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State of Origin will eventually be moved to be played on stand-alone weekends, with the NRL competition put on hold for three weeks. This will most likely happen after the current broadcasting deal.
I have read many suggestions about what other games can be played on that same weekend to keep broadcasters happy, the rugby league public engaged and without giving other codes a ‘free kick’.
These games include a New Zealand Origin series, a mini-Nines tournament, a Polynesian All Stars game and a number of other suggestions.
But my proposal is pretty simple and straight forward, I would like to see an annual three-game series of England versus New Zealand to be played the same weekend as State of Origin. The 2013 World Cup semi final played between these two nations at Wembley was without doubt the best Test match I have ever seen. It was close to, if not on par with the 100 State of Origin game we witnessed last week at Suncorp Stadium.
It was a great advertisement for our game and international football in general. There are numerous benefits to this series including giving New Zealand and English players incentive to choose to play for their respective countries instead of chasing the money on offer for Origin football – i.e. James Tamou.
There is also incentive to travel abroad, incentives to stay in rugby league, increasing the exposure of international football, increasing the competitiveness of both these countries and many others.
As it stands New Zealand play the Anzac Test in April or May against Australia, then need to wait until September or October until their next match. England need to wait a whole year in between matches, so this series would provide regular international football.
I would suggest scrapping the Anzac Test in favour for this series. The tournament should alternate between the two countries on an annual basis, so if the Four Nations is played in Australia or New Zealand at the end of the year the mid-season series should be played in the UK and vice versa.
Obviously there are setbacks with mid-season Test series such as the travel involved and getting the Super League to agreeing to suspend their domestic competition for three weeks. But I believe the English public would love to see regular competitive international football instead of waiting every two years for the Four Nations to come around. They could also fill those three weeks with the Challenge Cup rounds.
If the series was played in similar fashion to the World Cup semi final I do not think there would be a problem selling tickets to these games, and it could be used to promote the game outside the traditional rugby league areas of these countries. Why not take one game to Wembley and Dunedin, similar to what State of Origin is doing by taking one game to Melbourne?
This is just my suggestion and would be a legitimate contest between two strong Test-playing nations. I could go further by saying that why not play other internationals on the same weekend, such as Tonga versus Samoa, France versus Wales, Papua New Guinea verusu Fiji and Scotland versus Ireland. But that is another discussion for another time.
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