I disagree. Nostalgia probably would help sell the series. I, and many, many RL fans have hugely fond memories of Great Britain that have never been matched by England, and I would certainly buy into the GB brand again. The classic series, the great moments, the iconic shirt, the history of GB as a whole. The Rorke's Drift Test, the Battle of Brisbane and Prescott's broken arm, Melbourne 1992, Old Trafford 1990, Mike Gregory's try, Edwards on Clyde, Davies' try, Phil Ford "he's a stepper", Goulding and McDermott taking on the Aussies at Old Trafford 1994 - and much more. England RL just doesn't have that heritage.

For example, I've never bought an England shirt and probably never will, but I've had a few GB shirts and bought a classic 2003 shirt fairly recently.

The theory that playing only as Home Nations helps develop the smaller nations is erroneous. In fact, all that happens is that the best players tend to all opt for England, whereas in the GB days the GB squad could also strengthen their home nations. Players such as Cunningham, Harris, Sullivan, Atcheson, Carvell, Cowie, Eyres, Skerrett - all RL lads who played for GB, and for Wales in the World Cup - how many would have opted for England if GB hadn't existed, and therefore been lost to Wales? Quite a few I'd guess. Others such as Connolly, McDermott, Horne, Gilmour, O'Connor, Joynt, Aston, Ford - all played for GB and a Home Nation other than England at some point. I've not included RU converts for obvious reasons.

I'm not saying swathes of England-qualified players would suddenly toddle off to the countries of their ancestry, in fact looking at the current squad it's unlikely, but at the moment England is the team the best British players aspire to, which for me only serves to weaken the rest.

Either way, until there are RL competitions in the Home Nations their international sides are little more than a token effort and will not develop significantly. That should be the priority, not the occasional low key international tournament and few World Cup games whenever the RLIF decide to arrange a competition.

I find it easy to agree with most of your posts Sal, but you are wrong to state that the 1982 tourists came when rep RL was in its heyday.

You would need to go back at least another 25 years for that period to be exact.

That was when we really did see well contested and bitter rivalry games enacted and they were brilliant for the fans, who DID turn up in great numbers, both for the tests and, the matches played against the clubs also.

When will people stop quoting me and proceed to talk about something I didn't say?!
Where the heck did I say the NRL should start their season on Boxing Day, where?

We could have a natural break in our domestic season because of the split league. where we could tour and play against their club sides mid week and Internationals on weekends because big tours only work if the NRL season is running in current with a tour.

There would be a six week rest mid season for players not involved in Internationals and a 10 week off season for everyone at the end.

I never said 1982 was the height of rep rugby - what I said was the 82 Kangeroos were the greatest ever RL side. If you went back to the 50s and early 60s yes they did get bigger crowds but then so did every sport - there was little else to do for most folks.

TBH I thought the 86 Kangaroos were better than the 82 ones...IMO of course.

The attendances at Ashes games 86-94 show what is possible when both countries take the contest seriously. Teams don't necessarily need to be evenly matched to get a good attendance either as 86 proved but it helps.

Clubs attitude to letting players go to internationals is never good. The Bulls were always obstructive to Kiwis going to take part in the Anzac test. This contrasts with attitudes in the past. The 1946 Indomitables went on the longest tour ever which although was in the off season was long enough to impact on games early on in the following season. The clubs saw their players as ambassadors for them and the game and saw it as a point of pride to contribute players. There was no whinging about it. This is according to Trevor Foster who was part of the touring party which circumnavigated the globe by planes, trains and ships.

The GB v England debate isn't purely a matter about who the players represent. In the 2004 Tri series, I took a Scottish and an Irish mate to two of the games (and again in following years). It didn't matter that there was only Carney really and no Scots, the team represented them. It was their first experience of RL and they got well into it.

I'm not suggesting thousands of Irish/Jocks/Welsh will jump in if we revert to GB, but far more people could identify with the Lions.

Clubs have always dominated RL and always will. They bring in the bread and butter and so must take precedent.

As for Australia waking up, please Dave Smith took up his position full of bluster about the importance of Int RL. Since then he has cancelled the Ashes tour and changed eligibility rules to try and make U18's commit to Australia.

There needs to be at least one to trot out the same old stream of nonsense. Shame you weren't the first.

We should scrap the Magic weekend and have a 5 week tour to Aus (GB or England) If clubs have to do without some of their players then so be it (it might force them to give their academy players more game time which can only be good in the long term)

3 tests and midweek games so there would be four weekends when teams would have to play without some of their stars. I was a supporter on the 1992 tour to Aus and it was fantastic experience.

As spectators we pay to watch the best players - why should I pay to watch games where the best players have been forcibly removed? If I want to watch an academy game I can pay my £3 and go.

With P&R you can't imagine the lesser teams wanting their better players to go on tour mid season

Scrap a weekend and replace with a 5 week tour- How does that weigh up?

Let's say England take a 24 man squad to Australia for three Tests and a couple of country games (one warmup, one midweek between the 1st and 2nd Tests, so four playing weeks of the tour).

Maybe half a dozen of that squad are going to come from the NRL anyway (Tomkins, Graham, Widdop, two remaining Burgess boys would be automatic, then you have the likes of Cooper and Hodgson)

Wigan provided 7 players to the 2014 England four nations squad. Leeds provided three. No other SL club more than two. Clubs could be without that many of their top players at any one time in the season due to injuries anyway. It's not going to have an adverse effect on the product to take these players out of SL for five weeks in the middle of the season IMO.

Don't use facts, we can't moan then!

Internationals won't move forward significantly until they're played mid season IMO. It should be the pinnacle but it's currently just tagged on the end as some sort of after thought.

I would have no issue with Wigan losing 7 players mid season. I would like to think clubs would be given a bit more leeway on the cap to cover those circumstances but if they were then it would be fine.

Agreed. A few years back, when Leeds were in their prime, we often had 6/7 players in the England/GB squad. I wouldn't have an issue with us losing them to a higher cause for a few weeks. Most teams lose 5/6/7 players to injury in a season anyway.