4 Nov: England v New Zealand KO 2.30pm (BBC TV)

[Clogiron]

5 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I think a heck of a lot of people have been whinging to be honest. 

True.

[tuutaisrambo]

Think NZ will hit back.....hopefully a big crowd

[Dunbar]

57 minutes ago, Clogiron said:

Suppose that's classed as neutral or as near as your likley to get, wonder if McGuire has been whinging behind the scenes?

Yes, I would say an Australian is neutral in a game between England and New Zealand.

[Mattrhino]

1 hour ago, Clogiron said:

Suppose that's classed as neutral or as near as your likley to get, wonder if McGuire has been whinging behind the scenes?

Was just going to post the same thing. Im sure Maguire was the main man behind this change in tact. 

No complaints from me, should have been obvious from the start.

[Mattrhino]

15 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Yes, I would say an Australian is neutral in a game between England and New Zealand.

Right, although all the NZ players play in the NRL and Sutton is an NRL ref so it isn't perfect.

But its better than having an English ref for a England game.

[yipyee]

13 hours ago, 17 stone giant said:

I don't know. I don't work for the RFL. I only know that they've announced that it will be a GB tour in 2019, so I would assume that England won't be playing very much in 2019, if at all. But since the GB team is very likely to be virtually identical to the England team, it will be a big test for those 13 players to see how they get on away from home. Winning at home to France and New Zealand is one thing, but winning away in NZ or Australia is another.

But that's a measure of GB and not England!

[MZH]

3 minutes ago, yipyee said:

But that's a measure of GB and not England!

Yes but you are just being pedantic. There won't be a single none English player that plays in any of the GB tests. There might not even be any on the tour.

[yipyee]

1 minute ago, MZH said:

Yes but you are just being pedantic. There won't be a single none English player that plays in any of the GB tests. There might not even be any on the tour.

Just pointing out that if it's England playing in GB jerseys it's a farce and the media will have a field day.

There must be a few from each country to make it a legit GB tour. There also needs to be a seperate coach and not Bennett.

 

[17 stone giant]

Just now, yipyee said:

Just pointing out that if it's England playing in GB jerseys it's a farce and the media will have a field day.

There must be a few from each country to make it a legit GB tour. There also needs to be a seperate coach and not Bennett.

 

I agree that it would be stupid, unless it's the first step towards a permanent return for Great Britain, which I'm hoping it will be. And I mean GB as the national team for the UK, and not a once every four year team for southern hemisphere tours, because as you rightly said, that is a farce given the current players situation.

[Rupert Prince]

39 minutes ago, yipyee said:

Just pointing out that if it's England playing in GB jerseys it's a farce and the media will have a field day.

There must be a few from each country to make it a legit GB tour. There also needs to be a seperate coach and not Bennett.

 

Amazingly stupid comment.  Our country is UK of GB. It, out RL team, will be playing against the whole of Australia. 

Does it matter if no one is selected for Australia from Tasmania?

[Wirral Warrior]

1 hour ago, Mattrhino said:

Right, although all the NZ players play in the NRL and Sutton is an NRL ref so it isn't perfect.

But its better than having an English ref for a England game.

Agreed...Hicks was over compensating last week. The 'authorities ' should not put ref's in that position. Sutton should have been over here for French and all NZ matches,

[Rupert Prince]

5 minutes ago, Wirral Warrior said:

Agreed...Hicks was over compensating last week. The 'authorities ' should not put ref's in that position. Sutton should have been over here for French and all NZ matches,

Will the new ref stop NZ players from head hunting?  It would also be glad to see them penalised for blatant forward passes. 

[DavidM]

1 hour ago, Rupert Prince said:

Amazingly stupid comment.  Our country is UK of GB. It, out RL team, will be playing against the whole of Australia. 

Does it matter if no one is selected for Australia from Tasmania?

Tasmania is a state not a nation . Australia is a unified national entity . Incomparable to the status of GB and it’s constituent parts or identities 

[Exiled Wiganer]

Here is a side that might be playing this time next year... 

hardaker

manfredi

watkins

percival 

hall

widdop

gale 

walmsley 

Roby 

Taylor 

currie 

s burgess 

ward 

We have some strength in depth these days. Perhaps because, as we lose top players in SL others keep grasping their opportunities... 

 

[Dunbar]

2 hours ago, Rupert Prince said:

Amazingly stupid comment.  Our country is UK of GB. It, out RL team, will be playing against the whole of Australia. 

Does it matter if no one is selected for Australia from Tasmania?

I don't normally do this but seeing as though you are happy to label other people's comments as amazingly stupid I feel obliged to point out that our sovereign country is in fact The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland not the UK of GB.

[DavidM]

16 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

I don't normally do this but seeing as though you are happy to label other people's comments as amazingly stupid I feel obliged to point out that our sovereign country is in fact The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland not the UK of GB.

