Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 4:24 pm  

France really are one of the biggest frustrations in RL, almost 20 years of Catalan in SL and two teams in SL last year, how are they not even slightly better?

Holds the international game back as due to geography England don't have any other mid season opponents

[Mild Rover]

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 4:47 pm  

The international game makes me feel bad for complaining about the competitive imbalance of Super League.

With the upcoming retirement of James Roby, there’ll be no active England/GB players who have beaten Australia in a game.

And this. And Shaun Wane… and just the general Wigan of it all.

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 5:33 pm  

UllFC wrote:

France really are one of the biggest frustrations in RL, almost 20 years of Catalan in SL and two teams in SL last year, how are they not even slightly better?

Holds the international game back as due to geography England don't have any other mid season opponents

It's asking too much for an international team to be competitive with only 1 pro club. The number of French players playing professionally has increased hugely in the past couple of decades, but it's still nothing compared to the other major nations.

[Mild Rover]

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 5:37 pm  

Jack Burton wrote:

It's asking too much for an international team to be competitive with only 1 pro club. The number of French players playing professionally has increased hugely in the past couple of decades, but it's still nothing compared to the other major nations.

It’s an imperfect comparison and almost, but not quite, tongue in cheek - New Zealand

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 5:48 pm  

Mild Rover wrote:

It’s an imperfect comparison and almost, but not quite, tongue in cheek - New Zealand

How many of NZ's first 17 play for the Warriors?

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 7:01 pm  

Do England need to look at playing a southern hemisphere side in the middle east or Hong Kong instead? Cuts down the travelling time and travel aint cheap but doubt the RFL have made much today off an 8k crowd anyway

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 7:02 pm  

UllFC wrote:

France really are one of the biggest frustrations in RL, almost 20 years of Catalan in SL and two teams in SL last year, how are they not even slightly better?

Holds the international game back as due to geography England don't have any other mid season opponents

If we picked all of the England team from Hull FC, and Bradford bulls, players that have now left these clubs and signed for another team in super League and a few more from the championship, how competitive would they be against Australia or New Zealand?

[Mild Rover]

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 7:53 pm  

UllFC wrote:

Do England need to look at playing a southern hemisphere side in the middle east or Hong Kong instead? Cuts down the travelling time and travel aint cheap but doubt the RFL have made much today off an 8k crowd anyway

Or maybe just stop flogging a dead horse?

[Mild Rover]

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sat Apr 29, 2023 8:11 pm  

Jack Burton wrote:

How many of NZ's first 17 play for the Warriors?

But to me that kind of reinforces my point rather than undermining it.

ateod, France is France and New Zealand is New Zealand.

Anyway, it just isn’t clear to me who or what the game today was for. feels like make-work.

Re: 14 players withdraw from England squad : Sun Apr 30, 2023 10:26 pm  

Some hull fan complained that Catalans have been In SLfor 20 years and in that time the French national team has not improved.

In that same space of time the English national rugby league team also hasn’t improved despite having ten times as many teams in SL lol

#xenophobia?