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Generational divide Great Britain or England poll


Generational divide Great Britain or England poll  

154 members have voted

  1. 1. Should we play internationals as GB or England?

    • Great Britain I’m aged 40+
      46
    • England I’m aged 40+
      52
    • Great Britain I’m under 40
      20
    • England I’m under 40
      36


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Interesting tidbits via Steve Mascord:

RUGBY League has scored a merchandising coup with the new Great Britain Lions gear.

Since the Rugby Football League agreed its deal with Danish manufacturers hummel, sales and general hype have been somewhat underwhelming. At one point earlier this year, England jerseys were selling brand new for just £12.50 and you can even still get the striking poppy design for around £20.

This is a governing body and a gear supplier not reaching agreed targets and, perhaps, a bad look for the game. Since I got involved in the merchandising business, a quote often presented to me is that no matter how big the publicity or how great the demand, there is not a single English rugby league item that will sell more than 30,000.

Thirty thousand, mind you, is respectable.

The first GB shirt in 12 years sold out of many sizes within a few days. There weren’t enough to put on sale at the Challenge Cup triple header at Bolton. And the leisure gear such as the vest, polos, training shirts and anthem jackets, earned rave reviews from fans.

Meanwhile, there is a completely different range of “supporter’s jerseys” which will be sold inside the grounds in New Zealand, where Australian company Beastwear has done a separate merchandising deal.

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4 hours ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

But who do you envisage them playing tests against, and what would constitute a better professional pathway? You've pooh-poohed the idea of GB as a stepping stone to help the home nations improve, but haven't really suggested any plausible alternatives.

At present, I'm more inclined to base my views on what players such as Ben Flower have said about GB, and how it could positively impact the pathway for Welsh players. Unfortunately you haven't really provided any alternative arguments to convince me otherwise. I'm open minded and would welcome other ideas though.

England,france, tonga,png,fiji,kiwis,aus and serbia. A better pro pathway is being able to put food on the table playing pro RL in wales. I just explained the alternative to GB read. GIVE THE HOME NATIONS MORE TESTS.  As for that Ben flower comment we've had GB for a long time and that hasn't happened. GB is not a stepping stone to help home nations improve and it never will be. The only way they improve is to play together more. Lol your'e not open minded 

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8 hours ago, Man of Kent said:

Interesting tidbits via Steve Mascord:

RUGBY League has scored a merchandising coup with the new Great Britain Lions gear.

Since the Rugby Football League agreed its deal with Danish manufacturers hummel, sales and general hype have been somewhat underwhelming. At one point earlier this year, England jerseys were selling brand new for just £12.50 and you can even still get the striking poppy design for around £20.

This is a governing body and a gear supplier not reaching agreed targets and, perhaps, a bad look for the game. Since I got involved in the merchandising business, a quote often presented to me is that no matter how big the publicity or how great the demand, there is not a single English rugby league item that will sell more than 30,000.

Thirty thousand, mind you, is respectable.

The first GB shirt in 12 years sold out of many sizes within a few days. There weren’t enough to put on sale at the Challenge Cup triple header at Bolton. And the leisure gear such as the vest, polos, training shirts and anthem jackets, earned rave reviews from fans.

Meanwhile, there is a completely different range of “supporter’s jerseys” which will be sold inside the grounds in New Zealand, where Australian company Beastwear has done a separate merchandising deal.

But no actual sales figures and did those rave reviews turn into real sales? The GB shirt will be on the discount rail before Christmas. 

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17 minutes ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

In the 40+ age group the vote for England is 31% greater than GB.

In the under 40’s age group the vote for England is 67% greater than GB.

This is conclusive evidence we should not be playing as GB.

As much as I love this forum, I think it is fair to say it is not representative of RL fans in general, or the wider sporting population.

Not saying the results would be different, but I think views on this board are often more progressive and less traditional than is perhaps demonstrated out in the real RL world.

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8 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

England,france, tonga,png,fiji,kiwis,aus and serbia.

But how many of those are realistic opponents for the foreseeable future? There hasn't been any sign that Tonga and PNG are going to tour over here, and Wales won't have the resources to tour down under. The Kiwis and Australia won't entertain playing Wales because there's no evidence that it would make any money (unless part of a bigger tournament). If England played them currently they would likely thrash them, unless there was some selection on the line for GB or a World Cup to encourage all of their best eligible players to play. So that leaves France and Serbia, and as I've already posted, the likes of Ben Flower and Regan Grace won't be enthused to want to be a part of that. It's a nice idea that Wales would be able to play games against all of those teams, but in reality it's a long way off and the game needs to work out how it's going to get to that point.

8 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

A better pro pathway is being able to put food on the table playing pro RL in wales.

But what is that in reality? Is that more pro teams? If so, where is the money coming from? How do you get to that point?

8 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

As for that Ben flower comment we've had GB for a long time and that hasn't happened. GB is not a stepping stone to help home nations improve and it never will be. The only way they improve is to play together more.

We haven't had GB for 12 years and Wales are now arguably weaker than they were 20 years ago. What has never been done is provide a comprehensive fixture schedule for the home nations, with GB as a complementary part of it.

