GB or England the one thing that should never have stopped is the Ashes Series. Can you imagine cricket getting rid of it?

The interest a 3 match series v Australia would generate for the sport would be massive and it needs to return asap

As I recall, the reason GB was dropped was a technical / political requirement to play as England in order to get Sport England funding. Typical bureaucratic nonsense.

Bringing it back is a nice badge, but really changes very little. It's a bit of a farce really as I wouldn't expect the GB side to be any different at all to the England side. In order for GB to mean anything, you'd need much stronger Scottish, Irish, Welsh sides and more players coming through the system linearly - rather than a big mush of eligibility where a player is going to choose the best available international side to play for nine times out of ten.

Don't really mind either way same thing really. Obviously wish we were playing the Aussies at least once but the four tests were the best we could hope for without them involved. Should be a good tour.

The key thing is the touring experience, which is beneficial for players and generates interest etc.

That's not the point is it?

It's about reviving what was the pinnacle of the game for British players up until 1996. There's a lot of tradition that was dumped then and it's being revived. It's a good thing.

England have gone on tours down under to play various Tri-Nations and Four Nations tournaments, how is that any different to this tour?

I’d say this tour is a step backwards, the Four Nations was the best International tournament we’ve had outside a World Cup. The Four Nations was incredibly successful with large growing crowds. The emergence of Tonga would have made it even better, why has that competition been scrapped?

It took me a while to get used to England, but realistically that's what the team is and most likely always will be now Welsh RU is no longer a source of players. Personally I prefer England to GB now. At least it describes the team.

Brough

I can see the sentimental pull of the GB brand for the Ashes if it ever gets properly reestablished. I can even see an argument for all elite tours (home and away) being GB and England being used solely for the WC (to enable filler from the home nations), I just wish they would define what's what and stick with it

You can’t just use the England brand once every 4 years though. England needs to be for your bread and butter regular games that you build up a following and profile with. This way is your only chance to build up the other nations in GB to help make GB mean something. You can’t do that the other way around.

The thing now is to get a regular cycle of GB games every 4 years or so and an annual comp for all GB nations and France. Union have shown us the blueprint for developing internationals. For some reason we still reticent to follow it.

Nobody seems to be noticing the elephant in the room here - it isn't a Great Britain side in anything but name.

It just smacks of marketing desperation to me, call me an old cynic!

I'd rather we were looking forward than backwards but hey.

That’s kind of my point though, I think you can use it to look forward by using both England and GB.

I think you can use England and the separate GB nations to encourage and improve those nations and get more player and crowd representation from those nations. And then use GB as a way of top players from those nations playing against the likes of NZ and Australia.
For instance, if we’d had separated nations 15 years ago rather than GB then Brian Carney would hardly have played against Aus or NZ.

Now this does depend on significant effort being put in to developing the other GB nations but I think it’s the way forward to use both England and GB.

Argue all you want folks. I'm booked.

If you want a beauty Retro Drill Top from 1993 to wear during the series then have a gander at this: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 4150705864

If you want a beauty Retro Drill Top from 1993 to wear during the series then have a gander at this: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 4150705864

Or this one: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 4152958819

Or this one: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre ... 4152958819