Stephen Jones picks his ten best international teams of all-time

As per Miz question, how does a team go about that rise you reckon? Someone got hold of the club and drove an interest in participation back with it, or just another generational thing?

Also, a question I gave Miz, do you think the AIL has the ability to go somehere, be more than what it is now, like the Championship over in England etc? If it doesn’t get the same spotlight as those other examples ofc, it might do already? Sydney club footy has several thousand attend its finals games etc.

NZ and Ireland both use provinces but Aussies States are far more inline with your provinces right? I was wondering if the AIL had clubs that were on the tipping point of wanting to become pro, how close could they get to a current Ulster etc. I’m guess the Ulster players no longer have much to do with their former clubs, unlike how SR players jump back to their equivalent provinces? So one of those Ulster teams wouldn’t say have half a dozen URC players who would otherwise represent them?

I’m wondering how close their structure can get to being a good back drop for the Aussie players once SR is finished, if the top structures are similar (State v Province), could Irelands club system also be used, but most importantly, would it be good enough?

BTW ty for the reply, I actually had the tables up and had no idea who was who lol

There is still a very big following and favourtism for rep rugby over ‘club’ or the pro rugby teams here. I wonder if Ulster has just lost that edge of what it meant to be a rep team? Were as Leinster have been able to embrace the new ‘club’ persona far more enthusiastically?

Could be that ‘pro’ vibe just eating into what were the strengths of your traditional teams?

Ulster have certainly been pretty good since I’ve been noticing, though sure, clearly under Leinsters spotlight. Picked up on a few of this years unfortunate results though. Happens to the best, hopefully things turn around.

Ah right, so in a similar boat to the Ulster schools? If it’s anything like here, I don’t know why that should matter much. Widely varying results from within NZ despite heavily funded/wealth Auckland sides to my understanding, totally about the crop of players coming through. Though that might still be a key point of difference in perspective, with although not in numbers, rugby still being the dominant sport here?

for some as yet unrevealed new definition of nailbiter. coach killer, perhaps? No concept of ball retention, tactical kicking skills that sink to a new low; what happened to the hard-nosed forward-driven side that we lauded last year?

Graham Simmons had a go selecting a full Lions squad in a recent article on here titled “2025 Lions' selection: An idiot's guide”

Excluding all the players he named, England could still field a matchday 23 of:

1 - Baxter

2 - Cowan-Dickie

3 - Heyes

4 - Coles

5 - Martin

6 - Cunningham-South

7 - Underhill

8 - T. Willis

9 - JVP

10 - M. Smith

11 - Sleightholme

12 - Dingwall

13 - Slade

14 - Roebuck

15 - Furbank

16 - Dan

17 - Rodd

18 - Opoku-Fordjour

19 - Clark

20 - Hill

21 - Pollock

22 - Randall

23 - Ojomoh

That’s a team that would be immediately ready to perform at the highest level, not one that needs a huge amount of time to develop. Add to that the wider squad could include Langdon, Obano, Davison, Owen, Tuima, Roots, Pepper, Quirke, C. Atkinson, Butt, Murley, Steward, Hendy.

That would be a pretty solid group of players - almost all 36 of whom are already test level. And even then we’re not including Oghre, Iyogun, Fasogbon, Ewels, Mercer, Dombrandt, Fisilau, Barbeary, Spencer, S. Atkinson, Beard, Elliott, Carpenter etc.,

Still a lot of improving to be done to reach the big boys at the top though, but these two could get their this season.