The ‘Wok’ has long contended that 11 players is rugby league’s magic number. Every five to 10 years, players become noticeably bigger, faster and better at the athletic components of the game. Yet the rugby league field hasn’t gotten any bigger since 1908. So if the game needs more space, more expansive attack and larger gaps in a defensive line, fewer players is how it’s done. “Eleven-on-eleven” has been uttered occasionally since the mid-1990s. One of Newcastle’s founding fathers and recruitment guru of those times, Keith Onslow, would use 11-on-11 games in trials to get a better measure of a player’s attacking wares. Could a first-grade prospect actually see and capitalise on an attacking chance when it presented itself?