actually its the opposite...Great britian weakens the home nations....how the hell are wales & scotland ever going to develop as national sides if their best 2 or 3 players never get the chance to play with their home nations if they are dragged away to play for GB..

also...whats the point of having a GB team made up of 24 englishmen?...that actually makes "little sense" cos a team full of englishmen is ENGLAND not GB...

bring GB back when its actually a true representation of Great britian....

What's the bet that next year Wales will give England a run for their money.

yeah yeah..

We should go back to GB because of tradition.
it wont make the team all that stronger, but for me Rugby and England means Union.

As for splitting up the home nations and helping them develop. This argument doesnt wash as players are awae of the lower profile of teams other than England.
The recent decision of the two welsh Evans brothers to declare themselves English so they can play for the England academy and other English national teams highlights the problem.

Similarly players who have opted to play for Wales rather than England then get criticised in the media, and by fans for avoiding playing internationals, even though they have not, and have infact played numerous internationals for their chosen country.
The problem here being that RL fans and media have merely replaced GB with England in their minds. Hence if you dont play for England you are not perceived as playing internationals.
Keiron Cunningham is the classic case of this. He is the most capped British hooker of all time. Yet fans accuse him of ducking internationals. This is due to him representing Wales in 2 world cups rather than England.

are you sure it's not due to him being injured when it's international time

But we were England before we were GB. Maybe we are going back to our routes?
To most people "England" means football. That hasn't stopped cricket or rugby union and shouldn't stop RL. Every other country in the world has other national teams with the same name (you don't here people complaining about NZRU or ARU being the same name).


And will always be that way until we progress with internationals for the home nations on a regular basis and progress with expansion so that their international teams are more competitive. You saw a lot more people putting their hands up for Wales in the 90s when they actually played the odd game. Apart from 2001, Wales have only really played proper fixtures since GB split up. Why watch Wales when you can watch GB (which is partly supposed to represent Wales)?

This isn't going to happen over night, but I think it's daft that people would like to take away 3 teams from the already limited number of competitive 2nd tier nations in Europe and still expect us to have some kind of international development. You can't have your cake and eat it. We will never have a decent international scene with 3 competitive teams and about 3 potential ones under that.


You can criticise anything. It's not always a reason not to do something.

And Cunningham got criticised for ducking internationals because he played in about 3 this decade. He was always injured. I've never seen Cunningham play for GB live, and I've seen a fair few GB games.

And hopefully they will...

As well as Aus and NZ (like they have done in the past).

When are NZ joining Samoa, Tonga and Fiji to form Pacific Isles XIII?

Back to Great Britain as soon as for me.... today's players grew up watching GB and had a desire to play for GB... England is a diluted version of our International team. Lets face it... Wales and Scotland are never going to win the 4 nations or the world cup. People don't want to watch them en mass either... and probably never will. Just get back to GB and have done with it. Even non RL fans recognise our sports International side as GB.

not going to happen so get over it...

They also grew up watching England playing in the World Cup, not GB. If they had a desire to win a World Cup, it would be playing for England, not GB.


It's exactly the same team with a different name!


France probably won't either. Should we include them in this?


Why don't you judge this when they play some big games? Let's watch Wales' attendances in the 4N next year shall we? They've had some pretty decent attendances when it's been a proper game.


And if we stick with it for more than 2 minutes, then eventually they will recognise the home nations.

:16ixo0nu

Different sport. Rugby League players are Rugby League men... you have a desire to play for your sports international side. In our case... it's always been Great Britain.

:16ixo0nu

You don't say... I get that.... Myself personally can't get enthusiastic watching the team labelled as 'England' when it comes to RL... I'd be right up for a GB v Aus game just because that's how it's always been and it feels right.

:16ixo0nu

Yes let's.... don't even start me on the French game. Never agreed with the Dragons being in SL... never will.

you are a old fart......and i claim my £5

Different sport? What sport's World Cup was I watching in 1995, 2000 and 2008?


You've not given it a chance yet. It's only been 3 years! If we'd have won the World Cup you'd be used to it.


So you expect the international game to grow how exactly? You've shown your insular thinking here.


18,000 against NZ in 2000 was the last major game against a top opposition played in Wales. The French have even been getting attendances similar to ours against the second tier nations. You can't expect the international game to grow if they haven't got any games!


That's why they're called developing nations. Again they won't develop if they don't have any games! Or a team for that matter!

