SHould the 4 Nations be scrapped? No next question please.

So reading through this thread, would the question be because of Cronulla not winning a premiership since 1967 should they be kicked out of the NRL?

yes Cronulla should be dumped to NSW cup where they belong. next question.

We did play NZ in October 2007 in Wellington. I hope we play them at home and away in October 2012, to complete a 3 test series.



Firstly, England should already have built up the hype over three years of 4Ns & June test. English fans already know the team exists. RL people already know a World Cup will be held in 2013. There'll be a June test in 2012 and 2013 to help build hype anyway. Secondly, as for building the hype of Scotland, Wales and Ireland - how will an England series do that? it won't! How will a GB tour negatively affect the Celts? It won't. The Celts will only get a repeat of this year's European Championship, 3 games, regardless of whether England or GB toured.

A Kangaroo test series against GB in the UK in 2011 would have been great, say with a tour game against the Super League Champions, maybe against the Challenge Cup winning club as well. As it stands, a Great Britain tour of NZ would work well. I'd see the following games working:

13th October: European Cup Week 1, Roses Origin Game 1
20th October: European Cup Week 2, Roses Origin Game 2, Trans Tasman Test 2
27th October: European Cup Week 3, Trans Tasman Test 3 (England players fly to Southern Hemisphere, get a week off)
31st October: Warriors vs GB - Mt Smart, Auckland (mid-week, Wednesday night)
3rd November: NZ Maori vs GB - Rotorua/Hamilton/Whangarei
10th November: NZ-GB 1st test - Christchurch/Dunedin
17th November: NZ-GB 2nd test - Wellington
24th November: NZ-GB 3rd test - Eden Park, Auckland

GB won't be touring so all that was a waste of time mate......looks good though...we could give it a crack in 2025

An international side versus a club team on tour would be much more appealing to a lot of people than the WCC. I used to watch the WCC with excitement, but ultimately, it doesn't mean very much to most Australians. An expanded WCC certainly would not. Also, it would undermine the finals series and Grand Finals of both nations - unless it was run roughly like soccer's WCC, which uses the champions only from each country. We'd need to add the Catalans, Crusaders and Warriors just to fill out numbers, and if those teams hadn't performed well in NRL/SL, it could undermine the concept.

Rugby Union successfully stages Lions tours, where the Lions play midweek tour games against clubs in front of good crowds. The Wallabies, All Blacks and Springboks have all played tour games in recent years against British or Irish clubs, in front of excellent crowds. The Wallabies played and defeated. Tuesday November 3rd, 2009.
* rlCardiff Blues 31-3 at Cardiff City Soccer Stadium. Crowd 14,622 (capacity is 26,82icon_cool.gifrl. Tuesday November 24, 2009. This year, the Wallabies will play Irish provincial team Munster and English Premiers Leicester Tigers.

South Africa payed and lost to
* Leicester Tigers at a sold-out Welford Road Stadium, crowd 24,000. rlLeicester won 22-17rl (the video shows how passionate the Leicester club fans during the game and when they won). Friday November 6th, 2009.
* Saracens at Wembley, crowd 46,281 (capacity 90,000). rlSaracens won 24-23rl (the other video doesn't have the crowd noise, but features a performance review by Andy Farrell, ironically)

New Zealand's All Blacks played Munster to a capacity 26,500 crowd at a redeveloped Thomond Park, Tuesday November 18, the mid week ABs winning narrowly. Tell me the electric atmosphere of this game wouldn't be good for RL

union players have the energy to play tour games against club sides because they spend 80% of the game laying on the ground...

A few of the Manly guy's that went on the 2009 WCC tour absolutley loved it, conversing with the locals in Leeds.It's up to the Australiasian club's to make a big deal out off it like Manly and the Roosters did.

From memory 40 Manly fans went over there to the UK and the next one I'd think will get close to 100. I'm hoping to be 1 of them

what does 17 englishmen,in GB shirts, beating NZ in a 3 game series,do to build up the hype for the 2013 world cup??....england beating NZ on the other hand lays down a marker...GB has no relavence in the current international league structure...



firstly...take ireland off that list...they want nothing to do with GB

secondly....in the unlikey senario that wales or scotland produce a talent good enough to displace 1 of the 17 englishmen that would make up a GB team in the next couple of years,then this lad will be wrenched from the welsh or scottish sides while these side are trying to develop their own sides..

GB will only be worth bringing back when the welsh and scottish start producing players good enough to warrant GB selection....like i keep saying...if theres 17 englishmen on the field...play as england cos thats what they are..

Haha true, it was. If England do tour in 07, would be good to see a couple of tour games like the Warriors and the Maori. The Maori always present a strong challenge, the Warriors and England would still attract a strong crowd and play a strong game without their frontline test stars.



Well that was Lote Tuqiri who dived out of play to win the game for Leicester Seriously though, the Roos would have played clubs in 2001 were it not for the scare after 9/11. On a Tueday night in October 2002, the Kiwis attracted a good crowd over 12K at the Boulevard against Hull - good effort really.

Often wondered this would an England vs Celtic Nations be beneficial to all parties?

I mean for England obviously and the other home nations.

One of the thing's I would like to see taken from Union is the 'Grand Slam' tour

If NZ beats England 3 nil, that's a pretty awful marker then!



OK, but have Northern Irish people suddenly left the Union?



Again, as I showed above, not true. Welsh and Scottish reps won't have to miss any games for their team.



How many Welsh/Scottish need to be in the team until it can be called GB? What number, and what percentage of the team should they make up? What about players from the midlands, the south, London? As I said, it never seem to matter that there were no Welsh, Scottish players in the GB team for decades before, so it hasn't suddenly changed.



By that logic, since there are 17 Northerners in the team, play as Northern England. The rest of the country, the sports press, and Rugby Union people, regard the England RL team as a Northern team. By your logic above, once you start to get a consistent number of international class players from the midlands, the south, London, then play as England.

BTW for the London 2012 Olympics, the FA will run the rlGreat Britain soccer team supply only English players to GBrl. It will still be called GB.

I wouldn't like to see them play the Warriors. I don't even like the fact that they're called the NZ Warriors. It affects the Kiwi brand IMO. Same reason why I disagreed with everyone that wanted to call the Crusaders "Wales Crusaders" or whatever. International tours should play international teams and build up representative rugby.

Shut up you idiotic northern monkey.

Wellsy,
I cant do it like you do where you quote every sentence that suits you and come up with half a reply.

I will say this
Thorman played 11 games for Parramatta 5 years ago.
Mathers was an up and coming superstar in SL and played 4-5 games for the Titans
Tansey was the most bizarre signing of all but did ok for the Newtown Jets with a couple of games in the NRL.

What is the common theme of the players mentioned above?
They were paid pretty well match payments and no Australians had heard of them.

In Contrast...
Some old busted ar*e Aussie or never has been Aussie comes to SL in massive numbers and its the second coming of Christ by the fans.
How many Aussies or Kiwis in SL this year again?

Ellis is on less than he would get in England, Burgess could be anything depending on Crowes involvement.

How much did YOU pay for Berro? in his twilight years 31 now, or Fitz at 33 hardly in their prime are they?

I will let this thread die here from my part Wellsy.
They say Knowlsley Road is closing soon, have you been in all four sides of that ground? if not you will need to go there soon for the last game and move around a bit.

Take care pal.

J

There's a place for both. Tour games can be more competitive, generate more revenue, be logistically easier to plan and run, and be more meaningful to established RL communities than certain test matches, e.g. Big 3 tests against certain emerging nations.