Online forums are tiny minority of fans though, even then it's what, a few people in one or two threads. Hardly an overwhelming majority of posters on either site.

GB is a loved brand. Go post on any Aus/NZ forum or email the media people in Aus/NZ or talk to the ARL. See what they want and if anyone at all cares if GB has one non-English player or 13. It makes no difference to the fans if Scotland has a pro team or not.

British RL fans are kind of known for their navel gazing and imo this whole topic is missing the point, which is that fans love GB tours and the players love GB tours. A couple of dozen posters on internet forums won't change that...

You seem to assume that the only people that prefer the England brand are the ones that post about it online, and everyone else is staunchly in favour of GB. Can't you just accept that there are a lot of people that prefer how it is now, and it has made very little difference to our national set up except a different shirt and badge.

As for the Aussies loving the British brand, yeah right! They barely know the difference in the media! The amount of times I heard commentators calling GB "England" and "the English".

Instead of trying to tell me that everyone loves GB and trying to argue a majority you can't prove to be some kind of fact, why don't you try and use some logic as to why it's better to have GB rather than England?

but GB won't contain ANY welsh,scots or irish

The ROI arent in the GB&I side. The entire island of Ireland is. It was a deliberate distinction which was chosen because of the political situation there.

we dont a GB&ROI do we. We dont have GB&NI either. We have GB&I because we arent referring to the country ROI, we are referring to the rep side Ireland. It is exactly like Team GB because it was the national team of the UK, then we added the rep team of Ireland in aswell.

No it was the national side of the country of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and NI and was for 80+ years before we added the rep side of Ireland.
No i was using it to distinguish between the north and the republic and the island as a whole. The context made it pretty clear for anyone but a moron.

Great Britain is a country, i am citizen of it. I am a British Citizen, I have a British passport check your history. More pertinently check your rugby league history. In our game, our national side for the vast majority of our games history was the GB side. Their flag was the union flag, their anthem was God save the queen, and they included players from all over the UK. Northern Irish players have always been eligible. Like Team GB, the GB lions were a UK representative side. The reason they were called GB is for ease of use, and that GB can be used, and often is, as a synonym for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (as is 'the uk') Until and Ireland was added Brian Carney, who, as a citizen of the ROI didnt qualify for GB, did as a member of the Island of Ireland rep side.

No, it is opinion. The GB lions had a British Isles X111 on their crest for about 80 years when players from the republic werent eligible. Back when the GB lions were the national side of the UK.
This is what you seem to have missed completely. GB was the national side. It was the UK's national side. It included NI. It always did. It was created to represent that nation. Not the republic.

The fact it represents one nation, the nation it always represented, the United Kingdom of GB and Northern Ireland, and one rep side, a whole of Ireland side, is a deliberate choice. It is a deliberate decision that neither Northern Ireland, nor the Sovereign nation of the Republic of Ireland are mentioned.

Just as another example for you, Rory McIlroy will likely represent Team GB at the 2016 olympics, he represents the all Ireland team at the golf World Cup, and represent GB&I in the Seve Trophy. Or Paul Mcginley who would play for the Republic of Ireland in the olympics, Ireland in the Alfred Dunhill cup and GB&I in the Seve trophy.

And they do, and would compete as such. There is no reason to pretend that anyone who is English is anymore English than they are British. I would have no problem with a 'European' team playing an 'Australasian' side. Anzac, Pacific Isles, and Celtic tigers would be different.
Fiji are less likely to play in major international matches because they are included in fewer major international tournaments. That is the main reason. One of the things international football gets right, is that every two years, the clock is reset. It doesnt matter if you are france, Germany, Brazil, or Ecuador, San Marino or the Ivory Coast. You start back at the same point, with regular competitive international football. Everyone starts back at the same point. Which massively limits the impact compared to RL
2007 isnt that long ago and Tours would solve that problem. A four year cycle leaves a year, a year for a Tour. A year when GB and france can tour the Southern hemisphere, playing against the pacific island sides in their homes, and Aus NZ or Aus, nZ and a pac isles team can come north and play the home nations and france.

