I'm proud to be English.

Your barking up the wrong tree completely as i am half portugues and have a filipino girl friend so would hardly say i am up to the requirments to start a rugby league bnp organisation wouldn't you even tho its none of your business... not every statement what says "british" should be classed as your a racist.

I am simply saying it feels like not many people care that this england team look set to fail AGAIN, and the only thing i can see what explains this is that people dont seem to care about the iternational rugby as half as much they do there own club.

Just reading some of the posts and this shows how much people have lost there love for england rugby league. I couldn't care less if your from pakistan or poland if you count england as your home and are supporting your adopted home as the country represnting you and your family YOUR ENGLISH TO ME.

The big problem Rightly or wrongly is people just do not support ENGLAND RL as proudly and commited as much they do there own club.... If this was addressed we could easily fill wembley and it would look great for rugby league... I cant help think this is an oppertunity missed as RU has just shown its self up to the world.

Only a little joke bud.



That's the reason.

"Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life."

With this i couldn't agree more and its shows so much here as an english person will get paid twice as much as an indian in the uae and differential treatment generally in a better way.

Many fans clubs will feel like they fail on a yearly bases and will still turn up cheer on there club and feel passion for them, same for england ladyboys playing football they fail but never seem to lose there passionate supporters...

Its just very sad that the same people who care about rugby league and put so much time and effort to support there clubs cant transition that to country for what ever reasons and maybe it is the amount of failure or its rfl people dont have faith in but for what ever reason its the international stage our players are looking to perform on.

Well said. There are a lot of people who don't support the national side in RL. Personally, every year at around this time I get a feeling of pride and genuinely get it in my head (don't laugh) that we can beat the Aussies and the Kiwis.

I'm sure come the end of November I will be proved wrong but I'm going to enjoy the next few weeks regardless.

well you only have to look at the kiwis to show anything can happen on the day its hardly like england rl is a team full no abilty rugby players is it, fans cant really influence the on field performance but they can there attitudes and this will effect the tournement more than england getting rolled over every match bar wales.

This is the first time i have felt this passionate about england maybe its due to the fact england ru has just failed or maybe because i am in another countrie with alot of nationalities and this makes me feel more pride in england i don't know but i know if every rl fan felt this we could show england isn't an amerturish competition...

listening to the aussie commentators all year has ed me off as much as anything they pay no attention to internationals just well this is an origin class player not this a kangaroo player,, the fact they hold an in country origin seriers in great regard than the internationals is wrong

I think that because England players come from just a handful of teams the interest has been diluted throughout the wider Rugby League fanbase. The likes of swinton,Hunslet and other teams that used to regularly supply international players probably switch off a llittle bit because they feel alienated from the game at the top level. Other sports such as cricket struggle to generate the same patriotic fervour due to half the team being South Africans. As for the England football team, do the likes of Ashley Cole etc really make you want to support the English team? I'm also being turned off from international Rugby League because of the way some players and high ranking figures tell us domestic fixtures should be cut so the players can play more international games to become more "competitive" against the Aussies. I'm afraid our infatuation with the Aussies is becoming a bit obsessive, it's certainly not the be all and end all some of the so called experts seem to believe. I'd happily cut this four nations rubbish in exchange for proper tours like the Aussies and Kiwis used to take part in. Sadly TV rights and financial aspects will ensure it never happens again.

No idea what it is, but I struggle to have the same passion for internationals (both rugby and football). Maybe I generate too much into following Cas & LUFC. I'm going to Wembley on the 5th & I kind of feel like its a friendly, there just isn't much excitement. lets say its 18-18 going in to the last 10, of course I'll want England to win, but i wouldn't be absolutely bricking it as I would be if Cas were in that position.

Fed up of people banging on 'blah blah Rangi Chase isn't English, Jack Reed's not english'

Look at the England cricket team!! Kevin Petersen, Jonathan Trott, Adil Rashid, Ravi Bopara, Eion Morgan, Craig Kieswetter etc etc - I didn't hear people saying 'yeah well we've won the ashes but I don't care because half of em aren't english'

Exactly - after all, what's the definition of English? To take me as an example, I was born in North London, my mother was Australian and I've Welsh, Irish and Belgium in my ancestry.

I don't think the lack of support for England RL has anything to do with patriotism really. English RL has had a long and illustrious history of being very parochial. Folk will say the RFL have ruined it for them or Rangi Chase has or there was 'pride' in the GB jersey, but not the England one or whatever. There is a long list of reasons why folk will say they don't get excited by or follow England and none of them are really true. Take for instance the argument that folk won't support the national team because they don't like what the RFL and the backroom staff have done with it. Well, I don't really like how Wakefield Trinity is and has been run and aren't over the moon about the recruitment, but I'm not going to stop supporting them. I would imagine the same is true for most other fans.

The reason why we don't seem to get excited about the national team playing is because historically RL fans have never really taken to the national side. Aside from the 90's when interest really picked up, if you look back in time at attendances and compare them to other show piece matches you see there has never been the same level of interest.

Parochialism is the main issue. Folk support clubs far more passionately because the clubs are integral to the communities they exist in, they're the backbone of the comunity. And, I'd also argue that there is little mobility in and out of some of these communities, which galvanises more strongly the sense of community identity. If your community is your world, then your nation becomes foreign.

I suppose the other issue to do with parochialism is a much more historic one, one that goes back to when the Northern Union split from the Rugby Football Union. At that time the North was pretty much a different country to the South. There wasn't just minor differences in demographics, but huge chasms of difference in governance, culture and language. The Northern clubs quest for independence from the RFU comes from the differences between the two regions and also the desire of many Northern towns and cities for autonomy from London. This as well galvanises the sense of community and regional identity. Therefore, in a sense if you embrace a national team, you're embracing the South and you're embracing London, which means, in a way, you're denying your sense of local and regional identity and you're denying your sense of autonomy.

I am proud first & foremost to be a Northerner, will support any national side that has Northerners in the team.

Without a doubt "Land of Hope and Glory" should be the national anthem. That, or "Rule Brittania".....God save the queen is dated now.

I am as proud of being English as I am of having 10 toes. Both are happenstances of birth over which I had no control: it's not like they're choices I've made or achievements I've managed, to be proud of.

For some people though, being English is an act of choice: Chase, Reed, Heighington … they have got something to feel proud about. Or ashamed of. Or not all that fussed over. Either way it's an actual decision they've made.

On the broader issue - remember the good old saying: home is where the heart is. I'm equally happy if that is where someone lives, or where they were born or where their family roots are - and I see no problem with someone representing their home (where they live, where they were born, where their family hails from). I'm certainly not arrogant enough to presume that I can define what is and isn't 'really' English and enforce that on someone else.