1996 Great Britain Lions tour

The 1996 Great Britain Lions tour was a rugby league tour by the Great Britain team which took place from September to November 1996. The tour included games in Papua New Guinea, Fiji and New Zealand, however due to the ongoing Super League war and with the Australian team under the control of the Australian Rugby League, the team did not play any matches in Australia. The tour was generally considered as a disaster, with Great Britain failing to win any games in New Zealand, and several players being sent home early from the tour in order to cut costs.

Touring squad
Great Britain coach Phil Larder selected a 32-man squad to take on the tour. A notable omission from the squad was Martin Offiah, who took part in the previous three Great Britain tours, but had told Larder he did not have the enthusiasm for another six-week tour. Several changes were made to the initial squad selected, as Gary Connolly, Lee Jackson and Jason Robinson were informed they would not be allowed to play due to their contracts with the ARL. There were also a number of other withdrawals, with John Bentley returning to rugby union, and Shaun Edwards, Paul Newlove and Steve McNamara all ruled out due to injury.

Former Wigan second row forward Denis Betts, who was playing with the New Zealand-based Auckland Warriors in the Australian Rugby League premiership, made history with his selection. The 25 test veteran became the first player selected to tour while playing in the Australian premiership and not in the English premiership.

Larder's assistant coaches on the tour were Clive Griffiths and Gary Hetherington and the tour manager was Phil Lowe. Andy Farrell was appointed as the tour captain, with Denis Betts named as vice-captain.

Prior to the Second Test against New Zealand, 11 players in the squad were sent home early from the tour as a cost-cutting measure.

Aftermath
The tour was considered a huge failure. It was only the second time in tour history that the Lions had suffered a 3–0 whitewash in a Test series against New Zealand (the other being in 1984), and the 12–32 loss in the Third Test was the widest margin of defeat suffered by Great Britain in a Test against New Zealand. Financially, the tour made a loss of £296,000.

The lack of success was attributed to the large number of key players who were unavailable for the tour, and the blow to morale caused by sending some of the squad home early. Fatigue was also an issue - due to the British rugby league season switching from winter to summer the previous year, some players had taken part in over 60 games within the space of 14 months. New Zealand Rugby League president Graham Carden was blamed for the tour's financial losses, having failed to adequately promote the Test series, resulting in poor attendances. He was eventually forced to stand down the following year.

Great Britain did not tour in the Southern Hemisphere again for over 20 years until the concept was revived in 2019.