Wigan fans will agree now is the time to go. I’d like to think he would be fit to go out with a game at Elland Road but it’s unlikeky. He’s been fantastic for England and GB for over a decade. It took him a while to win the majority around even though his form was always very good.



His body just sadly isn’t up to it anymore. He was way off in the semi against Cas and the Grand Final this year and looked injured in those so he should’ve sat this series out to start with. That’s the thing with Lockers though, he’s a leader and whilst other players were pulling out, he will try and push himself through these games but enough is enough. It’s now effecting the team because he’s not completing games and you can’t afford that at international level.

Agreed, been a great player but needs to make the call now and give others a chance to stake a claim for the WC.

It's all tactics. Leeds will now have to pay even more when they announce the signing.

Fancy NZ by 12 and on to the decider the week after.

I was watching the London centric BBC News tonight and they were going on about the rugby internationals this weekend. Of course what they meant was the RU internationals. The same occurred just before a Question of Sport, when they summarised sport on the BBC this weekend..again no mention of RL. Thankfully the local news got the balance right, with mentions of both RL and RU.

Do we have to do this over and over again?

Ireland v Italy and USA v Maori All Blacks double header in the USA will get more in attendance than the #2 & #3 RL sides...... England v SA at Twickenham will get 3 times the crowd....... It is not the BBC who are to blame FFS...... 58,000 fans each week attend SL games...... The fact that 33,000 won't bother this weekend isn't aunties fault...... Look inward to discover the problem......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Rugb ... _World_Cup It is interesting to see how long the international formats have been tampered with and we wonder why there are low turn outs. For a world cup final, is 1975 the lowest ever attendance?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Rugb ... _World_Cup It is interesting to see how long the international formats have been tampered with and we wonder why there are low turn outs. For a world cup final, is 1975 the lowest ever attendance?

Absolutely. We’re only now cottoning on to the fact it needs to be a regular cycle and a standard format. The messing around and inconsistency with the World Cup has had a massive negative impact on the sport in my opinion.

Are we cottoning onto this? Yes the World Cup has gone into 4 year cycles, but the Four Nations Tournament, which was growing year on year, has been scrapped. In its place a half full KCOM and Anfield for a Kiwis test series and a return of Great Britain.

Without thinking about it too much:



Have a world cup every 4 years

Have a 4 nations every 4 years, so it falls 2 years after the world cup. Similar to how the World cup and the Euros are scheduled in football.

Have a GB tour at the end of the season every 4 years to either NZ or Aus to play a 3 match series.

Have NZ or Aus tour England every 4 years.



In the year Aus and NZ don't travel to England, have them play end of season tests against teams like Tonga, Fiji and Samoa.



Something like that doesn't strike me as too unreasonable, and wouldn't really increase the physical workload on the players.

Its a good starting point i like it and as long as you stay with the World cup and 4 nations on that rota as set in stone then you can tweak other internationals round it. RU has had this sussed for years with the autumn internationals over here, 6 nations in the new year and WC every 4 years with the lions tours slotting in. Unbelievable how it's taken us this long to fix a schedule but even now it's a way off.

Scrappy stop start game for the first half of the 1st half but starting to come alive nicely.



Both centres have struggled this week and Lomax is non existent. Think the 2 sub props in Hill and George Burgess did really well to help us back in it and Makinson been great and fully earning his selection, 2 great try savers.