While I may have watched from afar as England took on the Exiles (the opportunity of a few days off saw me take the family to Portugal), I was still interested to see what happened.
England need some sort of hit-out - Yorkshire v Lancashire tried and failed in the not so distant past, while there's no point playing France or Wales at the moment. None of the sides involved got any real benefit from those matches.
Away days
So what about this - rather than taking on the Exiles here, England instead travelled for a tour of Down Under, though not to face Australia.
A mid-season break in Super League (and they are talking about cutting down the number of games anyway, so that shouldn't be hard to organise) would allow the national team a three-week period to travel to Australia and play opponents during the time State of Origin is on.
New Zealand would have players available during that time, while Samoa and Tonga could be possible opponents too. I know they are trying to put a lot into the island nations and something like this would surely aid their development in both the short and long term.
By doing this, national boss Steve McNamara could also have his NRL players in camp and although not all of them might be able to play due to their club commitments, it would at least allow the entire squad to get together.
They currently manipulate the NRL fixtures around the Origin games, giving byes in those weeks to the teams that are most affected by absentees, so it wouldn't seem impossible to adapt it further.
The break would also allow those not involved with England to re-charge their batteries for the second half of the season (though could that then bring in club v country issues?). Like any walk of life, rugby league players work hard at their jobs and it can be as mentally draining as it is physically.
Obviously a lot of things would have to coincide for this to happen. The RFL and the NRL would have to come to some agreements over their schedules to make space.
But even if England only get to play two games, against say a New Zealand XIII and Samoa, then that would surely be of benefit to both them and also the international game as a whole. It could be Australia 'A' are selected from those that aren't taking part in the Origin Series to take on McNamara's men.
Like I said, I'm not saying the Exiles game should be buried in a hurry. But perhaps the international game could do with a boost, and a mid-season tour might be just the shot-in-the-arm it needs.
