

But I think it would be a symbolic announcement if it could be made on that day.

1895 Cup spreads its wings

The 1895 Cup lost its sponsor – AB Sundecks, the company run by Leigh owner Derek Beaumont – last year because the final will no longer be held at Wembley.

Instead it will be held at a venue to be decided on Bank Holiday Monday at the end of August.

I hope it will get the publicity it deserves, apart from only being reported on this website and a few other media outlets.

The interesting thing about the 1895 Cup is the combination of heartland clubs and expansion clubs that remain in the competition.

On the one hand, we have Rochdale, Oldham, Widnes and Doncaster.

On the other, we have London, Goole, Midlands and Newcastle.

It’s giving clubs that haven’t got a strong record of winning trophies a chance to actually claim some silverware, which is why the competition for clubs in the Championship should be persevered with.

I’ll look forward to seeing how those quarter-final games unfold.

King Solomona

You will see on this page that we are inviting you to vote on who you believe has been the best overseas player in Super League so far this season.

I must say there are a lot of players to choose from and we have selected eight in total.

The player who I think is standing out so far this season is the Catalans Dragons centre Solomona Faataape, who has had several great games, culminating in his performance against Warrington Wolves on Saturday.

I thought that was a thrilling game and I was delighted to see that the Dragons’ interim coach Ryan Sheridan was giving some of the younger French players and opportunity – in particular Guillermo Aispuro-Bichet and Léo Darrélatour, and it was good to see neither player letting him down.

I’ve written more on this subject in the May edition of Rugby League World magazine, which comes out this week and can be ordered online at Totalrl.com/shop.

And still on the subject of our Readers’ Poll this week, we compiled the list before Sunday’s clash at Wigan, when the Warriors hosted Castleford Tigers.

Congratulations to the Tigers for securing a great victory and I wish we had included Krystian Mapapalangi in our list.

He had a great game against Wigan and he looks a great capture for the Tigers.