Why schedule representative matches on the same night?

Sunshinecoaster the people of Orange did not seem to mind. Crowd of 8500 or so to a country match not to bad. i think it is all to do with flying the flag in the bush. Whatever code I think it is appreciated by the locals. 38000 at the Suncorp stadium is not to bad either. All in all the ARL would be quite pleased. I think it is important to understand these rep games are not run by the NRL. They still remain as does the SOO with the old guard.The old guard still have strong connections with the bush and CRL.

On half baked teams oikee my criticism was more simple. All I'm sayoing is that you're always on about how the depth of talent is there in League and how no player cannot be replaced by an up and coming youngster. All I'm saying is... if that's really the case then why are you so fussed about clashes between rep games and club fixtures? Why if the League player group is so deep is it a problem to take the top 4 or 5 players for each club for a week? Surely those awesome juniors of yours should be able to fill in no problems, and not make for 'half baked' teams on those weeks (your words not mine)... I'm just raising an inconsistency between yourr logic today and what you were telling us about the depth of RL all last year.

Oikee - ok to be positive, I actually agree with doing something with ANZAC Day? How about an ANZAC day test ALWAYS played in NZ, would grow the game there where it already has a bit of roots to grow from, would be a great tribute to the ANZAC partnership, would be reasonably balanced in terms of Kangas being stronger but Kiwis being at home, and would not clash so much with the AFL stuff going on in Oz. Alternate it between Auckland and Christchurch...

Every year i watch the City v Country game and every year im board off my tits by half time,ill give it another go tonight and hope for the best

Just on those overseas players, most are internationals or have origin experience. Also this year we have 2 players from England, Ellis and Tansey, both have shown that they can compete in the NRL, super league is doing nicely in England thank you. The hard yards of importing players from NZ and OZ is starting to pay dividends. Thats behind the scenes, something one tends to over-look.

Sorry, Milly, you leave yourself open you know i will give it to you.

Not sure about your comment on Half baked teams, we have at least 100 current players in England who would gladly come back to good money into a new team here in oz, unlike soccer players who dont want to play in a half baked a-league with geriatric imports from overseas. :)

Arh, Milly, your always raining on my parade, yes you have soccer everywhere in the world it needs no promoting. I agree with you on that, but with the Turks and trying to grow league we could do this if we had some clever marketing guys, same as Union taking its game to Tokyo and Dubai. We are still in the game of growing, unlike football which already has grown Milly. All i am saying is if we had the brains, we could try a few new ideas, not take the world by storm, will never happen but as you keep telling me, we need to grow and have the game played in more countries, this is what i am trying to acheive. Hope you are not trying to knock this, your the guy saying we are not a world sport. ;)

My point being, this weekend we dont have 1 game of league played between now and sunday, a international with Tonga Samoa would have been well attended. Same would apply to PNG and Fiji Brisbane, if you play them with no other footy on People will attend. Just on a plus note, i have always enjoyed the City Country game. Will be watching it again tonite, shame it was not on at 7.30, but the test match takes priority.

Brett, your on the right track , but as you know there is a few holes in there which i might add could easily be plugged. Bare with me on my proposal, which could be introduced if the game had some real balls. 20 team comp, each playing 19 games a season, now these extra teams would be made up from Aderlaide , Perth, Wellington and maybe a team from PNG and another 1 or 2 QLD teams. So we have 20 teams with all states represented, so we have 19 games played by each team against every other team only Once, now thats 10 games over a weekend in all states and provence's which means the market would not be saturated, only enchans't. Now with your idea of the City / Country matches yes very good but play them the 1st weekend, along with maybe a couple of Tests from PNG,Fiji, and Tonga Samoa, to fill the weekend gap, on the next 3 wednesday's,, allowing players to recover for these games rather than having only 2 days 1st weekend, like you mentioned the build-up would be intense. If we had the Sunday games it would only allow players 2 days to recover before they had to go into battle. So we have 3 weekends to fill up with other International games, surely we could easily do this, turn these games into a permanent fixture and rotate stadiums from where origin will be played so fans have a good international game to attend. The bottom line is we need to build our international games, lets do this. I just heard the Bunnies have signed Crocker, and looks like he will be playing origin, :) At some stage.

"An ideas man" who ignores the fact that firstly this idea comes straight from the world of football with the difference that we're talking a REAL international playeds in a code that both countries follow, and secondly that you wouldn't find a single Turk in Istanbul who would even know of the existence of Rugby League as a code. So you'd only be doing the kind of thing that AFL does in Dubai and promoting to bogan expats and backpackers.... so why spend all that money and why not just go play in Cairns or something simpler like that? But I do thoroughly agree with your discussions on fixtures, I think the NRL could do much better and are currently shooting themselves in the foot with the way they schedule games. One final thing to Oikee... we've heard you for so long defend the depth of the game, the juniors coming through, the Toyota Cup, how it doesn't matter that Gasnier and SBW leave because their spots get filled with young talent coming through... why then the inconsistency with your comments here on 'half-baked teams'? Surely if I am to believe what you've said before a million times, then even if a Test match, a City V Country AND a SOO match were on all at the same time then Rugby League is so deep that the clubs could draw on their hundreds of genius juniors and no-one would even tell the difference because of all that talent supposedly coming through... or in fact are you now admitting that the talent in the comp nowhere as deep as you'd wanted us to believe?

Its just anther show that the organisation of RL in this country are hopeless. The City Country should have been on Anzac day.

I'm not against that idea per se, but of all the left-field suggestions I've read on The Roar, that would have be a semi-finalist ;-) Oikee, "you're an ideas man...."

No worries Brett, thanks for that i will look now, another thing i could add, why not take the Anzac game to Turkey, yes thats right Turkey, we have a ready made audience over their with the dawn service and can invite the other tourists such as the Poms NZlers and maybe even the Canadians which would make a good crowd, promote the game to another country and establish a new following, I have got ideas coming out my ears, if only someone would listen.

Sorry if this comes through twice, but I've issues posting this reply. Oikee, check out http://www.theroar.com.au/2009/05/04/making-city-country-mean-something/ - I wrote the artcile for Monday just gone... [Ed: Sometimes links in comments means they go through to our spam folder. We've recovered your comments Brett.]

What we have to remember is that Fiji run 4th last year in the world cup, wake up, somebody wake up, thats how far we are behind other codes, i dont even know which dinorsaur i am supposed to be waking up, who's in change of this shamble.

Oikee, I meant this week just gone, it's been there since Monday: http://www.theroar.com.au/2009/05/04/making-city-country-mean-something/ I've also sent it onto the Sunday Roast as a starting point, and depending how that goes, I'll try dave@nrl.com!!

But your dead right, and even the NRL has to be numb not to notice that most people are tired of watching half baked teams playing while alot of guys are playing rep footy. Just stop the season and plug the holes with Good international games, people enjoy this, well i know i do. I would love to see PNG taking on Fiji, as for the Tonga Samoa match, this could become a real season highlight, imagine if this became like a origin type clash.

At the end of the yaer we now have a international colender, finally. Notice my speeling is getting better.

Good, i will have a look when you post it Brett, and what you need to do is send the bugger straight to Gallop, tell him what a dipshite he is to allow dinosaurs running the Sceduling and here is a genuine plan to help grow and have fixtures at the right time, as for the Anzac Day test, its not rocket science as i mentioned, play the game ON Anzac Day.