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74 members have voted

  1. 1. War of the Roses.. Yes or No

    • Bring it back.
      31
    • Leave it in the past.
      43


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Posted
11 minutes ago, NRLandSL said:

England have only beaten France by 40 points or more once in the past 9 years. They are not awful completely one sided games. 

They are, they’re like a top SL side against an average championship side in the challenge cup. I do feel for France I want the game there to grow as much  as anyone, but to claim they’re ready to face England in two meaningful matches a year is well off the mark. Sadly the NH is hamstrung as far as internationals go. 

  • Like 2

Posted
36 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I think we should be playing France annually following the Grand Final. Both England and France struggled for fixtures this Autumn, just get that in the diary to kick off the international window, no matter what else is arranged. It shouldn't be negotiable.

 

You’d get about 5,000 people there, it wouldn’t wash its own face financially. 

Posted
3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

You’d get about 5,000 people there, it wouldn’t wash its own face financially. 

You'd play it in France as a warm up game for both countries. It would serve a purpose without the pressure of being *the* game. I'd definitely want one before the Ashes next year.

  • Like 4

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

Posted
Just now, gingerjon said:

You'd play it in France as a warm up game for both countries. It would serve a purpose without the pressure of being *the* game. I'd definitely want one before the Ashes next year.

Yeah maybe an ashes warm up but not a regular non negotiable grand finale to the season. How many people went when we played them in Toulouse as a curtain raiser to the Fev game, it doesn’t seem to spark much interest over there either. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Yeah maybe an ashes warm up but not a regular non negotiable grand finale to the season. How many people went when we played them in Toulouse as a curtain raiser to the Fev game, it doesn’t seem to spark much interest over there either. 

It wouldn't be a grand finale to the season - I think you're misreading the idea. England play France the week after the Grand Final, the week after that, they both go off and play their real opponents having had a warm up.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

Posted
7 minutes ago, Eddie said:

You’d get about 5,000 people there, it wouldn’t wash its own face financially. 

We've regularly got more than 5k and that's with weird, ad hoc planning.

But, as GJ says, this isn't all.about commercials.

  • Like 2
Posted
1 minute ago, gingerjon said:

It wouldn't be a grand finale to the season - I think you're misreading the idea. England play France the week after the Grand Final, the week after that, they both go off and play their real opponents having had a warm up.

I wouldn't leave you in charge of the marketing tbh 🤣

England v France can be a decent event in itself. It doesn't have to be the biggest event in town, but both nations benefit kn the field and there's no reason that a well organised Test like this can't be getting five figure crowds regularly.

  • Like 1
Posted
5 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

It wouldn't be a grand finale to the season - I think you're misreading the idea. England play France the week after the Grand Final, the week after that, they both go off and play their real opponents having had a warm up.

Yeah that’s fair enough, it wasn’t in the original post that I commented on though. 

  • Like 1
Posted
4 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I wouldn't leave you in charge of the marketing tbh 🤣

I've already done a deal to give away a family ticket with each purchase of a small tub of garlic and herb soft cheese at Lidl.

  • Like 1

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

Posted
1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

I've already done a deal to give away a family ticket with each purchase of a small tub of garlic and herb soft cheese at Lidl.

Ok. I've changed my mind, you're in! 🤣

Posted
4 hours ago, Eddie said:

It really wouldn’t be a success, the RFL could barely sell a World Cup, they certainly couldn’t sell a match between Yorkshire and Lancashire that literally nobody gives a toss about, they’d be lucky to sell 2,000 tickets. 

42% of people voting on this forum have voted to bring it back. I wouldn’t say that is good demonstration of no-one giving a toss.

  • Like 1
Posted
13 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

42% of people voting on this forum have voted to bring it back. I wouldn’t say that is good demonstration of no-one giving a toss.

This is likely to be the most pro-Roses group you could find, with the exception of the League Express mailbag.

And it's still getting trounced.

  • Like 2

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

Posted
3 hours ago, NRLandSL said:

England have only beaten France by 40 points or more once in the past 9 years. They are not awful completely one sided games. 

The quality has been abysmal. Again this isn't addressing the problem of how we develop France and the international game. France will only improve with more full time professional players in SL, not just relying on catalans. Then a one off test will help. But a dozen catalans players playing against England every year IS NOT helping France and certainly isn't helping England. It's also creating apathy amongst fans for international RL.  We have to stop this cheerleader nonsense and address glaringly obvious issues.

 

  • Like 1
Posted
17 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:

42% of people voting on this forum have voted to bring it back. I wouldn’t say that is good demonstration of no-one giving a toss.

