For those that don't know or remember what we used to do.
The Australians would come on tour here for an Ashes Test Series, and we would go there for the following one.
The Ashes were contested 39 times, from 1908 to 2003.
When the Aussies came over they would play games against the leading club sides, as both warm ups and between the games.
The Great Britain side did the same over there, playing their club teams.
As a club supporter, it was the ultimate game, to watch your team going up against The Kangaroos.
The series themselves were often enthralling, and common wisdom, or folklore had it that the Aussies let us win the first one, to make a series of it.
In any event, I have seen some fantastic games, and been at brilliant occasions during these series.
I also remember tours by New Zealand, and New Zealand Maoris, but it was the Aussie games everyone wanted to see.
I spoke to Jonathan Davies recently, and he said that one of the highlights of his career was scoring the winning try in the first test at Wembley in 1994.
Incidentally that 3 match series drew an aggregate crowd of 140,430 spectators, with 57,034 at Wembley, 43,930 at Old Trafford and 39,468 at Elland Road.
It is worth remembering that the last two were capacity crowds at those stadiums then.
Unfortunately due to the one sided nature of the contests, and other issues, the idea of international tours seems to have faded away.
I do miss them though, and would love to see their return.

Fully endorse everything said !!

Thats when internationals were internationals and Tours were Tours.

Couldn't wait for the Aussies to come to Wilderspool. I will never forget
the Wednesday night when Mike Nicolas caught the ball from the first kickoff
and was immediately flattened by the whole Aussie pack.

He picked himself up, pointed to them all and said "OK". He then proceeded
to sort them all individually until they were a beaten pack. He won that
game, against the touring Aussies on his own (well almost).

I chatted to him about it at Bridgend when Wires played there last.
Bobby Wanbon was there in the bar too.

What a pair of forwards !!

Happy days

I couldn't agree more.

I agree too

I think most people agree this is the best form of international RL, but how would it work in the summer era? The two nations used to play our domestic seasons at different times, so GB could tour Aus during their season and Aus could tour here during ours, but now the two seasons run concurrently there would be a major conflict of interests if you wanted to arrange a mid season tour involving matches V clubs.

Hypothetically, now that Warrington would make a reasonable contribution to any GB squad, how would people feel about allowing the international squad to take 6-8 weeks off mid season to go to Australia? People always compare international RL with RU, and RU does have central contracts and the clubs just get on with it when their players are away with their national side. That is an alien concept in RL though, so would we allow it to work?

On one hand there is the carrot of the Kangaroos coming over here every fourth summer, playing a match against your club if you've earned it (the previous seasons top six perhaps?) and playing three genuinely appetising test matches against Great Britain at bigger venues than we tend to use now. I think Old Trafford might be too big now, but surely a big one at Wembley, then two "local" tests at Eastlands and Elland Road would work.

The players could still represent their clubs on non-test weeks, with the season being extended to mid-late October (no post season internationals needed, so just push the play offs back a couple of weeks and scrap Magic Weekend in Ashes years) to allow three stand alone test weekends - hopefully on the BBC - with the GB players being "in camp" for the week leading up to each one while the non-internationals at each club play a midweek fixture against the touring side.

On the flip side every fourth summer when it was Australia's turn to host the series, we would have to accept that the best players in the game were leaving Super League behind for a while. I know some people whinge about the regular season being "glorified friendlies" at the moment, but I reckon that attitude would soon change if we had four or five players away in Australia and lost a couple of games against teams with few or no internationals that we would normally expect to beat and this ultimately cost us a decent play off position or possibly even the LLS.

In real terms now you simply can't have it both ways, so would the wider RL community be prepared to accept the latter scenario if it meant we could also enjoy the former?

I loved the 1994 series which was the first one I remember - I went to Wilderspool for our game against the tourists, and will never forget watching the Jonathan Davies inspired Wembley match on telly. In 1997 it was different because it was the Super League team during the Aussie civil war and no club games, but we still managed to have a big enough series to hold a game at Wembley which I went to.

