Talk:Great Britain national rugby league team

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Why is GB being split into the four individual nations? There's no explanation in the article, and there should be. 81.158.2.235 16:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Simple the Celts generally don't like 'British' teams (especially the Irish - unionists excepted). As England has 85% of the UK's population, if rugby league was evenly spread then you'd have a mostly English team with the occasional Scot / Welsh / N Irish player. As it happens almost all rugby league is in England, the result is that Great Britain is largely an English team. There's no likelyhood of any games being played outside England because there'd be no audience.

There are now some grassroot rugby league organisations in Wales, Scotland and Ireland (especially Wales). These organisations want to promote the game in W/S/I and internationals are the best way to do this, especially if they beat England occasionally. The downside is that most of their players are likely to be English but with a Welsh / Scots / Irish granny which means that England will not be as strong as Great Britain was. We are already outgunned by the Aussies as it is (though we thrashed them today).17:35, 4 November 2006 (UTC)