Great Britain national rugby league team
The Great Britain national rugby league team represents Great Britain in rugby league. Administered by the Rugby Football League (RFL), the team is nicknamed The Lions.
| Team information | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nickname | The Lions | |||||
| Governing body | Rugby Football League Scotland Rugby League Welsh Rugby League | |||||
| Most caps | Garry Schofield (46) Mick Sullivan (46) | |||||
| Top try-scorer | Mick Sullivan (41) | |||||
| Top point-scorer | Neil Fox (228) | |||||
| Uniforms | ||||||
| ||||||
| Team results | ||||||
| First international | ||||||
| Great Britain 14–6 New Zealand Headingley, Leeds, England (18 January 1908) | ||||||
| Biggest win | ||||||
| Fiji 4–72 Great Britain National Stadium, Suva, Fiji (October 1996) | ||||||
| Biggest defeat | ||||||
| Australia 64–10 Great Britain Stadium Australia, Sydney, Australia (July 2002) | ||||||
For most of the 20th century, the Great Britain team toured overseas, played against foreign touring teams and competed in the Rugby League World Cup, which they won three times: in 1954, 1960 and 1972.
Since 1995, the RFL has sent separate home nations teams to the World Cup. Great Britain continued to compete as a Test playing nation both home and away. They competed against Australia for the Ashes, and New Zealand for the Baskerville Shield, as well the Tri-Nations series with both Australia and New Zealand. Great Britain also played in series and tours against France, Papua New Guinea and Fiji.
In 2006, the RFL announced that after the 2007 All Golds Tour the Great Britain team would no longer compete on a regular basis. Instead its players would represent England, Wales and Scotland at Test level, and it was planned that the Great Britain team would come together in future only for occasional tours, similar to the British and Irish Lions in rugby union.
The Lions most recently played in 2019, in a tour of Papua New Guinea and New Zealand.