Quote ="mattmanche5ter"just an opinion,and would welcome everybody elses views,Do you prefer to go under the banner of Great Britain or England in international fixtures.team selection wise I know it wouldn't make alot of differance,has we all know where most of the quality players come from but I've always prefered G.B.especially with the olympics coming up team G.B is going to be a massive reconised brand in the future and could only benifit R.L if we joined(not jumped on) the bandwagon.'"
Ever noticed Great Britain teams are only associated with amateur sports? All the major professional team sports national side run under the England flag. Football, RU, Cricket. I personally would not count tennis or golf as team sports, and before you start with doubles/foursomes bear in mind there are no place of birth eligibility rules to compete in a doubles or foursomes pairing.
However, whilst I was disappointed the RFL decided to phase out the GB name, I did understand the reasons for it. One of them is the point I have made above. On top of that, the majority of the Great British public consider their national identity as either English, Scottish, (Northern) Irish or Welsh. [size=50(10 brownie points if anyone can spot the irony there.)[/sizeTherefore new fans in particular would feel more connected with the national side.
There are also financial implications. Would the RFL really have been awarded that £30million from Sport England if the national side had been named Great Britain? UK Sport don't really do an awful lot, and leave it to the four regional offices to delegate the funding to governing bodies.
