The RLIF needs to take control of the game so that there is never a 'nothing' year again - the only reason there is a 'nothing' year is because of the NRL players association deal - this is not on! it has held the international game to ranson. There should be a 4 nations every year and we should be building towards mid year international windows in the future.
To look on the bright side, though, when the inevitable "heritage" teams are chosen, there will be less players failing the step down period, because Australia will not have selected as many of them due to not playing as often.