MattSantos Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 In summary, i still cant buy 2019 test tickets can i? Running the Rob Burrow marathon to raise money for the My Name'5 Doddie foundation: https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ben-dyas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 1 minute ago, roughyedspud said: Hardly anyone wants GB once in a blue moon let alone full time GB were as popular as England RL, more so in certain situations, whether we are England or GB doesn't make a massive amount of difference. The issue is around consistency and the other nations. When I see people saying things like Scotland RL shouldn't be allowed to play games, then I wonder how successful this split has been. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipw Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 32 minutes ago, gingerjon said: Who can forget the glory days of just about beating the Burleigh Bears ... Wasn't that on the 99 Tri-Nations tour? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gingerjon Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Just now, philipw said: Wasn't that on the 99 Tri-Nations tour? It was the warm up match. Really helped sell international football to the aussies. Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roughyedspud Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 13 minutes ago, Dave T said: GB were as popular as England RL, more so in certain situations, whether we are England or GB doesn't make a massive amount of difference. The issue is around consistency and the other nations. When I see people saying things like Scotland RL shouldn't be allowed to play games, then I wonder how successful this split has been. Scotland are the only one with question marks about it....ENGLAND RL is as big if not bigger,due to the times we live in,as GB ever was.....there's a whole generation of kids now who have no idea what GB is...or that they lost for 40years before that! Ireland have just named 14 proper Irishmen in their 35man squad and the domestic league seems to have found its feet.. Likewise the Welsh have just named a decent amount of Welshmen in their squad even with the likes of Reagan grace & Ben flower opting out this time (injury??)....and they have 2 teams in the lower league,a performance center and funding from sport Wales.. Which is exactly why GB was disbanded....the benefits of putting the emphasis of the 4 home nations instead of GB was always gonna take 10-15 year to bare fruit....and it's getting there now..11 years in OLDHAM RLFC the 8TH most successful team in british RL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scubby Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 2 hours ago, Dave T said: Thanks I did have Waddell in my head, but I didn't think Wiki could be wrong! But the essence of the point is right. People don't point to that GB team in 1988 being a 'fake' of any sort. To be fair in the 10-15 years before and 5 years or so after there were a lot of Welsh players in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
17 stone giant Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 24 minutes ago, roughyedspud said: Ireland have just named 14 proper Irishmen in their 35man squad and the domestic league seems to have found its feet.. Likewise the Welsh have just named a decent amount of Welshmen in their squad I don't want to appear negative, but in my mind it's not just about putting "proper" Irish, Scottish, and Welsh players into their respective teams. The question is whether those "proper" players are good enough to make Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, genuinely competitive with the likes of England, Australia, and New Zealand. Because that's what RL needs. It needs more competitive teams at the top level. It's great if, say, Ireland take to the field with 13 "proper" Irishmen in their team. But what use is it if when playing against the likes of England, New Zealand, and Australia, they get smashed 80-0, or whatever. Nobody is going to want to watch that. My concern is whether enough good "proper" players are ever going to be produced by those nations, in order to make them genuinely competitive with the Tier 1 teams. I hope that they are, but realistically how near or far are we from that happening? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 38 minutes ago, roughyedspud said: Scotland are the only one with question marks about it....ENGLAND RL is as big if not bigger,due to the times we live in,as GB ever was.....there's a whole generation of kids now who have no idea what GB is...or that they lost for 40years before that! Ireland have just named 14 proper Irishmen in their 35man squad and the domestic league seems to have found its feet.. Likewise the Welsh have just named a decent amount of Welshmen in their squad even with the likes of Reagan grace & Ben flower opting out this time (injury??)....and they have 2 teams in the lower league,a performance center and funding from sport Wales.. Which is exactly why GB was disbanded England RL brand is no bigger than GB - tbh, we could scrap England and become Great Britain in time for next week's series and the general population wouldn't really know or care. We would still get the same numbers watching on BBC (maybe more as some of the Welsh and Scottish folk may enjoy it too). Great Britain last played 11 years ago, this is not a generation ago. It is absolutely interchangeable - in the early 90's we had good crowds as GB, and then in 1995 we became England for the WC and got good crowds there too. We bombed as England in 2000. We recovered as GB in the early 00's and became England in 2008 for the WC onwards - but there is little to suggest that England has moved on (see the other thread, Wednesday returned the lowest crowd for 20-odd years to watch England). GB beat the Aussies in 2006, many 18 year olds will have fond memories of that, like I did of Mike Gregory going the length of the field in 1988 - so let's cut out the BS making out this is just for old codgers. BTW, I wouldn't bring back GB, but let's not make up stuff to support the view. It is ultimately personal preference. I don't massively care, my preference is just that we stick with it, and as we have been doing England RL for the last 10 years, let's carry on with that and push it ahead! