the new England shirt and website has been launched too

http://www.englandrl.co.uk/article.php?id=10801

Nice shirt but they'll probably change it every five minutes. At least the Aussies stick to their kit.

I like the website though I can't help but think that the website will be seriously neglected after November 2008.

It's good to see this calendar on the website. Hope it comes to fruition.

2008 Rugby League World Cup Down Under.
2009 Four Nations Tournament including Australia, England, France and New Zealand to be held in the Northern Hemisphere. Also Pacific Cup tournament including Cook Islands, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tonga plus European Nations Cup in Northern Hemisphere.
2010 Four Nations Tournament to be held in the Southern Hemisphere.
2011 Four Nations Tournament to be held in the Northern Hemisphere plus World Cup Qualifiers.
2012 Great Britain Lions Tour Down Under plus World Cup Qualifiers.
2013 Rugby League World Cup in the UK.
2016 European Nations Cup in Northern Hemisphere.
2017 Rugby League World Cup in the Southern Hemisphere.

Lions Tour! Effing great. Obviously, European tournaments and Pacific tournaments will be added to that as well as mid season internationals but I think that depends on the coffers after this year's tournament.

the lions will not be touring a year before the world cup and while WC qualifiers are happening...wheres the sense in putting 4 years hard work into the home nations and then a year before a world cup,when all that hard work would hope to come to fruition in the world cup qualifiers when the mark of success would be for all of them to qualify,would we pick the best celtic nation players,thus making the celtic nations weaker,to sit in the GB squad while their celtic team mates struggle to beat the likes of lebanon and then failing to make the world cup......or as is likely that all the GB players would be england players...then why tour as GB? go as england..

sadly GB is a redundant concept until the celtic nations provide a few players to the first team let alone the squad...and just look at the effort the RFL are putting into the 'england brand' far more than they ever did with GB..

Unless the Euro RLWC qualifiers are at another time, though that is unlikely.

Even if it was just an England tour that'd be great.

I'm not so sure about that. Being at Parramatta they'll be home games for Samoa and Tonga.



What do you want it full of football fans?

There could be no Lions team into the future...

Especially with the Welsh Nationalist and Scottish Nationalist Parties in parliament in both Wales and Scotland which threaten the end of Great Britain as an entity.

Good point. It'll be the Gosford game of the 9-10 playoff.

I totally heart the stylised St George's Cross flags draped everywhere. I've done a Eureka flag up like that and it has NSFC and Bob Stand on it. If anyone's got the Aus v Japan game from Germany on tape it can be seen on the railings just above the corner flag near all the Aussie fans.

You're a keen fan to have kept it after all these years without altering it.

I like the design of the Eureka Flag. It's just unfortunate that several dodgy groups have hijacked it.

If someone co-opts a sympbol you like, just take it back (might not work for hindus and the swastika though)

The rugby union team still manages to have players from the Republic of Ireland so even if Wales and Scotland became seperate countries I think that they would still play

Bit like this one eh?

What's that thing on your head? When I saw you on TV I thought it was a bandana. Is it just a headband pushiong your hair back?

the difference is that the irish,welsh & scottish RU players are good enough to make the lions team, irish,welsh &scottish league players are'nt good enough to make the GB team.....yet

i do want GB to return as a touring like the union lions but only when the celtic nations are good enough to provide atleast a 1/4 of the squad..


if england win the world cup & 4 nations in the next 2 years..or one of them,then trust me people will have long forgotten GB..or at least using the same argument that they have used when arguing about spliting GB up ie "splitting GB up will make us weaker" (which it has'nt) will become " having celts in the GB will make us weaker, lets tour as england"

The semantics of GB v Home Nations should have little to do with the composition of the team now and into the future. I mean, in soccer and cricket, you'd have a similar absence of Celtic Nations in a GB team if you were to have that. It's usually to do with history.

In RL's case today, it's a matter of international "expansion" made easier. I'm fine with that and if they wanted to go back to GB for a tour, they should. There is a lot of history attached to that and the RU Lions are an incredibly powerful marketing tool we can learn from.

With European Championships during the GBRL era (1948-2008) we regularly saw Home Nations play in the northern hemisphere and so this shouldn't be viewed as too radical a change. Celtic Crusaders are providing the most stable Wales professional RL club in memory and this suggests Wales will be developing a competitive squad in the coming two decades. Ireland and Scotland may follow along similar lines via the NL. I wish them all the best.