Not in the NRL unless the centrally contracted players portion of their salaries paid for by the ARU was "off" cap......then you might get some leverage.....

Take the 34 players on show last night as your elite squad....then agree to pay half their salaries centrally in return for them playing a maximum of club 25 games a year including play-offs and being free to tour immediately after the NRL Grand Final for 6 weeks.....

Those clubs such as Melbourne would have half the salaries of Cronk, Slater and Smith to ensure they had decent back up players.

If it were going to happen,then now is the time,because the NRL is cashed up to excess.....if the Aussies leed the way, then maybe the RFL would have to follow.

NZRL could fund their elite squad through ticket sales and apearance revenues....no reason that the RFL couldn't do it as well.....

League isn't "big" enough in the northern hemisphere to persuade commercial entities that its stars are worth using to market their products to anything other than a league audience.

There isn't the money available to the RFL from commercial stuff like that to pay half the salaries of the Elite Training Squad.

On paper, I was quite looking forward to the Lions tour - the Rahs are absolutely brilliant at creating an event. In reality though, after over-saturation coverage on Sky Sports - and the quite poop on field product - I've lost interest already.

Last night was awful.....in fact, it was worse than awful. The Lions are an opportunity to showcase the game.....but on last nights showing, they were scared of losing and that, in the end, is why they actually lost.

Still, they certainly do know how to pack them in!

I have to say that the tour so far has been a waste of space. It seems as though until the tests start the Aussies are sending out no opposition and the Lions are not playing their test game plan in case it tips the aussies off.

If it carries on like this i can see the RFU going down the test matches only route in Australia.

Why?
They will attract 370000 fans to 9 games over 5 weeks and they are run by the IRB

The paucity of northern hemisphere talent was brought into full focus against the Brumbies. Calling Shane Williams out of international retirement to pull on a Lions jersey was embarrassing.

Why so many warm up games ? Oh yeah,, to fill up the ARU's coffers after the dreadful decisions made in Australian rugby this last 10 years. Fair play to them, they know how to milk an event.

There has been an awful lot of hype around this Lions squad and their opportunity for greatness. I have to say, they may be brought down to earth with a real bump on Saturday. The tour has not gained any momentum and they have played some under strength teams along the way

Can’t read anything into the Brumbies game from a test perspective as none of the players will be featuring but I guess what you can read into it is that the second string team from the whole British Iles can’t beat the second string team from an Aussie province (worrying)

Regarding the test teams, a lot of noise is being made of the quality of the Lions backs and wingers in particular but many Lions fans are underestimating the Wallaby backs. North is a real quality player but Cuthbert is a weak link in defence and in Digby Ioane and Israel Falou the Aussies have two very physical wingers who are every bit as good as the Lions going forward. Add to that the fact that Jonathan Davies in the centres has the worst passing game of any professional rugby centre I have ever seen and I don’t expect the Lions wings to get too many chances

Looks to me like the Lions are looking to boss the game in the forwards and win the thing through territory and penalties – could work but if the game opens up at all I think the Aussies may pull them apart

You're right - the Aussies will take them to the cleaners if they manage to turn the game into anything more than a forwards-based grind fest. The Lions lack of creativity was severely exposed at Canberra.

Then again, we can't look past the fact that the backs had barely trained together and included a veteran playing pub footy in Japan. They'll go better next time.

The Lions have lost to provincial sides in the past and then won the tour - cannot write them off yet.