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buderus Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 As an Aussie I’ve always thought the biggest advantage of being Great Britain is it’s a point of difference from union and other sports. I personally feel like England rugby league can be overshadowed by England rugby union. As much as people ###### on the jersey argument here. People knew Great Britain and the jersey was a rugby league brand. It stood out I do agree with many here that it should be one or the other all the time, not switching between the 2. I do sometimes think International rugby league is so focused on having quantity over quality in terms of number of teams and there makeup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 4 minutes ago, Buderus said: As an Aussie I’ve always thought the biggest advantage of being Great Britain is it’s a point of difference from union and other sports. I personally feel like England rugby league can be overshadowed by England rugby union. As much as people ###### on the jersey argument here. People knew Great Britain and the jersey was a rugby league brand. It stood out I do agree with many here that it should be one or the other all the time, not switching between the 2. I do sometimes think International rugby league is so focused on having quantity over quality in terms of number of teams and there makeup The irony here is that often the Aussie commentators referred to GB as England! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 1 minute ago, Johnoco said: They possibly didnt mock (although i bet some did) for the same reason that the Davis cup or Olympic relay teams can be composed entirely of English players one year but they know that next time it could include Scots or Welsh or whatever. If the Davis Cup team was solely made up of English players for 20 years or so, then I would imagine people would start questioning the point in calling it GB. RL doesn't have a plan to develop non English players, leaving it up to chance or a club like Halifax taking a punt on a promising players. So I don't see how it is gonna change. You won't get me disagreeing with the last paragraph. But I just don't see that people will care about the first issue. And I suppose other people's argument is that maybe some of these players could be enticed to come to RL again. We used to get world class Union players coming to RL for money, and they could continue playing a decent standard of international RL. The international game has gone miles backwards for a Welsh and Scottish lad. Hence the likes of Rhys Evans even considers playing for England! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roughyedspud Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 29 minutes ago, Dave T said: England RL brand is no bigger than GB - tbh, we could scrap England and become Great Britain in time for next week's series and the general population wouldn't really know or care. We would still get the same numbers watching on BBC (maybe more as some of the Welsh and Scottish folk may enjoy it too). Great Britain last played 11 years ago, this is not a generation ago. It is absolutely interchangeable - in the early 90's we had good crowds as GB, and then in 1995 we became England for the WC and got good crowds there too. We bombed as England in 2000. We recovered as GB in the early 00's and became England in 2008 for the WC onwards - but there is little to suggest that England has moved on (see the other thread, Wednesday returned the lowest crowd for 20-odd years to watch England). GB beat the Aussies in 2006, many 18 year olds will have fond memories of that, like I did of Mike Gregory going the length of the field in 1988 - so let's cut out the BS making out this is just for old codgers. BTW, I wouldn't bring back GB, but let's not make up stuff to support the view. It is ultimately personal preference. I don't massively care, my preference is just that we stick with it, and as we have been doing England RL for the last 10 years, let's carry on with that and push it ahead! The fact Wales,Ireland and England have flourished isn't making things up OLDHAM RLFC the 8TH most successful team in british RL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 Just now, roughyedspud said: The fact Wales,Ireland and England have flourished isn't making things up How are you deciding they have flourished? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buderus Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 40 minutes ago, Dave T said: The international game has gone miles backwards for a Welsh and Scottish lad. Hence the likes of Rhys Evans even considers playing for England! This is an excellent point. If it gets to the stage where Reagan Grace and the other young welsh players feel they need to switch to England to play in big international games then that is a big reason to go back to Great Britain. Big difference between regular test against AUS and NZ with good crowds vs 1000 people against Serbia, Scotland and Ireland Worst case they end up going to union Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 8 minutes ago, Johnoco said: Please explain to me how a Welsh guy can switch to England? What is this crazy logic that even allows this thinking? FFS He can live in St Helens for 3 years and then opt for England. This would see him either play full internationals in front of 800 in Wrexham, or play on a larger stage with England. Alternatively, the potential Welsh players just go to other sports that have a proper interantional game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 29 minutes ago, Johnoco said: Dave, Scotland RL hasn't got worse.... IIt simply wasn't there tto begin with. As for Wales, they now have more genuine Welshmen in the team than