That would be amazing. Do you think all the matches would be at the weekend, or would the matches against Tonga or PNG maybe involve a weakened team and played midweek? Either way, this for me would be better than the world cup. It would be a feast of RL.

Do you think the three match test series against Australia would be promoted as being for The Ashes? If so, surely we must play again as GB for The Ashes when Australia tour in 2020? We can't go back to being England in 2020 if that means not being able to compete again for The Ashes.

Get rid of of the British isles tagline and you can work with that. Southern island is not an extension of the British isles no matter how much people England still want it to be. Plenty of republicans in the North wouldn't accept that either.

Don't call it British and Irish lions if you have no desire to show any representation for Ireland. Playing in a GB shirt while still claiming to represent Ireland is laughable. It's not about going soft, it's understanding that ireland is not part of GB and the people in the RFL should know this.

The other code seem to be able to do this.

Utter nonsense.

GB never reflected Ireland ever until around 2000 when the British Isles shield was placed onto the jersey alongside the Lion's head.
Before then for about 70 years GB represented.....errr GB!!
Does Ireland ever go out of it's way to consider it's former motherland, the UK?? No!

So, we're agreed then. Prior to 2000 it was just Great Britain, but now it's Great Britain and Ireland and therefore it's essential to reflect the fact that it's now a team representing two 'nations'.

Personally, I would leave the red and blue V's on the shirt, but I'd also add two more in green and orange, as per the colours on the Irish tricolour flag. Alternatively I'd make the shorts green and the socks orange. I'd either drop GSTQ completely, or I'd have the players sing both GSTQ and then the Irish national anthem.

Loved the Ashes series between Aus and Gt Britain. Was weaned on them as a kid when they were played every 2 years post WW2. Saw my first match in 1948. Was also at the the Hull v Aus game in the same year. Attended all 3 games when we last won the Ashes in England(1959/60) and all 3 games when we last won in Aus.(1970) Believe they switched to playing every 4 years from the 70's.

Experiment to play the first match of the 1963/64 Ashes series at Wembley was a dismal failure attracting a crowd of around 14,000 and was never repeated. The Aus. team was star studded- Gasnier, Langlands, Raper, to name a few and hammered us (Gasnier 3 tries). Was working in London at the time.

I’m sure there is a desire to show representation for Ireland. Are there any Irishmen who are good enough to be in the squad? McIlorum maybe but not any proper Irishmen.

The desire is there but the practicalities are not. And the same goes for Scotland and Wales.

The RFU are in a stronger and easier position. They will always be able to find at least one Scot, Welshman and Irishman to fit into a squad who are good enough. We don’t have that luxury. However even then the RFU faced severe criticism from Scots when they didn’t play any in a recent Lions series. Yet the team was still called the British and Irish Lions and still represented all of Great Britain and Ireland including Scotland.

I get were not going to get much buy in from Irish people if there’s no Irish in the squad but that doesn’t mean we still can’t call the team British and Irish Lions. They are the best players from that region.

According to that logic we could expand the concept further call it the British, Irish and European Lions, without any Irish or European representation.

On the other hand we could legitimately select Theodore Fages , Antoine Gigot, Julien Bousquet, and Remi Casty as representatives of France, and James Keinhorst as representative of Germany, and it would be a true northern Hemisphere team called the British and European Lions.

You could but it sounds daft.