: Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:48 pm  

af wrote: Link Maybe I'm totally mistaken but it could be that the GB 'name' suffered as a consequence of Sport England being the body that dishes out lottery dosh to sports in, well, England! (not GB as a whole)

af wrote: Link Maybe I'm totally mistaken but it could be that the GB 'name' suffered as a consequence of Sport England being the body that dishes out lottery dosh to sports in, well, England! (not GB as a whole)

: Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:25 am  

GB is far better than the seperte nations anyway.

: Fri Jul 03, 2009 8:20 am  

What I can't understand was the rationale of getting rid of it. The idea was that it seemed daft playing for Gt Britain and then for England in the World Cup. Why have seperate nations for the world cup then?

Surely it would be better for the world cup to get rid of contrived Welsh, Scottish and Irish teams and replace them with contrived teams like USA, Russia or Japan.

: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:01 am  

Maccbull_BigBullyBooaza wrote:

Surely it would be better for the world cup to get rid of contrived Welsh, Scottish and Irish teams and replace them with contrived teams like USA, Russia or Japan.

It's purely to create a bit more competition. While Wales, Scotland, Ireland may not be the best team, they can at least put up a little fight sometimes. USA, Russia and Japan would get annihilated.

A short term solution maybe, but that's no doubt the thinking behind it. Sadly, if you don't offer those teams any competition outside of the world cup, players just aren't going to want to play for them.

: Fri Jul 03, 2009 9:35 pm  

DILLIGAF wrote:

It's purely to create a bit more competition. While Wales, Scotland, Ireland may not be the best team, they can at least put up a little fight sometimes. USA, Russia and Japan would get annihilated.

A short term solution maybe, but that's no doubt the thinking behind it. Sadly, if you don't offer those teams any competition outside of the world cup, players just aren't going to want to play for them.

Need to remember that Ireland did damn well in the World Cup.