Does the island of Ireland not include the Republic of Ireland? The Lions represent the ROI, and the UK. It really isn't that difficult. To say that GB&I doesn't include the ROI is just plain incorrect.


We don't have a GB&ROI because that would be stupid. It would exclude NI.
GB&NI would be the UK, which is a sovereign nation. Team GB are actually the Great Britain & Northern Ireland Olympic Team. Team GB is just its brand name. It's just easier to say. It has evolved from the time they have entered the Olympics being called "Great Britain & Ireland". Why they were entered as that back in the 19th century and not UK I don't know. The region has that many different names and been through that many transitions.

When saying GB&I, we are referring to the countries in these regions. Great Britain was the brand, and still is. They didn't want to drop that part of the brand, and added the rest necessary to keep it whilst still representing the areas. GB&I represent the UK and the ROI combined. There is no denying this. This is a fact. British Isles XIII, as it says on the badge, is the islands of Great Britain and Ireland combined. It encompasses two sovereign nations. It represents these two sovereign nations. To say that it doesn't is just plain incorrect.

"Great Britain" may be used loosely to describe the UK, but it isn't correct. GB is just England, Scotland and Wales.


Have you just made that up? 80 years ago we were just called The Lions. Before that, we were the Northern Union. Australia weren't even Australia a lot of the time. They toured as Australasia and included Kiwi players. They weren't Great Britain until the late 40s.

They didn't just add the rep side of Ireland, they added the correct tag that would allow them to keep Great Britain in the name.


I understood it. It was just completely pointless to use a word that can represent both to distinguish from the two!


No it bloody isn't! It's an island that includes England, Wales and Scotland. Until you can understand this, you are forever digging yourself a whole. It is loosely, but incorrectly, used to mean United Kingdom.


You are not. You are a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.


British and Irish nationality laws are very complex. Being a British citizen means you hold a connection with the UK and the crown dependencies. being an Irish citizen means you hold a connection with the island of Ireland. Being born in Northern Ireland means you can hold both British and Irish citizenship.
By saying being British means Britain is a country would also mean that being Irish means Ireland is a country. Both are wrong. Neither Great Britain or Ireland are countries.


Yes you're right. GB was for ease of use, as that is what it was originally called. It's easier than saying GB&I. GB is often used, incorrectly, to mean the UK.
Brian Carney qualified for the team that represented him, Great Britain & Ireland. The fact that you think GB is a country is why you are struggling to understand the rest of this. You need to be either a British citizen or an Irish citizen. If they made a Pacific Isles team, it would be a similarly contrived multi-national rep side. It really isn't that difficult.


Did the GB Lions have a British Isles XIII crest for 80 years? I'm pretty certain it was added in the late 90s. Most of the shirts in the 90s didn't have "British Isles XIII" on it. And 80 years ago the team were just the Lions, not GB.


Yes, to keep the GB brand. What you are saying is that the side added a second sovereign nation, ROI, and used the correct terminolgy to keep the name Great Britain (the brand) in the title. I can't believe you're still trying to dig yourself into this hole.


Rory McIlroy (Belfast born) represents Team GB (officially called the Great Britain & Northern Ireland Olympic team) is hardly a shock.
It is also hardly a shock that he would represent an All Ireland side, being Irish.
It is also hardly a shock that he would represent a GB&I side, being from Ireland.
What is your point here?

Paul McGinley (Dublin born) represents Ireland at the Olympics is also hardly hard to comprehend.
Nor is it that he represents Ireland in the Alfred Dunhill Cup.
Or GB&I in the Seve Trophy.
He is Irish. He qualifies for them all.
I don't get what you're trying to prove here, other than an Irishman represents an Irish side, and also a GB&I side. None of them are nations. They are geographical areas which he represents.

You've written a lot of b*llocks on here to try and argue something that just isn't true. Great Britain isn't a country. It hasn't been since 1801. The fact it used to be a country and is used to describe a geographical area is most likely why people still refer to the nation. But it is incorrect.