There seem to be three workable options for mid-season representative games - 

England v France

England v Combined Nations

Yorkshire v Lancashire

I doubt that any of them would have a majority of people supporting them or would draw large crowds. I would be interesting to see which would have most support.

Consensus seems to be that none are particularly inspiring, but they are the options and we need to do at least one of them.

  • Like 2
Posted
22 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

This is likely to be the most pro-Roses group you could find, with the exception of the League Express mailbag.

And it's still getting trounced.

Indeed, just like the GB arguments the very demographics of this forum are likely to be weighted towards these outdated concepts. Even at that those in favour arent in the majority. I think it's a fair assumption that the wider public would be even less in favour.

Posted

It baffles me that people are saying that the most beneficial fixture for France is England when in reality they are far closer in ability to Wales. Don't get me wrong, they're still lightyears ahead of Wales but it's a far better match for them

 

  • Like 1
Posted
47 minutes ago, Barley Mow said:

There seem to be three workable options for mid-season representative games - 

England v France

England v Combined Nations

Yorkshire v Lancashire

I doubt that any of them would have a majority of people supporting them or would draw large crowds. I would be interesting to see which would have most support.

Consensus seems to be that none are particularly inspiring, but they are the options and we need to do at least one of them.

The problem is, there is one option there which means England don't play a game at all.

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Chrispmartha said:

The problem is, there is one option there which means England don't play a game at all.

Yes, that's an obvious negative against a roses match (if the primary aim is preparing England for SH opposition). It seems Shaun Wane has weighed that against other things such as competitiveness and still thinks it is at least worth considering.

For my part, as I set out a few pages ago, I'd have a two week mid-season window which for most European countries would involve playing the teams above and below them in the IRL rankings and for England (as top ranked) would mean having the roses match in the first week before playing France (as 2nd ranked) the following week.

Edited by Barley Mow
  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Barley Mow said:

There seem to be three workable options for mid-season representative games - 

England v France

England v Combined Nations

Yorkshire v Lancashire

I doubt that any of them would have a majority of people supporting them or would draw large crowds. I would be interesting to see which would have most support.

Consensus seems to be that none are particularly inspiring, but they are the options and we need to do at least one of them.

Stacey Jones was banging the drum for the Kiwis to play an international in NZ same time as an origin fixture,

It's an option, won't happen but it's an option 

Posted
1 minute ago, Bongo1 said:

Stacey Jones was banging the drum for the Kiwis to play an international in NZ same time as an origin fixture,

It's an option, won't happen but it's an option 

Yeah, I ruled out things like that or a PNG XIII playing in England - I was careful in saying 'workable options'!

  • Like 1
Posted
14 minutes ago, Barley Mow said:

Yes, that's an obvious negative against a roses match (if the primary aim is preparing England for SH opposition). It seems Shaun Wane has weighed that against other things such as competitiveness and still thinks it is at least worth considering.

For my part, as I set out a few pages ago, I'd have a two week mid-season window which for most European countries would involve playing the teams above and below them in the IRL rankings and for England (as top ranked) would mean having the roses match in the first week before playing France (as 2nd ranked) the following week.

Yorkshire Lancs would make more sense if as you say there was an England game shortly after it.

  • Like 2
Posted
1 hour ago, Barley Mow said:

There seem to be three workable options for mid-season representative games - 

England v France

England v Combined Nations

Yorkshire v Lancashire

I doubt that any of them would have a majority of people supporting them or would draw large crowds. I would be interesting to see which would have most support.

Consensus seems to be that none are particularly inspiring, but they are the options and we need to do at least one of them.

I will be interested to see what IMG recommend. They are quite rightly currently doing the necessary research into the various options - asking the players, fans, etc. - but it's going to be a bit awkward and embarrassing for the sport if they have to announce that after careful consideration, none of the available options are any good and therefore they are recommending doing nothing.

It would seem more likely that they will have to commit to one of the options, and I guess it's then up to everyone to rally round and make it as big a success as possible.

Posted
25 minutes ago, Barley Mow said:

...

For my part, as I set out a few pages ago, I'd have a two week mid-season window which for most European countries would involve playing the teams above and below them in the IRL rankings and for England (as top ranked) would mean having the roses match in the first week before playing France (as 2nd ranked) the following week.

If the baseline is what we have now, that is better. It is not ideal IMO but it has the strong advantage that a lot of international rugby gets played 

Posted
32 minutes ago, Bongo1 said:

Stacey Jones was banging the drum for the Kiwis to play an international in NZ same time as an origin fixture,

It's an option, won't happen but it's an option 

Ah yes. That would be great. We all know what happened the last time though.

  • Like 1

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