RugbyLeagueGeek

I agree, although I don't think it's nostalgia - I think the long walk out to the middle of the pitch really added to the drama of the occasion. Nowadays they walk out and they're almost immediately in the right place to meet the dignitaries.

Where are the photoshoppers who can turn that red, amber and black on a white shirt? I reckon that would look good!

Not a Widnes fan, but I think this is probably my favourite English team shirt And not sure why, but this Norths effort is my favourite Aussie team shirt Neither has a chevron, which surprises me as I'm a massive fan of a chevron on a jumper!

Except that it also excludes non-English fans as well. We've had Welsh posters on this forum explaining that they could support a side named GB, but not one named England. Any RL fans in Scotland or Wales currently have zero top level men's international RL to engage them, and there doesn't seem to be much on the horizon to change that outlook. FYI the GB team that beat the Kangaroos at Wembley in 1990 was also 100% English...

Dunno if it was too hard. I got there in the end - I was just rubbish! Still enjoyed it though!

Very tough! Lost count of the guesses!

Phil Larder is making a note of this for his next coaching manual

Can you let me know the dates and where I can get tickets for this year's Pacific Championships?

It always activates my OCD when I see a chevron that is different on the home and away shirts. Why not just have the same style chevron on the away shirt? Makes it look like they've been designed by different people. I always like it when the away is a variation on the theme, as opposed to a completely different design. E.g. the design below

Hadn't noticed that!

This was plastered all over the tube at the time

I was subtly trying to get the thread back on topic...

They did draw against Samoa that year though... England are playing them tomorrow...

I don't know - you'd have to ask them. I'm not saying they 'deserved' anything. Not got the time or inclination to go through past squads and explain every selection or non-selection. That squad reached the WC quarters, had a competitive game with England, and drew with NZ.

Yep. It's all very depressing.

That wasn't the point I was making in some of my posts. There was the opportunity to spend money in developing grassroots in those areas but decisions were made to spend it elsewhere.

Not any more! Not sure what you're getting at here. WC and 4N games were far higher profile competitions, and consequently attracted better players to play in those tournaments. That isn't me clicking fingers - it's just a fact. If tournaments are meaningful and high profile, then more players will want to play in them. We have loads of evidence that this is the case.

It's not vastly different - it's completely relevant (as I've stated in many of my posts). An opportunity was missed to do both.

Why would they? It was low profile. I agree that games against England and France would also be low profile in the current climate - the less said about this Summer's shambles in France, the better. Plus the RFL can't even get the ticketing sorted for tomorrow's game v Samoa. The effort put in to staging the Tonga games last year was woeful, and I have zero confidence that these games v Samoa will be any different. Just doing the bare minimum, which doesn't enthuse people unfortunately. And why was that? Because as you've already highlighted, many of the best players would have likely given those tournaments a miss. Nothing screams 'second tier' quite as much as having to play a reserve team.

The thing I take from that is that 'star' players aren't interested in playing in low profile games. So we need to create events and tournaments that feel important and that these players want to play in. Unfortunately, I think that ship has sailed for us for the foreseeable future.

Just briefly, it was around £75k per club per year when the new teams were introduced. Given that each of Gloucs, Oxford, Hemel and Coventry are no longer in L1 (the current Midlands Hurricanes incarnation may have taken over from Coventry, but have zero links in reality), this was a significant sum of money that was wasted with no tangible legacy in those areas. We often do

I would argue that considering where we are now, and how weak the game is in all of the other home nations, that it was a massive opportunity!

The game over here had money that it chose to fritter away on pins-in-map League 1 clubs in order to pay lip service to expansion. That money could have been far better spent developing grass roots in the home nations IMO. It's a missed opportunity for England to have had some regular opposition. This would have been heavily reliant on heritage players, but I have no issue with that, providing there was some grass roots development work going on to develop pathways for homegrown players.

Fair points. Again, I don't think anyone is advocating replacing the games vs the Aussies and Kiwis. But if the Aussies and Kiwis aren't interested then there's nothing to replace - instead it's a case of filling the gap. At the moment that gap is filled (partially, given that it's only 2 games) by Samoa. How long is that going to be the case for? I have very little faith that the long-term international calendar will be fully realised. Unfortunately I think the ship has sailed whereby we could have done something with the home nations to fill the gap. The game just doesn't have the money to take even what it considers to be small risks these days.