Talks underway to see the return of The Exiles

[Scotchy1]

2 minutes ago, Hela Wigmen said:

I thought the game would be hard pressed to come up with an idea worse than England v Exiles at Leigh, Warrington, Saints or Leeds but a handful of Englishmen and some Australians with English ancestry masquerading as England vs NSW/Qld Cup standard (at the very best and I’m being generous) Pacific Islanders that haven’t been picked for their respective nations during the International weekend in some form of strange cross-planet double header actually manages to trump it. 

So instead half an england team play a random collection of other players in a concept that has already failed and we invent a warm up game that doesn't even warm the squad up.

Rl at its best. 

[M j M]

7 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

 

There are two reasons for it. 1) give England players a game, 2) sell tickets. 

We know it doesn't do 2. Nobody is interested. It also fails to do 1 as a significant portion of the players are at the other side of the world.

 

A high level of BS In here, even by your standards.

We know it does sell tickets given it attracted 14,000+ to the first game when it was heavily promoted and genuinely exciting.

Bring that level of build up back, encourage a little bit of pantomime bad-mouthing by the Exiles players and we'll get a crowd bigger than we would ever do for the second tier internationals we usually stage.

[Hela Wigmen]

4 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

So instead half an england team play a random collection of other players in a concept that has already failed and we invent a warm up game that doesn't even warm the squad up.

Rl at its best. 

Given your idea, I’d rather see The Exiles return. I’d much rather that, in a World Cup year with tickets to sell and a tournament to sell to everyone, we played a proper nation. 

[Scotchy1]

2 minutes ago, M j M said:

A high level of BS In here, even by your standards.

We know it does sell tickets given it attracted 14,000+ to the first game when it was heavily promoted and genuinely exciting.

Bring that level of build up back, encourage a little bit of pantomime bad-mouthing by the Exiles players and we'll get a crowd bigger than we would ever do for the second tier internationals we usually stage.

England v France  that very same year, with next to no build up sold just under 3k tickets more. Just under 17k.

 

[Scotchy1]

1 minute ago, Hela Wigmen said:

Given your idea, I’d rather see The Exiles return. I’d much rather that, in a World Cup year with tickets to sell and a tournament to sell to everyone, we played a proper nation. 

Your brilliant idea is to invent a game to give England a warm up, and exclude half the England team from playing. 

[Wellsy4HullFC]

26 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

No the exiles concept doesn't work on any level.

There are two reasons for it. 1) give England players a game, 2) sell tickets. 

We know it doesn't do 2. Nobody is interested. It also fails to do 1 as a significant portion of the players are at the other side of the world.

At the very veru very least, what I suggested means that the significant portion of england players who are in the NRL can play

1 works because Exiles have managed to beat England twice out of four games.

2 works better than the alternative of playing a northern hemisphere sides mid season. What are the biggest mid season international crowds out of interest?

[Scotchy1]

3 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

1 works because Exiles have managed to beat England twice out of four games.

2 works better than the alternative of playing a northern hemisphere sides mid season. What are the biggest mid season international crowds out of interest?

1. It doesn't because half the team can't play.

2 . We haven't really played them

[Smudger06]

There's a maximum of about 14 English players in the NRL at the moment and half of them are kids that have been scouted, so there's like 5 of our capped players currently down under. 

[yipyee]

1 hour ago, Davo5 said:

98,000 have attended the last 2 games one of which the Barbarians won.

We are hopefully well on the way to coming out of COVID by midseason and need a game,I’m not really bothered who we play as long as it’s a competitive hit out.

Exactly 98000 out of a possible 164000 just above 50% capacity with the ticket price being slashed and several offers starting at a tenner

When England play proper teams they get 164000 at £78 plus and these games sell out a year in advance,

The barbarians may well have won one but its meaningless and both sides know it. 

A competative hit out could be against France.

Its amusing that one other poster said not to play France or Wales etc as it would help them out.

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Imagine a regular mid season test vs France with venue and tickets known before this years game is played alternate home and away and .it would sell not to mention the rivalry it would create, it wouldn't be long before France won one

[Davo5]

13 minutes ago, yipyee said:

Exactly 98000 out of a possible 164000 just above 50% capacity with the ticket price being slashed and several offers starting at a tenner

When England play proper teams they get 164000 at £78 plus and these games sell out a year in advance,

The barbarians may well have won one but its meaningless and both sides know it. 

A competative hit out could be against France.

Its amusing that one other poster said not to play France or Wales etc as it would help them out.

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Imagine a regular mid season test vs France with venue and tickets known before this years game is played alternate home and away and .it would sell not to mention the rivalry it would create, it wouldn't be long before France won one

But we are talking about a one off game in an already cramped season to help our World Cup preparations.

It will take more than 12 months to make France competitive and so is of no use for our World Cup preparations.

If only we could get a 50% capacity for a mid season international game.

[TBone]

Gee wizzz... England need ro play somebody before the WC and it needs to be against the best quality that they can find. Think of it as a pre-season game, or like the Barbarians in union, or England v England Knights in a sort of selection trial. I don’t care but they need some sort of practice and probably more than 1 game.

P.S. However it’s done it has to be on the cheap as the RFL don’t have any money  

[gingerjon]

9 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

1 works because Exiles have managed to beat England twice out of four games.

2 works better than the alternative of playing a northern hemisphere sides mid season. What are the biggest mid season international crowds out of interest?

