Time to bring France back into the Test match scene.

[JasonE]

Ok, here are my reasons:

1. Over the last 12 months half strength French teams have performed extremely well against both Australia & NZ which proves they have capable players who are young and will improve with more top line exposure.

2. The Introduction of UTC into Super League will provide a fulltime & professional environment in which not only will players improve their strength, speed & awareness but it also should give the younger players something to aspire to and hopefully keep them into the superior code.

3. A competitive French test team not only benefits the French but also benefits Rugby League worldwide and the spinoffs will be enormous and in my opinion next years Tri-Series should be expanded to a quad series and include France.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

agree all the way with you there.

France needs to play the good teams if they ever want to be competitive again.

we should of played the french test team.

 

[Tidus_Raider]

I agree on all counts except for the quad series. They should continue playing against Russia and Lebanon at the moment. Matches against the french could be warm ups for the Tri-Series. eg they play GB, NZ and AUS once each. However after the UTC team has been established for a couple of years I think the French should then be admitted into a quad-series.

 

[dimitri]

yeah wait for utc to have a couple of successful years


also an idea

since there may be a few non french players playing for utc

we could do the yawnion spivvy and let them qualify for france through the residency rule

that would also make the test side stronger

 

[yakstorm]

The tournament is up in Britain for 3 years. I say you look at 2005 to bring the French first in. They will have had a year of professional football then.

From that you then conviently make the draw as such to give the French the biggest advantages possible. Say have France quickly play Australia after the Kangaroos have just taken on New Zealand, racing them from Huddersfield to Toulouse in a couple of days (say Aus V NZ - Friday, France V Australia - Sunday).

Pick a French or British Ref and add in the French home support. Now of course the Aussies are still likely to win, but hey it may cut 10 or so points off their score making it a lot closer match.

As the French improve the situation will change in terms of the draw, but for the short term it doesn't hurt to play around with the possible scenarios a bit.

 

[In-goal]

I think the French should wait untill UTC are in the Super League, simply because they will have more full time proffesionals.