The
Great Britain national rugby league team is the national team of the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
in
rugby leagueRugby league football is a full-contact form of football, played with a prolate spheroid ball by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. Rugby league is one of the two codes of rugby football, the other being rugby union...
. The team is administered by the
Rugby Football LeagueThe Rugby Football League is the governing body for rugby league in the United Kingdom. Based at Red Hall in Leeds, it administers the England national rugby league team, the Challenge Cup, the Rugby League National Leagues and Super League...
(RFL), and is nicknamed "
The Lions" or "
Great Britain Lions". In 2006, the RFL announced that after the
2007 All Golds TourThe 2007 All Golds Tour was conducted as part of the celebrations of a century of rugby league in New Zealand. It was a re-creation of the original New Zealand rugby league tour of Great Britain in 1907. The New Zealand Kiwis toured Great Britain and France playing four test matches. They lost the...
http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/06/11/08/RUGBYL_Tri-Nations_Lewis.html the Great Britain team would no longer compete on a regular basis, and that players would be able to represent
EnglandThe England national rugby league team represent England in international rugby league football tournaments. The team has now seen a revival, having largely formed from the Great Britain team, who also represented Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The team is run under the auspices of the Rugby Football...
,
WalesThe Wales national rugby league team represent Wales in international rugby league tournaments. The team were ran under the auspices of the Rugby Football League, but an independent body, Wales Rugby League, now runs the team from Cardiff. Despite playing many matches against some of the best teams...
and
ScotlandThe Scotland national rugby league team represent Scotland in international rugby league tournaments. The team is run under the auspices of the Scotland Rugby League, and are nicknamed The Bravehearts. Scotland are not regarded as a test nation...
at Test level. It is planned that the Great Britain team will come together in future only for occasional tours.
Competitions
Great Britain were one of the strongest teams in rugby league, though usually playing second fiddle to Australia. They won the
Rugby League World CupThe Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league football competition contested by the men's national teams of the member nations of the Rugby League International Federation , the sport's global governing body....
on three occasions:
1954The first Rugby League World Cup was held in France in 1954. The prime motivators behind the idea of holding rugby league world cup were the French, who were short of money following the seizing of their assets by the rugby union in World War II....
,
1960The third Rugby League World Cup was held in Great Britain in 1960. The same format as used in 1957 was used, with a group stage leading to a final table. No World Cup Final was held, but by chance the final match of the series saw Great Britain take on Australia at Odsal Stadium, Bradford. As both...
and
1972The sixth Rugby League World Cup was held in France in October and November of 1972. Australia started as the favourites to retain the trophy they had won just two years previously. The final was held at Stade Gerland in Lyon...
. Since
1995In 1995 the eleventh Rugby League World Cup was held in the United Kingdom. Badged the Halifax Centenary World Cup, reflecting the tournament's sponsorship and the fact that 1995 marked the 100th birthday of the sport, the tournament was envisaged as a celebration of rugby league...
the RFL have preferred to send the
home nationsHome Nations is a collective term used to refer to England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales . It is most commonly heard in sporting contexts...
as separate teams for World Cup purposes. Great Britain continued to compete as a test playing nation both home and away (unlike the
British and Irish LionsThe British and Irish Lions, formerly known as the British Isles and the British Lions, is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...
rugby unionRugby union is a full contact team sport, a form of football which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. It is played with an oval-shaped ball, outdoors on a level field, usually with a grass surface, 100 m...
team, who are a touring only team playing sporadically). They competed against Australia for The Ashes, and
New ZealandThe New Zealand national rugby league side represents New Zealand in the sport of rugby league. They are commonly known as the Kiwis, after the native bird of that name. They are administered by the New Zealand Rugby League. The Kiwis are the current Rugby League world champions.The Kiwis won the...
for the
Baskerville ShieldThe Baskerville Shield is a trophy awarded to the winner of rugby league test series between Great Britain and New Zealand. It named in honour of Albert Henry Baskerville, who organised the first ever tour by New Zealand of Great Britain in 1907....
, as well the
Tri-NationsThe Rugby League Tri-Nations was a rugby league tournament involving the top three nations in the sport: Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand...
series with both Australia and New Zealand. Great Britain also played in series and tours against other nations such as
FranceThe France national rugby league team represent France in international rugby league tournaments. They are also sometimes referred to as "Les Tricolores" or more commonly "Les Chanteclairs"...
,
Papua New GuineaIn Papua New Guinea, Rugby league is highly popular and is regarded as the country’s national sport. The national side are known as the Kumuls...
and
FijiThe Fiji national rugby league team has been participating in international competition since 1992. Members of the team are selected from the domestic Fijian competition, as well as from competitions in New Zealand and Australia...