8 hours ago, Themusician_2 said:

Lol your'e not open minded 

I'm open minded to good arguments, but unfortunately the ideas you've put forward lack detail and are very vague, and therefore not convincing.

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On 08/08/2019 at 06:04, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

No. 20 years ago all of the former RU players had already gone back.

Which means that the Wales team at the time was entirely comprised of heritage players with one or two exceptions.  The modern-day players from Wales who've come into the game have mostly (if not all) done so in the absence of a GB team playing.

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45 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Which means that the Wales team at the time was entirely comprised of heritage players with one or two exceptions. 

Pretty much yes. Personally I don't see that as a problem. It's the same reason that Tonga have recently become so competitive. These players were able to make themselves eligible for Wales at that time, because they were still able to play for GB in the Autumn and therefore weren't waving goodbye to their international career.

46 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

The modern-day players from Wales who've come into the game have mostly (if not all) done so in the absence of a GB team playing.

Which is great, but unfortunately the standard of most of the current Welsh squad is somewhat below Super League. The higher quality players such as Ben Flower and Regan Grace haven't been making themselves available for Wales's matches, but now are enthused enough to make themselves available for GB.

 

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54 minutes ago, deluded pom? said:

What about the eight years when we did have GB and Wales?

I would argue that they were still stronger than they are now. However, alot of Wales's fixtures during that time clashed with GB fixtures, which is ludicrous IMO. For the matches that didn't clash with GB (such as those played in the Summer or during World Cups) they tended to get stronger teams out.

My view on how GB should operate has been entirely consistent - I'd like to see a comprehensive home nations fixture schedule with regular meaningful European internationals every Summer (instead of the sodding loop fixtures) with tournament qualification points at stake. Then every Autumn alternate between an international tournament (e.g. World Cup or the much talked about Continental Cup that never happened) and a GB Lions series. These would hopefully act as a selection carrot to encourage players to make themselves available for the Summer internationals. It would also give the home nations the same or greater number of fixtures that they currently have, but they would be higher profile.

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13 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

Pretty much yes. Personally I don't see that as a problem. It's the same reason that Tonga have recently become so competitive. These players were able to make themselves eligible for Wales at that time, because they were still able to play for GB in the Autumn and therefore weren't waving goodbye to their international career.

Maybe not their international career but a sizeable chunk of their Welsh one when GB games tended to clash with Welsh ones. 

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Maybe the RFL have got it right for once. Maybe having GB tour every four or five years is about right, given the current circumstances. It means that the GB identity is kept alive, and it gives people the chance to buy a bit of GB merchandise and for the RFL to make a bit of cash from it. The rest of the time we play as England, so they can sell that merchandise too.

Quite a few sports run or accommodate both England and Great Britain teams. As more sports get into the Olympics, we're seeing a need for Great Britain teams to be formed - even if only once every four years. Consequently, sports are having to balance when they play as England and when they play as Great Britain. Hockey is a good example of a sport doing this.

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1 minute ago, 17 stone giant said:

Maybe the RFL have got it right for once.

I'm not convinced to be honest - seems more by chance than by design. Plus I think abandoning virtually all home nations activity in favour of GB is daft and a missed opportunity. I'd love to be watching a Summer European Championships where the likes of Lachlan Coote, Kane Linnett, Michael McIlorum, Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Regan Grace, Ben Flower etc are all representing their respective home nations to put themselves in the shop window by bashing the English in a bid to gain selection for the Autumn GB tour. And I know alot of those names are heritage players, but I don't care!

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1 minute ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

I'm not convinced to be honest - seems more by chance than by design. Plus I think abandoning virtually all home nations activity in favour of GB is daft and a missed opportunity.

I agree that there should be a better plan, but I was meaning that in the absence of such a plan, just having GB appear every four or five years as a touring side is better than nothing. At least the RFL can sell a few different bits of merchandise and make some more money. It keeps the history alive.

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Just now, 17 stone giant said:

I agree that there should be a better plan, but I was meaning that in the absence of such a plan, just having GB appear every four or five years as a touring side is better than nothing. At least the RFL can sell a few different bits of merchandise and make some more money. It keeps the history alive.

Fair point. Despite what some people on this forum think, I'm a big fan of the history side of it, and was very disappointed when so much history got jettisoned. It's what other sports use so well to help build up the prestige of their events.

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  • 3 months later...

surely it should be a north hemisphere team then we might actually beat Australia more often than we loose to them IN RUGBY LEAGUE!

united we stand divided we loose!

but gb rugby league team is better than playing as England, WALES, SCOTLAND, IRELAND!

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4 hours ago, Stevens said:

surely it should be a north hemisphere team then we might actually beat Australia more often than we loose to them IN RUGBY LEAGUE!

united we stand divided we loose!

but gb rugby league team is better than playing as England, WALES, SCOTLAND, IRELAND!

?

It would still be England under a different name.

And it would be even more of a joke. It's the same reason we don't play as Europe.

The Down Under lot would improve loads by selecting from a huge pool of players. We'd maybe get one French forward, but doubt that even.

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