Rugby is a sport that tends to be divisive, not just amongst sports lovers in general but even within the sport itself. It was back in 1895 that the Northern Rugby Football Union split from the Rugby Football Union to establish its own competition, with what followed being the development of two distinct forms of the game. The main differences were about paying players and professionalising the sport, which rugby league wanted to do virtually from the outset and rugby union would come around to eventually, but not before the sport was all but split in two.
What this means from an England point of view is that lovers of the game in both of its primary formats get to enjoy watching the national teams play on a regular basis. You can read about England from a rugby union point of view elsewhere on this site, with this page looking at the England rugby league setup. There are both men’s and women’s versions of the team, as well as a rugby union wheelchair side represented on the international stage. There isn’t an Under-21 or Under-20 side in the same way as there is in rugby union, but there is still an England Talent Pathway.
All of the various forms of rugby league are controlled by the Rugby Football League, which is based at Manchester’s Sportcity. That includes the amateur side of the sport and the provision of officials for England matches. Although rugby league as a sport was predominantly based in the north of England when it first launched and some northerners aren’t overly fond of the notion of supporting ‘England’ as a concept, there is still a love for the national team just as there is for the England team in pretty much any sport that you can think of that is played in the country.
England Rugby League Teams
Men’s Team
The first international match in rugby league was played in 1904, with an England team representing the country in the sport ever since. Although the England rugby league team has yet to win the World Cup in the discipline, it has finished as runners-up several times. In the October of 2000, the Three Lions racked up its biggest ever win on the international stage when it defeated the United States of America 0-110 in a game played in Florida. Eight years later and the team’s biggest defeat was notched up when it lost 52-4 to Australia, with the opposition being what stung even more.
Women’s Team
Unlike football, which saw many women playing the game until the Football Association banned women from using its facilities in 1921, rugby league didn’t really see women playing until 1985. Even then, it took another 11 years for the Great Britain National Team to be established and it wasn’t until 2007 that England had a rugby league team of its own. It has been competing on the international stage ever since, with the World Cup being the main competition that the players take part in. As with the men, the women’s team’s biggest loss came to Australia, losing 4-90, whilst the biggest win (82-0) was against Wales.
England Wheelchair Team
If you were to write a list of sports that are wheelchair-friendly, you might not put rugby league at the top of it. Nevertheless, the England national wheelchair rugby team was started in 2007, two years after a French team had toured Yorkshire. As with both the men’s game and the women’s, it is the World Cup that is the main event for wheelchair rugby league and the team has won it on a number of occasions. That included the first time that the competition had taken part in 2008, defeating Australia 44-12 in the final after having overcome the Barbarians in the semi-final.