.
Titles, selection and identity
The team was originally known as the
Northern Union XIII in reference to the name of the sport's governing body. After 1922 the name
The Lions was first used. In 1948 the team became known as
Great Britain for the Ashes Series. During the 1990s the Rugby Football League expanded this to
Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the jersey bore the name
British Isles XIII. In 2004 the words "
...and Northern Ireland" were dropped from the title, though the Northern Irish shamrock continued to form part of the RFL's
crestHeraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound *harja-waldaz, "army commander"...
and
British Isles XIII remained on the jersey. At matches, the team was represented by the
Union FlagThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland uses as its national flag the royal banner known as the Union Flag or, popularly, Union Jack. The current design of the Union Flag dates from the union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1801...
and the singing of
God Save the Queen"God Save the Queen", or "God Save the King", is an anthem used in a number of Commonwealth realms. It is the national anthem of the United Kingdom and her territories and dependencies, Norfolk Island, one of the two national anthems of the Cayman Islands and New Zealand and the royal anthem of...
, both symbols of the United Kingdom. The practice of a UK-wide team being called
Great Britain has a precedent with the Great British
OlympicThe Olympic Games are a major international event of summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes compete in a wide variety of events. The Games are currently held every two years, with Summer and Winter Olympic Games alternating. Originally, the ancient Olympic Games were held in...
team, though the formal name of the Olympic team includes "and Northern Ireland". The team continued to compete until the
2007 All Golds TourThe 2007 All Golds Tour was conducted as part of the celebrations of a century of rugby league in New Zealand. It was a re-creation of the original New Zealand rugby league tour of Great Britain in 1907. The New Zealand Kiwis toured Great Britain and France playing four test matches. They lost the...
: henceforth, the Great Britain team will now be reserved for Lions tours of the Southern Hemisphere. According to Richard Lewis, chairman of the Rugby Football League:
- "It will bring consistency. What I am passionate about is the international game being consistent. To me, it has always been illogical that we play as Great Britain for three or four years, and when the World Cup comes along, suddenly we become England. In the major competitions, which will be most years, we will play as England. That will also allow Scotland and Wales to develop. We have then floated the concept of Great Britain to tour in 2010. It would be a tour as opposed to playing a formal competition, and I wouldn't restrict that to just Australia and New Zealand." http://sport.guardian.co.uk/rugbyleague/story/0,10069,1656696,00.html
- "Next year (2007) will be the last time Great Britain will play. They will be England after that."http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/06/11/08/RUGBYL_Tri-Nations_Lewis.htmlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/06/11/08/RUGBYL_Tri-Nations_Lewis.html
History
Initially Great Britain were represented by a team made up of players from the Northern Rugby Football Union, known simply as the "Northern Union" side. Their first ever match was a win against a touring New Zealand side in January, 1908. The following season Great Bitain played host to the Australian side. The Northern Union's first match against the Kangaroos was a 22-all draw.
In June, 1910 the Northern Union embarked on its first tour of Australasia.
In 1954 the first ever
Rugby League World CupThe Rugby League World Cup is an international rugby league football competition contested by the men's national teams of the member nations of the Rugby League International Federation , the sport's global governing body....
was held and Great Britain were the winners.
More recently, Great Britain enjoyed a three nil series whitewash of the touring New Zealand side in the
2007 All Golds tourThe 2007 All Golds Tour was conducted as part of the celebrations of a century of rugby league in New Zealand. It was a re-creation of the original New Zealand rugby league tour of Great Britain in 1907. The New Zealand Kiwis toured Great Britain and France playing four test matches. They lost the...
.
External links
Best player to ever play for Great Britain rugby league Sophie Jarvis
See also
- List of players for the Great Britain national rugby league team
- England national rugby league team
The England national rugby league team represent England in international rugby league football tournaments. The team has now seen a revival, having largely formed from the Great Britain team, who also represented Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The team is run under the auspices of the Rugby Football...
- Scotland national rugby league team
The Scotland national rugby league team represent Scotland in international rugby league tournaments. The team is run under the auspices of the Scotland Rugby League, and are nicknamed The Bravehearts. Scotland are not regarded as a test nation...
- Wales national rugby league team
The Wales national rugby league team represent Wales in international rugby league tournaments. The team were ran under the auspices of the Rugby Football League, but an independent body, Wales Rugby League, now runs the team from Cardiff. Despite playing many matches against some of the best teams...
- Ireland national rugby league team
The Ireland national rugby league team represent the island of Ireland in rugby league. Ireland are accredited as an affiliate nation of the Rugby League International Federation. The representative team is dominated by players from Super League and sometimes includes players from the Australasian...