Two of rugby league's heaviest hitters have savaged the game between Australia and the USA Tomahawks as a complete disaster that should never have been allowed to go ahead.
Nick Politis, the Sydney Roosters chairman and a member of the ARL board and NRL partnership committee, said the game in Philadelphia on Wednesday was of "absolutely no benefit".
South Sydney chief executive Shane Richardson described it "a load of rubbish".
Opinion on the value of the game - played before a crowd of about 5000 at the 52,000-seat Franklin Field - is divided, with NRL chief executive David Gallop and ARL chief executive Geoff Carr among those claiming it was worthwhile.
"I think it was a success," Gallop said. "I know the players enjoyed it. I don't see the game as an annual event, but I think we can keep pushing for league to establish a niche over there."
Carr said: "The game has gained some genuine profile in the world's biggest market out of this. It's been a tremendous success."
Carr said it was unfortunate that Bulldogs stars Willie Mason and Mark O'Meley had been injured during the match - seriously, in Mason's case - but injuries can occur at any time.
However, Politis and Richardson argued that the game simply wasn't worth risking the players.
"I'll give you three good reasons the game shouldn't have gone ahead," Politis said. "Firstly, financially it was a loser. It must have cost about $250,000 in extra air fares and accommodation to play a game in front of a crowd that looked about 2000.
"If they had gone over there and made a million dollars we could talk about the risk of injury being acceptable, but that was never going to happen. I'd be screaming the place down if one of the players from my club got hurt like that.
"Secondly, the game is never going to take off in the US - it's just not on.
"And finally, everyone is talking about how the players play too much. So why - at the end of a long season and then a long tour like that - go and play a game that means nothing? There was absolutely no benefit."
Richardson said the Coogee Dolphins, who played the curtain-raiser against an American club side, should have played the Tomahawks instead of the national team.
"I think that would have been of more value to the Tomahawks than playing against an Australian side that had obviously had enough before they went out there," he said.
"People talk about having less club games to make it easier on the players, but then the Australian team wins the Tri-Nations, gets on the drink for two days, gets straight on a plane and runs on to a ground that is made of carpet and a couple of star players get hurt in a nothing game.
"How can we talk about taking club games away when the clubs pay the players' wages and something like that happens? It's no skin off my nose because Souths didn't have any players over there, I just think it's wrong.
"I'm a fan of international rugby league and I want us to improve it in the places it can be improved - like France and England - but this game was a load of rubbish. We're never going to grow the game into anything significant in the US. The people involved work hard, but it's not going to happen."
Politis said he believed some league figures who had publicly reacted positively to the game were "playing politics".
Lachlan Murdoch, the chairman of News Ltd, half-owner of the NRL, is known to have lobbied for the game to be played. He staged a function in New York for the touring party.