Goodway calls for `reserve' Test team

Andy Goodway, the new Great Britain coach, who will today reveal his first selections for the forthcoming Test series against Australia, has called for the introduction of a national B team.

Goodway and his technical coach Shaun McRae are to name players for their squad once their clubs are knocked out of the end-of-season Premiership.

The training party will be trimmed down after the Premiership final later this month to a manageable squad for the first Test at Wembley on 1 November, but Goodway would like the discarded players to remain in the international set-up.

"In the past, players have been brought in and then simply discarded," Goodway, the former Great Britain forward, said.

"I would like to see the formation of a B team or a Young Lions - call it what you will - so that we can give them all a taste of international rugby. We could play France and, if we could get Australia and the Kiwis to do the same, we could arrange some meaningful fixtures."

Goodway and McRae will make their first choices from the clubs whose season is brought to an end by elimination from the Premiership, although Goodway will not be able to select from his own Paris club because they comprise Australian and French players. Leeds and Oldham completed the preliminary round at Headingley last night.

Goodway, meanwhile, will hold talks with the French Federation later this week about the future of the Paris St Germain club, who were involved in a battle to avoid bottom spot in Super League for the second successive season.

Although Sir Rodney Walker, the Rugby League chairman, has told Paris that had they finished bottom, they would not have been relegated, Goodway is anxious the club is put on a more secure footing.

Canberra Raiders defeated Penrith 32-12 in the Australian Super League semi-finals, but paid a high price in injuries. Second-rower David Furner suffered knee ligament damage and could be out for six weeks.