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Great Britain Tour Confirmed


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10 minutes ago, Mr Plow said:

Who’ll be in this GB squad, hopefully it isn’t England rebranded

It should be the best player's who come from the selection zone i.e. the Isles of Gt Britain and Ireland just as the last player I can recall being Brian Carney who earned selection for the Gt Britian team.

Carney famously put his head down at the playing of God Save the Queen and quite rightly, I have no connection to Rugby Union whatsoever but they are very correct in playing the special classical wrote for purpose "The Power of Four" as the anthem for the Rugby Union Lions (I had to look that up).

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2 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I've always said something I want to do in my life is watch England or GB play in PNG but won't be happening this year. I've already got my holidays booked up and pennies is literally all I will have left when this tour finally comes around. 

And this is a example of how bad RL is at organising. 

A fan like yourself given a decent 18-24 months notice ala the Union Lions would have been able to make the fixture in PNG. 

Its a shame. 

As for the 4 game iteniary. It's not bad and a two match series has it pluses. No dead rubbers. 

A 5th match v a Maori select would have been nice however its overall not a bad tour. 4 games. 

 

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1 hour ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

So when's the warm up game against France in Leigh gonna be confirmed then? 

Probably will be this. 

Hopefully they will see sense and hold a game v France in France. Can get a sell out at Gilbert Brutus for it, or even 12k in Avignon and give the French the glamour home game they deserve. 

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3 minutes ago, Southerner80 said:

Probably will be this. 

Hopefully they will see sense and hold a game v France in France. Can get a sell out at Gilbert Brutus for it, or even 12k in Avignon and give the French the glamour home game they deserve. 

Well they certainly don't want any glamour games this side of the Channel, half the expected selected team cries off prior to the fixture and considering they struggle to field a top class 17 the fill ins are not of the quality required to compete with the top 6 nations.

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8 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Well they certainly don't want any glamour games this side of the Channel, half the expected selected team cries off prior to the fixture and considering they struggle to field a top class 17 the fill ins are not of the quality required to compete with the top 6 nations.

I Very much feel its worth playing them. They are probably the biggest market financially outside of the UK and OZ for RL. 

Agree at home hopefully they will all turn out with the best 17.

Tbh apart from OZ and NZ and England, no one else is saying much consistently. Tonga are strong now but we have to see what happens in the next few years. 

France won't improve by not playing them. And Italy in Union are a lucrative addition to the 5N. We could learn from them on this.

Give France home games annually and it will help them. 

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4 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I've always said something I want to do in my life is watch England or GB play in PNG but won't be happening this year. I've already got my holidays booked up and pennies is literally all I will have left when this tour finally comes around. 

 

4 hours ago, Dunbar said:

It is on my bucket list to follow the national team down under but to be honest this doesn't capture my imagination and I am going to wait for a three test series for England vs. either the Kangaroos or Kiwis.

Ditto

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3 hours ago, JoneslessBishop said:

Everyone who had accepted the rebirth of the GB team would have likes to have seen GB play Oz. However, we aren’t, but NZ, Tonga and PNG will be good games, and the way the double headers are integrating the tour with the Pacific Cup will make for a pretty good RL off-season. I’m looking forward to it.

Instead of a 4 Nations, we have 7 Nations playing and if we see the likes of McIllorum, Grace, etc turn out for GB, if it means those players commit to internional RL going forward that benefits the Celtic Nations as well

McIllorum will be putting his hand up for Ivory Coast again

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 Bit conflicted on this, I think the England brand has been building quite nicely so it does seem a strange one, but...

The GB brand is what I was brought up on and I’m actually quite excited in seeing it resurrected and from everything ive seen and heard from players they hold playing for GB in higher regard than England, just seeing the lion logo at the press conference made me fell all nostalgic!

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1 minute ago, Damien said:

I think no Australia games will cut numbers drastically.

I wonder if the Tour will make money - as that's the point right? 

Lets assume the PNG is a sell out. How will the rest go?

