Re: 2018 England tour to Australia? : Tue Nov 25, 2014 5:58 pm  

Andy Gilder wrote:

Let's say England take a 24 man squad to Australia for three Tests and a couple of country games (one warmup, one midweek between the 1st and 2nd Tests, so four playing weeks of the tour).

Maybe half a dozen of that squad are going to come from the NRL anyway (Tomkins, Graham, Widdop, two remaining Burgess boys would be automatic, then you have the likes of Cooper and Hodgson)

Wigan provided 7 players to the 2014 England four nations squad. Leeds provided three. No other SL club more than two. Clubs could be without that many of their top players at any one time in the season due to injuries anyway. It's not going to have an adverse effect on the product to take these players out of SL for five weeks in the middle of the season IMO.

Don't use facts, we can't moan then!

Internationals won't move forward significantly until they're played mid season IMO. It should be the pinnacle but it's currently just tagged on the end as some sort of after thought.

I would have no issue with Wigan losing 7 players mid season. I would like to think clubs would be given a bit more leeway on the cap to cover those circumstances but if they were then it would be fine.

Re: 2018 England tour to Australia? : Tue Nov 25, 2014 9:02 pm  

NickyKiss wrote:

Don't use facts, we can't moan then!

Internationals won't move forward significantly until they're played mid season IMO. It should be the pinnacle but it's currently just tagged on the end as some sort of after thought.

I would have no issue with Wigan losing 7 players mid season. I would like to think clubs would be given a bit more leeway on the cap to cover those circumstances but if they were then it would be fine.

Agreed. A few years back, when Leeds were in their prime, we often had 6/7 players in the England/GB squad. I wouldn't have an issue with us losing them to a higher cause for a few weeks. Most teams lose 5/6/7 players to injury in a season anyway.