The Lions do not represent one country alone. They are a multinational side (which includes the UK and ROI).
These are facts. These aren't opinions. I'm not surprised though that you keep dragging this on though as you can never admit when you get something wrong.

No, it deliberately doesnt. It includes an all-ireland side. One which doesnt represent either the ROI or NI, but the Island of Ireland. There are some pretty obvious reasons why somoene from NI wouldnt want to play for a team which represented the ROI and vice versa.

Exactly like the GB lions.
Why you keep equating ‘ireland’ with the republic of Ireland, I don’t know. It clearly isn’t.
If people understand it, it is correct. It is the beauty of the English language, it keeps evolving.
My apologies, we have been GB since the 1940’s. which is 65 years ago, not 80+, that makes a huge difference.
No, according to your logic, the name would GB and NI and ROI because that is where it represents. But it doesn’t, because it isn’t. It is called GB and I a team of people eligible to represent Great Britain, including those from Northern Ireland, as it was before and those eligible to represent the all Ireland team.
Except you understood it. If you understood it, it acheived its aim perfectly.

No, it can be used to describe sovereign nation of Great Britain and often is, as you yourself admit.

Yes, I am a citizen of the UK, GB, The united Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They can all be used to describe the same thing.

Thanks for this, I, along surely with everyone else was wondering what citizenship meant. Erm, no it doesnt.

Except it wasnt GB&I originally. The I was added later, and yes, it is a good thing you have accepted that GB is often used, for ease of use, to mean the UK, those two abbreviations can mean the same thing.
Brian Carney wasnt eligible because he isnt British. He can however represent the Island of Ireland, not the ROI because there is no ROI team, there is no ROI RL administration. There is an all-Ireland administration and all-ireland rep side. Which is what made Carney eligible.

.And.........

No, Im not. What im saying, is what I said originally. That GB & NI are a sovereign nation, and the GB Lions were the national side of that nation. However, NI is now administered as part of an all-ireland RL league and representative side. Ireland. This encompases Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland but for obvious political reasons isn’t either or both. It is a rep side, for the Island of Ireland, not the de factor ROI side. So what the GB&I side was referring to, deliberately, was the former national side of GB&NI ‘the GB Lions’, and the all-Ireland rep side.
It is simply an analogue to this situation. Where the Ireland in GB&I doesn’t refer to the republic but to the all-ireland side they both represent.
I honestly don’t know how to explain this any simpler for you. There was and is a deliberate decision for Ireland to be administered and represented on an all Ireland basis, where it represents no sovereign nation but the Island of Ireland to avoid any political considerations, and this is what forms the ‘ireland’ in GB and Ireland, it isn’t meant as another name for the republic. GB was the national side for the UK, for ease of use it was referred to as GB. These teams were then merged. This is why we have one nation GB (which was used as an analogue of GB, as you admit) and one island, Ireland.

If the Autumn International summary has been moved to International board, can this one go the same way?

The dissection of some posts is so very tedious.

I've cut out the parts where you're just repeating the same incorrect nonsense and thought if look at your new ways of digging yourself further into the wrong:


Not really my logic at all. However, it is exactly the same as saying GB & I. It's exactly the same as saying British Isles. And it's exactly the same as the UK& ROI. But they wanted to keep GB in the title, and GB & I is shorter.


In spite of, not because of. Don't pat yourself on the back.


Absolute nonsense. Earlier in this thread, you were (incorrectly) accused me of calling the ROI "Ireland" (when really you were confusing GB as meaning the UK). Many people refer to the ROI as Ireland. Does that make it correct? Because you've just tried telling me off for it, which is a huge contradiction on your part!

Maybe, just maybe, you are wrong on this and you're being disingenuous in trying to convince me that I'm wrong to save yourself the blushes.

Apparently if people keep saying things incorrectly, it's correct? So the fact that so many refer to the UK as England means Scotland and Wales are also England. That's what you're saying.

Great Britain is not a country. It's an island.