And on top of that the Lions as an entity will also incorporate  Ireland as well 

[MattSantos]

Do people actually watch the game on the pitch? Leave the admin chat somewhere else, please!!!

[17 stone giant]

2 hours ago, Rupert Prince said:

Amazingly stupid comment.  Our country is UK of GB. It, out RL team, will be playing against the whole of Australia. 

Does it matter if no one is selected for Australia from Tasmania?

This all comes down to what GB or GB and Ireland is supposed to be in rugby league.

In rugby union, the Lions represent four countries playing together as "the Lions". Four countries that have their own national teams and are playing numerous times a year, every year. If you were to give the Lions their most accurate name, you would call them the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish Lions, since they are the four teams that the players are selected from to form the Lions. There is no British in rugby union - there is no British national team -  but to make things easier and to give the team a simpler name to refer to as, they join England, Scotland, and Wales together and call them British. This is a common sense thing to do, because to list all four nations every time you mentioned the team name, would just be tiresome. So, they call it the British and Irish Lions.

The point is, that it is four teams coming together, and therefore the expectation (requirement even) is that you have some players selected from all four nations. Ideally the starting 15 will have at least one player from each nation, but certainly the squad itself must have that. If it didn't, the Lions concept would soon die a death, most probably first of all in whatever country found itself with no players being selected.

Now, if RL wants to emulate the rugby union Lions, it really should be doing likewise and selecting players from all four nations. But if there aren't any players in Scotland, Wales, or Ireland that are good enough to make the squad on merit, let alone the team, then clearly it's a concept that currently has no merit. To make it work, the only solution is a quota system whereby you're including players who would otherwise not be good enough to warrant being selected. Is that what rugby league wants? I doubt it. It's certainly not what I want, and it's not what GB was when I first watched them in 1990.

What GB was back then was the national team for the UK. There was no British Isles XIII badge. There was no mention of Ireland by anyone, or any reference to Ireland on the shirt or in the songs or symbols used before or during the match. If you're bringing GB back, then as things currently stand, the 1990 version is the only one that has any credibility.

I just wish that the RFL would realise this, and either bring GB back on that basis, or not at all.

 

[Dunbar]

45 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Here is a side that might be playing this time next year... 

hardaker

manfredi

watkins

percival 

hall

widdop

gale 

walmsley 

Roby 

Taylor 

currie 

s burgess 

ward 

We have some strength in depth these days. Perhaps because, as we lose top players in SL others keep grasping their opportunities... 

 

I agree.  The strength in depth is better than it has been for a long time.  We have a core of around 25 players that wouldn't look out of their depth in this series.  Some positions are better covered than others but I guess that is inevitable... I remember when we were picking stand off's to play on the wing and yet today we have McGilvary, Makinson and Johnstone in the English squad, quality players like Davies and Lineham in the Knights team while Manfredi and Hall are not considered due to injury (or in Manfredi's case just returning from injury).  Some real depth there.

[Exiled Wiganer]

18 hours ago, Rupert Prince said:

These teams suggested are daft.

Bennett is not going to make many changes. Our fullback did OK, both hookers spell anyway. Bennett specifically picked out Williams after the game, he and Tomkins work separate sides, they do not get in each others way. No need do disrupt our centres. No need to invent a total new flashy half who has no experience to run a game.

Lockers might be injured so keep Bateman on the right edge and just but Thompson in to the middle. Draft in Greenwood to the bench.

 

Mine was for next year, so we’ll see how daft it is then (probably very).

Having re-watched the game, Hodgson was at the heart of so much rubbish play in another world he would be bringing on the kicking tee. 

If I was allowed to make just one change it would be Ratchford for Lomax, as we would be much stronger with a running full back. Which I thought Bennett acknowledged when moving Widdop there last year.

[Tex Evans Thigh]

1 hour ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

If I was allowed to make just one change it would be Ratchford for Lomax, as we would be much stronger with a running full back. Which I thought Bennett acknowledged when moving Widdop there last year.

But Lomax is a running half/FB and Widdop is an organising half...

[Dunbar]

36 minutes ago, Tex Evans Thigh said:

But Lomax is a running half/FB and Widdop is an organising half...

I think Widdop is just a better organising and a bettwr running half back/full back (and a better kicking gane). He just has a better all round game.

That's not meant to be too critical of Lomax, just that Widdop is top class.

[yipyee]

8 hours ago, Rupert Prince said:

Amazingly stupid comment.  Our country is UK of GB. It, out RL team, will be playing against the whole of Australia. 

Does it matter if no one is selected for Australia from Tasmania?

Why call it GB call it Europe or northern hemisphere lions

All the English players are from Europe and NH right??

England is England calling them GB won't do anything in the other 3 countries if there are not players from the other 3.

What would the actual point be calling the team anything other than England?

[paulwalker71]

3 minutes ago, yipyee said:

What would the actual point be calling the team anything other than England?

Absolutely none whatsoever 

[Futtocks]