A good starting point is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_England_national_rugby_league_team_results#2000s

[Wellsy4HullFC]

8 hours ago, yipyee said:

Exactly 98000 out of a possible 164000 just above 50% capacity with the ticket price being slashed and several offers starting at a tenner

When England play proper teams they get 164000 at £78 plus and these games sell out a year in advance,

The barbarians may well have won one but its meaningless and both sides know it. 

A competative hit out could be against France.

Its amusing that one other poster said not to play France or Wales etc as it would help them out.

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

Imagine a regular mid season test vs France with venue and tickets known before this years game is played alternate home and away and .it would sell not to mention the rivalry it would create, it wouldn't be long before France won one

Past results have shown that France cannot put out a competitive side mid season and it never gets a good crowd.

What makes you think it'll be any different this time?

[Wellsy4HullFC]

9 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

1. It doesn't because half the team can't play.

2 . We haven't really played them

1. I'd hardly say it's half the team. There's a handful at best. It's a squad game, so gives us a chance to test our side.

2. We've played a midseason international from 2006 to 2013. Only once have we managed to get a touring side over, and it was a weak squad. That proves the difficulty of this task that we have either a choice of an expensive but weak touring side, an understrength second tier nation, or an invitational side.

Or... We travel down under 

[GUBRATS]

44 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Past results have shown that France cannot put out a competitive side mid season and it never gets a good crowd.

What makes you think it'll be any different this time?

Because it will be played somewhere they have a train station 

[Hela Wigmen]

11 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

Your brilliant idea is to invent a game to give England a warm up, and exclude half the England team from playing. 

Didn’t know it was the 9s World Cup again 

 

[Tonka]

So Hela you gonna watch it then or what?

[Scotchy1]

1 hour ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

1. I'd hardly say it's half the team. There's a handful at best. It's a squad game, so gives us a chance to test our side.

2. We've played a midseason international from 2006 to 2013. Only once have we managed to get a touring side over, and it was a weak squad. That proves the difficulty of this task that we have either a choice of an expensive but weak touring side, an understrength second tier nation, or an invitational side.

Or... We travel down under 

As I said, this is a problem that required is to create a solution decade's a go.

Exiles is not the solution. A second string england side against a made up side isn't it. It neither attracts fans nor can be a warm up for the England squad. Its a proven failure.

Just because the alternatives are hard or require creativity doesn't justify going back to what we know doesn't work. 

The exiles will probably come back, the crowd will be about 10k at best and england will go in to a world Cup year under-prepared. 

[Scotchy1]

36 minutes ago, Hela Wigmen said:

Didn’t know it was the 9s World Cup again 

 

What?

[Hela Wigmen]

4 minutes ago, Tonka said:

So Hela you gonna watch it then or what?

Washing my hair that day. 

 

[Hela Wigmen]

2 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

What?

“Half an England team are excluded” according to you. Whitehead, Hodgson, Burgess, Thompson and Farnworth doesn’t equate to half a side unless you’re playing a Nines tournament. 

[Scotchy1]

14 minutes ago, Hela Wigmen said:

“Half an England team are excluded” according to you. Whitehead, Hodgson, Burgess, Thompson and Farnworth doesn’t equate to half a side unless you’re playing a Nines tournament. 

Ooof.

[hunsletgreenandgold]

2 hours ago, Scotchy1 said:

As I said, this is a problem that required is to create a solution decade's a go.

Exiles is not the solution. A second string england side against a made up side isn't it. It neither attracts fans nor can be a warm up for the England squad. Its a proven failure.

Just because the alternatives are hard or require creativity doesn't justify going back to what we know doesn't work. 

The exiles will probably come back, the crowd will be about 10k at best and england will go in to a world Cup year under-prepared. 

Interested to know what you think is the better idea then Scotchy? 

Take the whole squad down under for a game? 

[Scotchy1]

13 minutes ago, hunsletgreenandgold said:

Interested to know what you think is the better idea then Scotchy? 

Take the whole squad down under for a game? 

As I said its a problem caused by decades of neglect. We can't be surprised by it biting us on the bum now. This was always going to happen. Its a consequence of everything we have done up to this point.

We can't treat the other NH nations how we do then wonder why nobody will play with us. 

The exiles will be a crappy  sticking plaster that doesn't really work instead of putting in place what is needed long term. Then in a couple of years time we will be in the same position and have to find a new sticking plaster. Maybe next time we will try and fail with a roses clash again. 

As for what we do this year, bite the bullet and put something in place that might actually work. Stick with it and build it. 

[hunsletgreenandgold]

5 minutes ago, Scotchy1 said:

As I said its a problem caused by decades of neglect. We can't be surprised by it biting us on the bum now. This was always going to happen. Its a consequence of everything we have done up to this point.

We can't treat the other NH nations how we do then wonder why nobody will play with us. 

The exiles will be a crappy  sticking plaster that doesn't really work instead of putting in place what is needed long term. Then in a couple of years time we will be in the same position and have to find a new sticking plaster. Maybe next time we will try and fail with a roses clash again. 

As for what we do this year, bite the bullet and put something in place that might actually work. Stick with it and build it. 

I don't disagree with anything you're saying about it being our responsible to help develop other NH sides - I eluded to that myself in an earlier post. But none of what you're saying helps England having a decent run out before next year's WC, which is vital IMO. 

Forgetting about the need for there to be any longterm legacy and without getting a SH side up here or England travelling down there - you can't disagree that the kind of side that could be put together to play England would be far better than anything the current NH national teams could offer?