90% of what you write is aimed at insulting posters so don't embarrasss yourself with the hypocrisy.

Also very deluded (again) to think you've won any argument here by just doing a lot of whining.

The irony of dumping the GB concept is that it could in reality weaken 'home' nation development.

If the only international options are England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, which team do you think the majority will want to aim for? If I'm an up and coming player with some vague Welsh/Scottish/Irish ancestry but a realistic possibility of playing for England, I'm more likely to pin my colours to the red & white flag. Multiply that across our very small elite playing pool and it very soon begins to bite.

Whereas if the possibility of playing a Great Britain team exists ALONGSIDE the home nations, I might reconsider my options. I might choose to pin on my Great-Granny's home flag for the World Cup happy in the knowledge I have a shot at a GB place in the Four Nations or (please god

) an Ashes Tour. As a result, the smaller home nations could see more elite players willing to commit themselves.

In the same vein, let's say a great Welsh player breaks through. What a waste. He'll get a go in the World Cup but will we ever see him take on the Aussies alongside our best? Nope. He'll be playing alongside second-tier Welsh and vaguely Welsh lads and perhaps beating Lebanon and Italy.

Great Britain RL was iconic. All the great international moments from our heritage come in the red & blue V. I have precisely NO fond memories of the England RL concept, just terrible shirts. As for those condemning the 90's, I guess you're not old enough to remember the amazing Ashes tours of '90 and '94. The club game might have been in mixed health but the international game was outstanding.

As for tonight's event at Coventry...I think the less said the better. Genuinely I switched over to Ireland vs All Blacks with about 15 minutes to go. A close game but a boring, soulless atmosphere. Love it when an international tournament finally comes around and the RFL stick games in pointless stadiums nowhere near the core support.

He doesn't like ruby league, its nothing to do with old or new or whatever.
He comes on here because he is bored, I just hope that he finds a hobby.
Its not like I read his posts most of the time, buts its like the equivalent of having a pop up add every few posts.

International has on the whole never been that popular - it had a brief growth in popularity in the 90s before SL. The crowds at both Coventry and Huddersfield were greater than those that turned up to watch the 82 Aussie tourist possibly the greatest side ever to play the game.

I don't see all the hankering to see a series of meaningless mid week walk overs - even RU have on the whole ditched that idea

Agreed. I want to see more tests played out between the big teams. Playing once against Australia ( which is likely to be the case now barring a miracle at the weekend), from 2014 to the 2017 is not enough for me.

On crowds - we did get very good crowds from the 86 tour to 94 but that was our most competitive period since the early 70's. Still, even then we didn't quite fill old wembley, it was around 50k for the OT tests and 30k for the Elland road ones so not astronomically bigger than these days. We got 40k for NZ in london last year and i remember Elland road being full house for that Four Nations final in 2011.Also 44K at Wembley against the Aussies that same year although that looks bad in that huge new Wembley.

Add to that we always tend to pretty much fill the 25k club grounds like Huddersfield last week. Could of course be better, but it's not bad imo. I reckon if England made this final we would fill Anfield but that looks a long shot now.

What's that? All I saw was you trying to change your point when your previous point was shown up to be nonsense.

As you were.

The problem is nothing to do with the success of Scotland, Wales or Ireland presently. In the current international climate, they have very little opportunity to to compete at the top level.

Our elite level of rugby league consists only of Four Nations x2, the World Cup and a last minute tour. Which players are going to want to pin their colours to anyone other than the Big 3 if they're the only ones guaranteed to be playing big comps?

Hopefully the new Confed Cup tournament will help attract the NRL and SL players to put their hands up more regularly for other nations and build their competitiveness and brand. More games of importance is what the other home nations (and every other nation) need.

England are doing fine. Crowds are better than GBs of the 2000s that preceded them. All signs are they're going to get better.

The country I live in is called Great Britain anyway. Which is part of the United Kingdom of the two countries Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Not the United Kingdom of four countries England Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland. The nationality on my passport is British, not English.

If it means we can have Lachlan Coote at fullback then I'm all for it.

Funny that because Great Britian isn't actually a country.

If we do revert back to GB then hopefully we can cut the BS like this.

No it's not. It's called the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Great Britain is a geographical term for the island we're on.
The Lions represent two countries (UK and Republic of Ireland). Let's not go down the "proper country" argument because it's actually against GB!

If we are really serious, and I mean really serious about competing against the southern hemisphere, then maybe we need a radical approach.
What about a G.B. team, centrally contracted (ala cricket) who go on a 3 week tour down under in mid season to player club, district, representative and national teams.
I can hear the top clubs screaming already, but having the players together will develop the skills and the void in the club's will allow young players to step up to super league level.

Gathering people together in the close season and expecting them to become a world class team is unrealistic.

I say it all the time, so apologies for those who have to read it again, but we need a mid-season International break.

I'd plan it alongside Origin, so that Origin is three consecutive weekends, and at the same time England travel and play three tests against Pacific Nations (from; Tonga/Samoa/NZ/PNG/Fiji), as well as Wales, France, Scotland & Ireland also travelling and playing three games. The following year, the Pacific Nations travel here.