- v Tonga in (Hamilton?)  This should be fine, but Tonga might need to win a game, or go close again against NZ in their June Test match to keep the 'Tongan wave' going on. Take away JT, Fifita from them and suddenly they are shaky. 16,000 crowd.

- v NZ in Auckland, Eden Park. If a Triple Header can't sell out Eden Park, then I don't know. 45,000 or sell out.

- v NZ in Christchurch. 15,000? NZ aren't exactly a draw card themselves anymore in their own country. 

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13 minutes ago, Abicus said:

I wonder if the Tour will make money - as that's the point right? 

Lets assume the PNG is a sell out. How will the rest go?

- v Tonga in (Hamilton?)  This should be fine, but Tonga might need to win a game, or go close again against NZ in their June Test match to keep the 'Tongan wave' going on. Take away JT, Fifita from them and suddenly they are shaky. 16,000 crowd.

- v NZ in Auckland, Eden Park. If a Triple Header can't sell out Eden Park, then I don't know. 45,000 or sell out.

- v NZ in Christchurch. 15,000? NZ aren't exactly a draw card themselves anymore in their own country. 

Crowd sizes are important of course, and those predictions look about right to me. But the real test for whether this tour will make money is in the sponsorships, TV deals, merchandise etc deals the RFL can achieve. 

One possible advantage of reviving GB away is they could still potentially have a second property play at home. There's no reason a (second string) England team couldn't play against France, Wales or even Jamaica. England has enough depth to still put out a good team with plenty of experience, so why not try and cash in on a second international revenue stream too?

 

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3 hours ago, Southerner80 said:

Probably will be this. 

Hopefully they will see sense and hold a game v France in France. Can get a sell out at Gilbert Brutus for it, or even 12k in Avignon and give the French the glamour home game they deserve. 

With 14 days between the SL Grand Final and the 1st your game in NZ I doubt they'll be playing France. I imagine the squad will leave a few days after the Grand Final.

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5 hours ago, Keith989 said:

If by Irish involment you mean being completely humiliated by the announcement (everybody called it GB except for the guy running RL Ireland) and condemning the sport to forever being non existent over here... then yeah sure the Irish are involved.

He/she/it is a full 37 posts in - shall we have a sweepstake?

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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More great organisational skills. No one will go from the UK, the NZ games aren't a massive draw given we play them every other week and PNG will be a walkover. The Tonga game has some appeal but I don't see the attraction of the tour overall.

Not playing Australia is hugely disappointing, 2 games against NZ is neither a series nor part of a tournament and it's not really a proper tour (you know like the one people are nostalgic for or the ones the Union mob do so well) as its only 4 games. I'll enjoy the games as one offs but aren't hugely excited by this at all.

It feels like there should be a 3 match series in there of some description, even if it had to be NZ again, with at least 3 tour games. Take a squad of 30/34 and do it properly. You could even legitimately include players from other nations then to get the requisite numbers.

Speaking of having players from a few nations, not just england, this might be a good opportunity to have some meaningful home nations games either mid season or end of season. What better way to justify selection of a scot, welsh or irishman than for them to turn it on against England and then England dont have to go another year without a home game. Chances of this are great I'm sure.

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1 hour ago, ghost crayfish said:

Crowd sizes are important of course, and those predictions look about right to me. But the real test for whether this tour will make money is in the sponsorships, TV deals, merchandise etc deals the RFL can achieve. 

One possible advantage of reviving GB away is they could still potentially have a second property play at home. There's no reason a (second string) England team couldn't play against France, Wales or even Jamaica. England has enough depth to still put out a good team with plenty of experience, so why not try and cash in on a second international revenue stream too?

 

I agree with you about England playing at the same time. Do I think it will happen, not a chance sadly.

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5 minutes ago, yipyee said:

Read the BBC article which basically says it's England rebranded... Wayne Bennett is even the head coach FFS

Tony Smith was the England and GB head coach in 2007 and that was basically england as well

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