Great Britain Rugby League Lions: How 2019 squad will aim to 'live up to a legacy'

Jon Wilkin, Sean O'Loughlin and Adrian Morley were among the players to feature in Great Britain's most recent Test series against New Zealand in November 2007

The return of the Great Britain Rugby League Lions sees a reigniting of a sporting passion that looked to have been lost 12 years ago.

For 60 years, Great Britain was the pinnacle of representative rugby league. Some of the game's legends down the ages have pulled on the famous white shirt with the red and blue chevron.

And when that shirt and name was retired before the 2008 World Cup - so that England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland could all compete as separate nations - it looked as though one of the game's most iconic identities had gone forever.

But now Great Britain is back.

Captain James Graham will resurrect memories of Billy Boston, Neil Fox and Alex Murphy, through to more modern marvels including Ellery Hanley, Andy Farrell and Adrian Morley, when he leads out his side for the first Test match against Tonga on 26 October.

And for the next four weeks, with Great Britain also taking on New Zealand twice and then Papua New Guinea, it will not be just about winning matches. It will be about living up to a legacy.

Captain James Graham is the only player in Wayne Bennett's 24-man squad to have represented Great Britain before

Great Britain came into being for the very first time during a Test series against New Zealand in 1947.

Previously, the national team was known as England or the Northern Union.

But rugby league historian Tony Collins explains: "The status that the game had acquired during World War Two, when its democratic image seemed to fit with the mythology of the 'People's War', led to a discussion about a more inclusive name for the national side."

For the second Test against New Zealand at Swinton on 8 October 1947, the team was called Great Britain for the very first time.

Thereafter, the dream of any child growing up with rugby league as a passion was to pull on that jersey with its simple design and soon-to-be stunning pedigree.

But the history of 'Great Britain' is nothing compared to the nickname of 'the Rugby League Lions'.

"The 'Lions' nickname actually predates Great Britain by some years," says John Ledger, secretary of the Rugby League Lions Association.

"It was first used in 1914. The British side - known then as the Northern Union - were touring Australia that year and they were, the story goes, led out before one of the Test matches by a circus lion that had been borrowed for the occasion.

"That story may be a tad apocryphal, and there is no actual documentary evidence, but a cartoon appeared in an Australian newspaper soon after showing the players with a mangy-looking lion and the name stuck.

"That was the first time any British sporting side was referred to as 'the Lions', some 30 years before rugby union adopted the nickname," added Ledger.

Sean Long inspired Great Britain to one of their most famous wins over Australia in Sydney in 2006

Every generation of British rugby league fans will have their favourite memories of watching Great Britain - the World Cup success of Dave Valentine's 1954 side, the Battle of Brisbane as Alan Prescott played the whole game with a broken arm in 1958, Peter Fox's Dad's Army in 1978, Mike Gregory's super solo try in the Sydney Football Stadium in 1988, Jonathan Davies diving in at the corner at Wembley in 1994, or the Sean Long-inspired win in Sydney in 2006.

Now a new generation of Great Britain stars can begin writing their own chapter in one of rugby league's most treasured history books.

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