before, I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Why doesn't RL learn the lesson that you need to do the hard yards? Lay a foundation somewhere, plan things and develop those players. Then there will be genuine attachment to the game, however small it may be and taking it from there. Sticking a talented Scottish player in the England squad and calling it GB does not mean there's significant growth in RL there, it's just giving a false impression. Again, I don't disagree with any of that, but I don;t see anybody arguing that being GB represents growth, so I'm not sure who you are debating with there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rupert Prince Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 5 minutes ago, Johnoco said: Please explain to me how a Welsh guy can switch to England? What is this crazy logic that even allows this thinking? FFS Agreed. English players qualify for England and Welsh players qualify for Wales. It's absurd to switch them around like a moveable feast. If Grace had decided not to play for Wales and set out to qualify by residency then he could back himself to be available for England. Of course if we had a GB team, then he and others could happily play. And we could still have a Home Championship series if we wanted (Hmmm...). What we should have at the peak of the game is an overseas tour, to or from GB, with the Ashes it stake. One wonders if it really is the right thing to continue playing in the summer season... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 10 minutes ago, Johnoco said: Well, with respect Dave, you for one are suggesting that the international game has got worse since GB was stopped. I'd argue it's more widespread than ever before. The argument seems to be that if Welsh players are playing for GB, the game will be stronger. And no thought to the fact that it makes Wales weaker. GB were scrapped in 2007 - how is Wales' position stronger since then? And I'm not saying the international game is worse, just that we haven't delivered the growth that breaking into four nations could have done. And I completely disagree with Spud that England, Wales and Ireland have 'flourished'. I don't think there is much difference between England and GB in the slightest, it's why I wouldn't personally waste time on it, but I think the arguments against it are completely overstated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 12 minutes ago, Johnoco said: Just because they have pathetic rules like that mate, it doesn't make it right. Welsh guys are Welsh, even if they want to play for Germany. Maybe so, but we have seen loads of times, players will do that, it's a job. The opportunities afforded to the likes of Regan Grace, Ben Flower etc. are pretty rubbish, no matter how good they become. If the game got its act together and they had World 9's, inter-continental trophy and a World Cup to play in, that would be different, but we have cut these guys off. That is the real issue here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
17 stone giant Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 As I asked earlier on (to Dave T, but he maybe missed it)....IF GB were to be brought back on a full time basis, do people think that would/should include us playing as GB at the World Cup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buderus Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 4 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said: As I asked earlier on (to Dave T, but he maybe missed it)....IF GB were to be brought back on a full time basis, do people think that would/should include us playing as GB at the World Cup? If full time then yes. No point splitting up for 1 tournament. If they did I guess u would either go with a smaller World Cup (quality over quantity) or the likes of Serbia, Jamaica and Cook Islands would come in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 3 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said: As I asked earlier on (to Dave T, but he maybe missed it)....IF GB were to be brought back on a full time basis, do people think that would/should include us playing as GB at the World Cup? I'm almost past caring mate. There is no right or wrong here, what we will see is that we will trundle along drawing some decent crowds for the bigger games, and get a few hundred, maybe a thousand for some of the others. It can work either way, but if Scotland, Ireland and Wales want to be their own team and play in World Cups then carry on as we are. But we shouldn;t have GB randomly popping up every now and again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave T Posted October 19, 2018 Share Posted October 19, 2018 3 minutes ago, Johnoco said: If it had players like Flowers and Grace, don't you think there might be grounds for optimism that they could get a decent team together given the will? Instead all we hear is that there's no point and they should play for GB. If it takes 20-30 years to get a strong Wales team, then that's how it is. But I'll bet my wage that in 30 years the descendants of us on this board will be having roughly the same conversation. I don't doubt that, and persevering would be my preferred option (but with a different strategy - or just one at all)! But I don;t buy that things have flourished in these nations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolford6 Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 Has anyone actually asked Ben Flower and Regan Grace how they feel? Under Scrutiny by the Right-On Thought Police Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
17 stone giant Posted October 20, 2018 Share Posted October 20, 2018 4 minutes ago, Wolford6 said: Has anyone actually asked Ben Flower and Regan Grace how they feel? Do you think you could be sure of getting an honest answer from them? I mean, even if they thought that way, would you expect them to say "well, to be honest I'd play for England, if it meant being able to play in an Ashes series"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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