What sort of difference and how?

It would give us a chance to give 80+players a season a go at international level, as trail for GB. It would give us international games, it would mean that a player like Danny Brough or Gareth Carvell, or more importantly players like Dale Ferguson, Rhys Evans, Rhys Williams, Ben Flower and Elliot Kear didnt need to switch nations to be included at the top table

From my own point of view i have NO INTEREST in supporting a team called England and untill the time comes when the side is called GB i'm not going to be a paying customer.

Embarrassing, utterly embarrassing.

I think there is a place for both Great Britain and ENgland in the international calendar. Has to be England in a World cup. A return to the ashes would warrant a GB return for me and keeping GB for three/four etc nations would be good too.

people are talking about the GB Ashes tour but would Australia and NZ be keen? I am not so sure they would!

Unless they want a chance of winning the World Cup, which you'd assume they would.

It seems to work in Union with the Lions touring every 4 years. An iconic brand

If a touring GB side could make some money and bring in the fans I'd have it back tomorrow. Twenty years ago a British tour down under meant as much to me as a World Cup. Possibly more.

I remember getting excited about the 88(?) tour [iTWELVE MONTHS[/i before it took place. Endless conversations with mates in the lead up attempting to second guess the coach's final tour selections followed by endless rows over such-and-such a player being selected above someone else. Stupid stuff like the frenzied search to find TV access on some obscure satellite channel in order to watch the Second XIII go down to some club side. And NO video recorder I owned ever exceeded the record number of successive rewinds and plays I hit watching Mike Gregory's sixty metre try-scoring sprint - or Henderson Gill "doing a bit of a boogie".

Then there were the bets on "Player of the Tour", "Breakout Player of the Tour", "Points scorer etc. " - not to mention the enormous sense of pride one felt if one or all played for your club.

I miss GB tours. I miss them more than any other defunct RL spectacle.

I think we would see a Welsh team competitive with England before an England team winning the world cup.

Why?

That was in the day when RL players were real men not high paid moaners, just imagine the complaints if they had to spend two months overseas in the close season to play even more games than they do now. Plus with the two competitions in sync now how many teams on both sides of the world would let their players out for the two months for a tour, it just wont wash with the clubs on both sides.

Although I support England when there is a tournament, I just can't get as excited as when it was GB. There is something about seeing the red and blue V going up against the Aussies. I can't usually muster the same enthusiasm for seeing some nasty red and white strip, because the strips usually are quite nasty, worn by people who not long before professed loyalty to a different country (Chase, Carvell, Brough, et al).

The plus is that I don't have to listen to Hemmings waffling on about how Briers should be picked.

I prefer GB as it was what I was used to growing up. I suspect the kids of today will feel the opposite in a few years time.

The 'I won't watch them if they play as England' bits from this thread should be added to the 'If Mateo gets picked for England I'll never watch them again' comments (plus numerous other down the years). Cut and paste them into the "RL vs RU marketing" thread. Then realise they show that some of the most diehard defenders of tradition - RL fans through and through - are one of the biggest things holding back any attempts to make international RL into a big deal.

If we have any hope at all of making international RL into a big spectacle, we all need to start viewing it more as an event, not just a sporting contest. Get excited about it as mugwump said. Enjoy watching the best players in the world play what at its best is the best game in the world.

Oh, and make sure we have neutral refs, even if they are cr*p - and especially if they refuse to referee NRL style.

I'd love to see GB Lions tours to Australia and NZ every 4 years, between world cups. Maybe it's something the new ARL and RFL can work out.

England, Wales, etc for the rest of the time is fine by me.

It's not really an issue, pommy RL fans just like to focus on the negatives no matter what.