By 2003 it had lost the magic though. The venues were downgraded to Wigan, Huddersfield and Hull - the three biggest grounds in RL yes, but not on the same par as the football grounds used previously - and combined with no club games it just felt like an end of season tournament. I went to the game in Wigan where Moz (who at this point was not a legendary Warrington captain so I wasn't happy with him!) got sent off after 12 seconds, and GB still gave a decent account of themselves in front of a full house so it wasn't bad, but it wasn't anywhere near the pulsating level of 1994. Sadly it felt like the end of the road and it was.

The tournaments now are rubbish. England don't have the same RL history as GB, and even if the GB team are all English anyway (which wouldn't neccessarily be the case despite what people say - you never know who will emerge in future) it's the jersey that matters not the player. Nothing will match the Ashes for excitement and public enthusiasm, so can we possibly make them happen again in their true format?

To be fair, RU manages to have two series of major international matches during their domestic club season and the clubs seem to cope ok.

Also, with most people accepting the league season is now a very low priority, I think clubs could easily cope with losing players for a 4-6 week period during a season?

Fantastic memories, those who saw those matches in the flesh or on tele were priviledged. It's a tragedy a generation of RL fans might grow up (or even old) and never see a Kangaroos tour - they were an iconic brand as well as an incredible succession of teams, someone people from outside RL admired, knew and even feared.

Some younger fans tend to think, understandably perhaps, RL from the 80's or 90's was all pie n peas on the fletcher end, manky toilets (which it was for the most part) and dour games in the fog and mud..... but go youtube any of the kangaroo teams from 82 onwards - they don't lose much, if anything, in comparison with todays teams.

Would the 82 kangaroos beat the 2012 England team? Wouldn't bet against it folks.

Thats because the RFU pays the clubs handsomely for the privilege, out of the proceeds of packed out international stadiums.

Having said that the biggest obstacle to this would be lack of interest for the Aussies.

What is in it for them? The NRL is going from strength to strength and they have the best league in the world. If you take players out of that, what is the prize on offer? To test themselves against the might of GB/England and see if they can win the Ashes?

It would be the equivalent of telling the SL clubs they had to lose England players for a few weeks of the season to play an international series in France. Would the benefits of proving ourselves best in Europe against the French, be worth sacrificing players from the domestic competition? Because thats how the Aussies will see playing us.

The Jonathon Davies try against the Aussies was one of the highlights of all my time watching rugby league. Great day out at Wembley.

Seems like that level of interest is now a distant memory.

Not wanting to state the blindly obvious but ....... aren't most of these memories of Great Britain & club vs country tour games being fantastic and huge attendances, all pre-Super League?

Isn't that the dimension that really changed things, rather than just the England v Great Britain arguement?

The SL 'war' was one of the biggest reasons the International game lost momentum.

The SL test at Wembley had about 30k people there from memory.

The other reason overlooked as to why the crowds were bigger then was that we had all the ex-Union stars playing - Jiffy and the like. It was this that caused our media profile to increase and therefore the crowds watching it.

The SL war was then compounded by the 2k WC which lead to a complete retrenching of the international game. We only got back to Wembley last year (great day out.)

I don't see this as an either or argument - can't we have both? It's not beyound the wit of man surely to arrange an international schedule whereby we have a 4 Nations (England) and World Cup (England, Wales etc.) some years and a GB Ashes maybe every 5 years to follow up on a World Cup?

As SC pointed out, the big issue is the NRL clubs releasing players. Hopefully they can be sold on the fact that players getting international exposure helps build the league and its overall value.

It's worth remembering that the early-90s halcyon days, as great as they were, was the last period before flight prices came down and before we could watch Australian RL several times a week on Sky TV. Because we know all of the Australian players and see them on a weekly basis, the idea of a tour simply doesn't hold any of the same mystique these days.

