How embarrassing for rugby league that NRL clubs can stop England and New Zealand playing in Denver?

[JoneslessBishop]

33 minutes ago, deluded pom? said:

You need to be clearer then. This thread is about a mid season game not an end of season one.

It’s pretty clear DoubleD. I was clearly talking about the mid-season test, until I moved on to post-season, as sign-posted by ‘no-Knights’ earlier in the sentence. If there needs to be discussions with the Irish RL, it would be naive to think they would be willing to discuss to Denver game in isolation and wouldn’t raise their Kinighs grievence.

[JoneslessBishop]

37 minutes ago, Scubby said:

Well that can happen as well can't it in some people's world. You can play NZ in Denver with the full squad and 'just send the Knights' to Ireland. Why would that devalue international RL? 

Thanks for the Xmas wink. From the RFLs thinking, there is space in the diary for a full squad to Denver. There is not space in the diary for a full England squad to the 6 Nations, as the NZ tour is already in the diary. They could, as suggested, play a warm up post season against Ireland. But as the following week that full squad would be needed against NZ, that would unfairly favour the other teams in the 6 Nations if they only play the Knights. As I understand it, the RFL are not organising the 6 Nations, they have just been invited, and have offered what is available to them.

[B rad]

56 minutes ago, JoneslessBishop said:

Because the piece that was quoted referred to an England full team I was talking about instead of Knights at the end of the season (and not really the main thrust of my response). One of the advantages of an England Ireland mid-season game is that it doesn’t need to be reliant on NRL players.

That's true. The Irish probably need the money more too. 

[JoneslessBishop]

I think what most really wanted with this new SOO weekend window for England was that England would play NZ. This Denver game, for the best of reasons (promoting 2025) and for arguably the worst of reasons (the RFL chasing $500k), has distracted from that a bit. We could have this fixture totally full strength if we were willing to fly down to Auckland, and that would be a nice boost for NZRL to have some home games after 3 years without pre-World Cup. However, Nigel Wood recently stated flying down there was never going to happen next year. Maybe a bit cowardly, but after all the gripes from SL teams about last seasons trip in the lead up to the World Cup, you can hardly blame him. So it looks like club v country in both hemispheres could destroy this before it even began.

 

However, being a pragmatist, if the result in 2019, with probably a 14 team SL creating maybe 3 less fixtures, we could have 3 mid-season internationals. NRL free England will be a decent level for Ireland, France and Wales (Scotland too reliant on NRL). We get some home England games before a GB tour, and other nations get To play against a ‘proper’ England team. NZ can play Tonga, freeing up opponents for Fiji. A precedent is set for 3 mid-season windows, and if the NRL free SOO is a success, maybe a precedent that will be followed in the south, and maybe Nation State of Origin can become a reality.

Yours optimistically ......

[DoubleD]

1 hour ago, JoneslessBishop said:

Is a little levity to much to tolerate. This is gonna be a long off season if RL withdrawal symptoms are going to manifest themselves like this!

It's already feeling like a long off season!

[JoneslessBishop]

18 minutes ago, B rad said:

That's true. The Irish probably need the money more too. 

This Irish said they need €300k to set up a proper Irish League in year 1 of a 3 year plan that would see an Irish team in League 1 in year 3. So there you go! Was probably why he wanted a full strength England in Ireland. RFL don’t seem to be able offer that, but maybe they can in Denver, with knobs ($300k) on!