Like I say, it's like merging NZ with Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Does it really make a difference?

We've been 'developing' nations for a long time now and I don't see much change.

If the truth be known... I wouldn't lose any sleep if I never saw another International game. I've been watching the sport for nearly 30 years... and guess what... Australia were the top team then and they are the top team now. We've been vying for 2nd best with New Zealand for that entire 30 years... and it's been a toss up between France and PNG as to who gets the 3rd / 4th spot. We put a French team in SL to improve them... and they seem to have fallen behind Wales... so that worked didn't it ? It's hasn't changed and will never change in our lifetime.

no we have'nt....we've only been developing the nations since 2008...


prior to that everyone played 2nd fiddle to GB

Have we? In what way? Throwing them a couple of meaningless friendly internationals with no coverage? We've done next to nothing, which is why next to nothing has changed. Typical RL fan attitude: if it doesn't work instantly, bin it.


If your not bothered why have an opinion on it?
Again, it's the typical negative attitude of an RL fan. If you're not that bothered about it, why try and hold back change so that the people that are bothered about it can enjoy it? If we've been doing the same thing for 30 years and it's not working, then it's time for a change. I'd like to see us play some other teams than Aus and NZ for a change, and if we stay as GB then that only really leaves France over here.

As for France "falling behind" Wales, have you not considered that maybe Wales have improved and overtaken France? Because IMO that's what's happened. Since the crowds are rising at that level, I reckon the paying public are beginning to think the same too.

But sod everyone else, let's go back to GB so that the people that don't actually care can moan that nothing's changing whilst the ones that do care can be bored that there aren't enough games.

And this is the problem with a lot of RL fans.

Surely the aim for our sport is to get a viable international scene.

If we keep going down the same route as we are now there is a possibility of our game coming regionalised completely.

We have to try and keep improving the international game or the sport will become even more irrelivant than it is now as far as the media is concerned.

Great Britain. That is our sports top representative team. England sounds 2nd rate when it comes to RL. The white jumper with a red and blue chevron is what it is all about - its inspiring and can only mean one team no matter what kit maker designs it, the current England kit looks cheap and tacky.
England v Australia sounds anything BUT rugby league and sounds like RU or cricket.
Great Britain v Australia sounds pure rugby league and you know you are not talking about any other sport.
The gold lion's head representing GB is what i always wanted to wear as a child.

There should be a 2nd tier comp between England, Scotland and Wales, so that Scottish and Welsh players get representative fixtures, but if Wales or Scotland produce a Davies or Fairbairn we want them available to represent GB cos we need whatever we can get when it comes to beathing the Aussies and NZ's.
Ireland is a separate nation to GB so i can fully understand them wanting to go alone.

GB is not coming back for a while yet.
one reason is wales needs to grow stronger as a RL playing nation.
also for this to happen the SLE clubs need to start raiding the welsh and scottish RU clubs again,why has this stopped happening? theres only two decent clubs in wales and two in scotland isn't there ?

no.

British Lions is the top sports representitive team in union as well. But they have England for everything else.
Your issue appears to be regarding England RL as a brand. It's pretty hard to build up a brand comparable to GBRL in the space of 3 years (especially seeing as we seem to be in a bit of a slump performance-wise). The England kit and badge are awful, I agree. If they had a decent kit with a decent badge it would help. It just looks like a cheap England soccer knock-off that you'd get from Soccer World.

Totally disagree about the second-tier comp though. We've had that, and no-one was interested. It was a joke competition. If anything, it harms development in these countries, especially France (who are now finally getting proper internationals against proper international teams and not "feeder teams" to GB). It is much much better this way. It's already seen better interest in the other European nations international-wise, and we've only had one series over here since we became England so it is yet to be seen.

I believe that they should do what they do in Union and reform every 4 years (or whatever it is) as a special tour to Australia and NZ the amount of money this tour generates is ridiculous.
As far as the kit goes Double red chevron's on White (St George Illawarra had a Charity Shield jersey like this). I believe it looks to much like a Union or a Football(or we Australians call it a Soccer) as it stands.

whats the difference between 24 englishmen touring as GB and 24 englishmen tour as england

Different jersey's

so why bother.....



as i've said before GB should only come back when its actually a true representation of Great britian....we'll need at least 3 or 4 welsh and scots capable of making the starting 17 before we should even contemplate bring GB back