The ONLY issue I'd really have was that are you not devaluing a competition, would you even call them 'championship select'. Would 14,000 turn out in france to watch them v a championship select. Definately worth a try though imo, you should send an email lewis' way

Yeah because you've got nothing. Shown up for the hypocrite you are. If anyone agrees with you it just proves the bias ignorance that is endemic over there. Let's just be clear about this, you slander Polynesian and Melanesian Australians for years for playing for Australia but now you see no problem with Irish and Welsh players playing for Ingerlund. What is the point of difference here? Keep waving that cross.

I disagree completely with Evans turning out for England.
But Bridge Harrison and Brough? Dont kid youself, they're as English as English gets, we basically loaned them to the Celt nations. But Aus have been doing it for years so I dont know why we dont start poaching aussies on residential grounds too

In reference to Durham Giant banging the GB drum...

How is GB helping international development? If anything, it does the exact opposite. How many GB games are played outside of England? How many non-English players would be selected for GB? There's only been one in the last decade that I can recall. You can write a list of pseudo-Welsh/Scottish/Irish players if you want, but it is hardly a respectable argument as they would all probably consider themselves English given the choice, even if all nations were at the same level.

By going back to GB, you are robbing the home nations outside of England a representative game in their country. Do they feel GB represents them if there is no players and no game in their country? I very much doubt it.

Your issue seems to be more with nation swapping than it does anything else. If you took nation swapping out of the equation, you'd find less and less pseudeo-Welsh/Scottish/Irish players committing for their place of heritage and holding out for England. Is this a bad thing? I personally don't think so. Yeah, they'd be weaker, but it would highlight the true strength of the development of RL in these nations instead of putting paper over the cracks and pretending RL is doing well because they have more players with heritage than the others do.

GB for me is a massive no-no, and will only stifle international development in the home nations rather than improve it (and in what way will it improve it anyway?). I just don't get how it will improve international competition by REDUCING the number of nations competing, and replacing them with essentially a team that we already have (England) as a result of a merger that will do little to represent the others.

ECT apparently is craving some attention again...

Nobody is blaming the players that make the choices. They are simply taking advantage of the rules, and why not? This is their careers after all, and it's a short one at that.

You cannot keep piping on about players like Brough, Harrison, Bridge, Carvell etc. chosing England after playing for Scotland, Ireland and Wales when it has been happening in Australia for FAR longer in regards to Pacific Island nations such as Tongans (Willie Mason, Michael Jennings played for Tonga before Aus), Fijians (Lote Tuquiri played for Fiji before Australia), even New Zealanders (Tonie Carroll). THAT is hypocrisy.

And you cannot keep piping on about Rhys Evans for choosing England over Wales despite not having any English heritage and just because he's been living here when it has been happening in Australia for FAR longer (Petero Civoneciva is Fijian-born, Willie Mason and Karmichael Hunt are NZ-born). THAT is hypocrisy.

The fact that you are now trying to turn this in to a race conversation is showing how much you are struggling to bring up an intelligent argument, so you are now trying to scare people from replying with sensitive subjects. Give it a rest.

As for the Championship England, I think it's a good concept. I think representative rugby is a good thing at as many levels possible, especially if it helps out other developing nations.

We have England (elite), England Knights (reserve), England Lionhearts (RLC), BARLA Lions (NCL), England Students (SRL), Combined Services (Army, Navy, etc.), GB Community Lions (combined amateur), so why not the Championships?

I've said for a while as well that I reckon County of Origin would work well at Championship level. It's based on traditional RL clubs mainly at the moment, so could work quite well especially if there is an end aim of playing for a national select team.

I think they hsould have a GB team until the home nations are competitive. Evans will know that until a competitive team turns out in wales, the only chance he will have to play against the top nations in now with England as their will be no GB.

Its counter-productive to what they want to do becuase top quality players want top quality competition and the only way to do that currently is through England.

With who ? and which players are going to make them ' competitive ' ?

Plus I think everyones getting a little worked up over this evans thing, the guys 18, played 4 games I think, yes he looks like he could be a superb player but to start calling the guy light years before he's ready is a tad premature and reminds me of an eddie/stevo Briers for Britain campaign

So it is the Exiles then

As a few of us said 14 pages ago. How the rest of you thought it would be something different is beyond me

It's great knowing everything!

Interesting to see who'll be coach

Against the Aussies and New Zealand. No appeal to players otherwise.

sorry to use Evans as an example again but it would either be a international career of Wales vs scotland/Ireland or England vs Aussies/Nz. I know which id choose in that respect.

To be fair, in the curtain raiser for the Hull v Leeds CC final he was by far & away the best player on the pitch and looked like he would make it as a top player then, so if he keeps it up the skys the limit really.

Agree about Eddie & Stevo though, the amount of young players they big up all the team is stupid - remember when they said Tyrer was going to be the best centre in English rugby for years to come?

he always turns the subject to one of race...cos thats all he has...it's truly pathetic