For our sport to really prosper and be taken seriously, we need an International Calendar, not an International Month shoehorned into the end of October/beginning of November. Our national teams also need more games. Union have the Autumn Internationals, which work brilliantly, I'm thinking along these lines.

I'm convinced, just need to convince uncle Rupert to allow it to happen.

I really don't understand why anyone bothers to interact with this troll.

Would calling the team Great Britain make them any stronger?

Answer - No!

In days gone by many great Welsh players have added to the strength of the team, however now no-one from Wales or Scotland would get into the England team right now. And that is because no-one from Union needs to come to League to earn money. Does anyone seriously think that Billy Boston would have come to League if he could have earned the same playing Union? Or Jonathon Davies?

Great Britain RL is an anachronism.

Mind you, the Scottish and Welsh teams are a waste of time too. No-one in Scotland or Wales is remotely interested in watching them play. Hence we have the bizarre sight of Scotland playing NZ in Workington!!! Proof if any were needed, that no-one in Scotland cares. We will get 3 or 4,000 hardy souls at Workington on Friday watching a Scotland team without a single player with a Scottish accent! Probably as a good a definition of pointless as you could get.

I don't really follow that logic. Surely all that proves is that the RFL [ithink[/i that nobody in Scotland cares? hence playing it at Workington where they hope to draw out an attendance of RL enthusiasts.

Proof would be holding the game in Scotland and nobody turning up, wouldn't it? Even then, it's a bit of a chicken & egg scenario really - do you only play games there once the interest is there, or do you create the interest by playing games there? The accent comment is daft. Nationality isn't defined by your accent.

We also have the issue that when they have played games in Scotland in the past (Galashiels), it's against inferior opposition, in inferior competitions and they themselves can't attract the same quality of squad like we've seen in the 4 Nations this year.

I'd like to see a move to create Regional Academies in Wales and Scotland, along the same lines as the Midlands, Cumbria & North-East academies - helping to create that additional pathway for talent to come through in those nations.

The accent point was a bit of a throwaway, of course nationality isn't defined by your accent. But whatever it is defined by, I'm not sure the current set up would satisfy most people's idea of what would constitute a national team, which is, in effect, a team of lads from Lancs/Yorks/Aus playing their home games in Cumbria.

Having been made to schlepp 120+ miles on Saturday and a further 200+ to watch top class rugby league in this country it can reasonably be argued that I support the international game. I just recognise a con when I see one. Marketing England v Scotland as some sort of clash of the 'old firm' and holding the game in a half full stadium on a retail park in Coventry just adds to the nonsense.

Does anyone realise what a demoralising thing it is for the players to play in front of such a pitiful crowd? The games should have been played at Leeds, Wigan and Hull in front of sell out crowds. And France should have been in the tournament over Scotland, and we could have played a few over there, in front of decent crowds..

Probably not, no.

However, it [icould[/i be used in the right way, which would be to inspire Scottish kids to take up the game, or encourage more people to watch regularly. it's difficult to do that from Workington, I fully agree with you on that point.



Well, they have to at least try and market it haven't they?

I think the attendance (21kish?) was pretty decent considering where it was held and it was bonfire night. Maybe it wasn't the best choice of venue, agreed.



Craven Park and Workington will be a lot more pitiful.

France could've been in the tournament. They had to win the 2014 European Cup, but they didn't. I was encouraged though by their performance against England in the friendly, and a decent crowd too.

Going off on a slight tangent, surely the Magic weekend was the ideal event to create some interest in less well established areas and it would be ideal to stage the Magic event in Edinburgh or Cardiff and then aim to sell tickets for other fixtures/ Internationals on the back of that.

I understand that the 2021 world cup had been arranged over here and IF we were serious about increasing interest in Scotland and Wales then, perhaps we should have the Magic events in these places prior to some Internationals being played in the area.

Although having the next world cup planned, we really do lack a proper forward thinking strategy for the game (at all levels)

Just on the whole eligibility debate - Chris Morley (brother of Adrian) played for Wales, using the grandparent ruling - however in his autobiography, Adrian confirmed that they didn't have a Welsh grand parent. They don't even check if the eligibility is genuine...

Just take a super league game to new venues. Coventry should have been announced as a venue soon as 4 nations 2015 was finished.

Then there should have been a strategy in place to take a super league game their.

They do indeed have to market it. What an unenviable task that is. It looked nowhere near 21,000 to me. I'm always suspicious when they don't announce the crowd size at the end. I did leave with a few minutes to go so maybe I missed it.

I know France failed to qualify but they had a substandard team out in that competition. They probably regret that now. They could have played a couple of games in France and got bigger crowds. Oh well. On to London. I enjoyed the experience last year but the game was awful. Hoping for better this time. You might say a triumph of hope over experience.

I dont think that you can take random SL games on the road (although Wigan have played the odd home game at different venues) but, as I said,
the Magic Event is the ideal stage for promoting the game in new areas but, instead, we have gone for the boring/safe option of Manchester - not exactly pushing any boundaries