The other reason there was excitement around those series, reaching their peak I guess with the '95 World Cup was that RL fans would still bother to go outside of their front rooms to watch rugby with a positive attitude. Multi-channel TV, Twitter and RLFans means they can sit in their underpants, like Marco-van-B did last weekend, and moan to his heart's content to what he would like to think of as a global audience. Rather than step in the cold and play a part in making international RL great again.

The effect of the SKY TV deals shouldn't be ignored too. Pre-SL, we used to have Challenge Cup, Regal Trophy and Internationals all on the BBC. That, plus the mystique of the Aussies plus high-profile RU defectors all helped raise the profile of RL and many players were recognisable names. Such as Hanley, Offiah, Davies et al.

SKY came in and gave the clubs much needed instant money and to a lesser extent (the original deal was £87m!) ongoing money, but a downside has been less games live on the BBC on a Saturday afternoon. It would be interesting to compare the TV viewing figures for, say, a Regal Trophy final against this years SL Grand Final.

I put this post up as I wondered if anyone else had good memories of international Rugby league as it used to be, i.e. International Tours.
The response has mostly been very positive, and people seem to be making constructive comments on how we could get back to an era where our flagship games were top sport viewing for the entire country.
Some valid points have been raised about the clash of seasons making it difficult now and I accept these arguments.

You on the other hand have decided to come on here and insult me because I didn’t go to Wrexham.
Last week you described people who didn’t share your enthusiasm for the modern internationals as, nobheads and s.

It is true; I think that the current International Game is a waste of time, and that this 4 Nations Tournament is a Mickey Mouse Competition.
I think that the pitiful crowd last Saturday, and the one sided hammering proves me right not to even consider going, it was a no contest.
As I pointed out, why did the England team need go to South Africa for altitude training to prepare for that?
Also if by avoiding games like this it means that I don’t have to share the same acre of planet, with foul mouthed ignorant people like you, then it’s a “win-win”, for me.

You can't blame the customers for not wanting a rubbish product.

In 95 Wales had Jonathan Davies, Allan Bateman, Scott Gibbs, Scott Quinnell, Iestyn Harris....people will turn up to watch them. You aren't going to get people turning up to watch a bunch of semi pros get flogged by 80 points by England because its not interesting.

Who looks a bigger dick? Tomkins or the worlds greatest hooker.

Arsene Wenger.

Warrington players having a great game in this afternoon's match. France seem to be kicking a lead ball.

Nice of Hock to get MOM just so the BBC can ask him about his alleged move to Parramatta.

He had a poor game and was nowhere near the best player on the pitch.

The pitiful crowd did not prove you right to not go - expecting the crowd to be poor should not be a reason not to go. However you do have a point about the mis-matches - sadly these games are not doing much to improve international RL credibility.



They didn't. They went to SA as part of the preperations for RLWC2013. The team needs to spend as much time together as it can so that when the big games against Aus and/or NZ come round, they are ready. It was interesting to see the Warrington players comment on how things they did in Aus in January were still in their mind before and during the Grand Final in October. These intensive training camps can do so much to prepare players individually and as a team for big events.

It is a great shame that the otherwise successful inclusion in SL of Catalans has not helped (yet) produce a more competitive France team and obviously it's extremely dissapointing we don't currently have a Welsh team at all in SL. But I still don't see the current and recent weaknesses as reasons to give up. International RL does have a place and it can be successful with a bit of tweaking. And I'm convinced RLWC2013 is going to be a good event with mostly competitive matches.

hmmm, I see England hammered Fiji today in that other type of rugby. A one-sided, meaningless game - surely no-one bothered to turn up, right? Er, hang on, this must be wrong. I've just looked it up and apparently 81,000+ were at Twickers! If only RL had fans like that! Then we'd get more attention, more money, more sponsors, more attention, more money, more players, better facilities, more money, more attention etc. Many RL fans moan about what is provided for them and about how the game is run - if only they'd turn up to games then perhaps they'd have less to moan about?

Maybe the fact that one-sided meaningless games are very infrequent in RU leads to more people caring about the national side, and therefore turning up like we would for a wire match against a team (I know we don't get 81k but you see my point).