International Wrap #2 - Great Britain Lions; Where are we going?

It shouldn’t be the case, but in rugby league we find ourselves asking similar questions repeatedly, over a variety of different issues.

What are we doing?
Where are we going?

These questions are going through my head when it comes to the Lions. It is a favoured debate of rugby league fans. Should our international team be Great Britain and Ireland or split into the four nations?

From 2008, we decided that the nations should be split. I was at the time and remain ambivalent over the matter. Although I leaned towards Great Britain for two reasons.

Differentiation

With the exception of the Great Britain Olympic team, I cannot think of another sport which competes under this moniker, aside from rugby union on a four-yearly basis.

Great Britain is a unique selling point and would allow us to create more of identifiable brand than four separate countries would.

An easier sell

I am a big believer in taking our international fixtures outside of the heartlands. For example, international fixtures in London consistently achieve higher crowds than their northern counterparts. 

Why we therefore decided not to host one match in England’s test series in New Zealand in the capital last year, or that is was a good idea to host only one 2021 World Cup game in London defies rational thinking.

Since the post-2008 split, we have seen Wales, Scotland and Ireland host their own matches. Sometimes these matches are played in a school field (that is meant in a literal, not a metaphoric sense).

This is unbecoming of international sport. Even in the World Cup, Wales’ stand-alone fixtures attracted below average crowds, with their match against the Cook Islands in Neath being played out in front of just 3,270 spectators.

The home nations standing alone has proven a tough sell. It is not easy for the Welsh, Irish and Scottish governing bodies to sell fixtures to locals when the better, heritage players they rely heavily on cast them aside when England come calling. It is certainly a hard sell when some of the players in their squads do not even play for a professional team.

Playing as Great Britain overcomes some of those problems. It provides a brand that all four nations of the country can support and you can sell that you are seeing the best players that our country has to often. It allows matches to be taken to, for example, the Principality Stadium in Cardiff.

I accept that the lack of genuine Welsh, Scottish and Irish players is a drawback of Great Britain. But if we’re being honest, you would hear far more Yorkshire accents than Scottish ones if you attended a Scotland training session!

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The first part of this blog was looking back, but now it is the time to look forward. Before we do that, let’s refer to the two questions posed at the start of this blog:

                What are we doing?
                Where are we going?

I am afraid that, in respect of this Lions Tour, I do not know. From all accounts, it appeared that the idea of reviving the Lions was the brainchild of ousted RFL Chief Executive, now IRL (formerly known as RLIF) head and even more bizarrely Bradford Bulls stakeholder, Nigel Wood.

The idea, from the man who brought us the infamous “Blue Sox” nickname for Halifax (sorry for the reminder of that Fax fans), appears to have been met with less enthusiasm from the current regime at the RFL.

Whilst I have no objection to the principle of a “Great Britain” team, I question why we are reverting to this now. The RFL have been promoting “England” as our national team for over a decade. We have an Australian Tour on our shores in 2020 competing as England. We are competing in a home World Cup in 2021 as England.

The RFL have sent emails to fans in recent weeks seeking suggestions for a new nickname for, you guessed it, England! There appears to be a distinct lack of joined up thinking. It appears that Great Britain was just a misty-eyed, nostalgic, one-man vanity project for Mr Wood. One that the new regime have been burdened with.

In the most recent incarnation of the IRL’s long-term international calendar, which for all their value are as good as being drawn on the back of a cracker, a further Great Britain revival is pencilled in for 2023. But as anyone who has a close eye on international rugby league knows, these calendars don’t usually last long before being torn apart from infighting at national governing bodies or are run roughshod over by the ARL.

The Great Britain squad has one representative from outside England, the Scotland national team full back Lachlan Coote. It may have escaped your attention that Scotland are also playing against Serbia on Saturday in a World Cup qualifier. Yep. The same day as Great Britain face Tonga.

So a further result of Nigel Wood’s vanity project is that Scotland are deprived of one of their better players, if not their best player for a World Cup qualifier. And for what? That’s another question I cannot answer.

If you have not got bored of my sounding off yet, then congratulations! I have just one more complaint regarding how our international sport is run before I climb down from my soapbox. Well, that’s a lie, I have many more complaints, but for brevity I will stick to writing about just the one.

The England Knights. Metaphorically speaking this time, I banged my head repeatedly against my desk when I heard Paul Anderson’s post-match comments after England Knights’ victory over Jamaica. If you missed it, he said that did not know when the Knights would play again.

The Knights concept is something that has been picked up and then cast aside over the course of this decade by the RFL at a whim. After its formation in 2011, the Knights played a handful of games, before a hiatus between 2014 and 2017, before returning again in 2018 and 2019, and now, it appears another hiatus.

What the hell are we doing with this concept? I am not too keen on England’s reserve side playing against full international sides as it is, I believe that it undermines international competiton. But whether we like that or not, just pick whether we are running with the Knights or not and stick with it!

Despite the fact that the full England side are building to a three match test series against Australia next year and then a World Cup, the RFL decided, in their infinite wisdom, that it would be a good idea for England not to play an international match this year.

I see no reason why the match against Jamaica could not be a full international. Despite Great Britain’s return, Ireland and Scotland are both playing in their own right this autumn in World Cup qualifiers. Why could England not be afforded the same right? Answers on a postcard please.

A second congratulations in this piece if you have managed to get through the last 1,180 words of negativity. I don’t like to be wholly negative, so let’s end on a positive.

The international season is about to get into full swing. On Saturday, just like we all used to do, we can rise early at the weekend to watch Great Britain in front of a colourful, passionate and surprisingly tuneful Tongan crowd evoking memories of the classic England vs Tonga World Cup semi-final in 2017.

And in weeks to come, we face a sterner two-tests against New Zealand, after a gripping series win last year. And to top it all off, the Britain boys will head to Port Moseby in Papua New Guinea, the only country in the world where rugby league is the national sport. On that day, Great Britain will be heading into the frenzied unknown.

Whilst is right to cast a critical eye over the governance of the game, it is important to remember why we are all here. For the sport and the on-field action itself, and this upcoming Great Britain tour promises to provide a myriad of opponents, colour and noise.

We might not know what we are doing. We might not know where we are going. But despite that, we will remember to set our alarms for early Saturday morning, for the return of the Lions!