Saturday morning newspapers in Australia proclaimed the death of the world-wide game after the home side's 64-10 drubbing of Great Britain.

But Gregory, who played for his country from 1982 to 1987, insisted that Britain would learn from the experience and would benefit further from more matches against high-class opposition.

"We played badly but they're a lot better than I thought actually. Everything they did seemed to come off and they made us look very ordinary," he said.

"It's not a nice feeling, I'm proud as hell to be British. It's not done the British game any good whatsoever but we can learn from it.

"I met up with a few of the old Australian legends who were saying we should keep international rugby league going but put it in an Ashes series and play it every two years home and away like we used to.

"I'm sure if we played more Tests like we played last night, it will benefit our game."

Embarrassing

Britain's 11-try defeat, their heaviest Test loss, was predicted by another former Great Britain legend, Garry Schofield, who said that he feared a humiliation and claimed "it could quite easily be a 40-point margin".

Gregory said: "I didn't enjoy reading Schoey's comments but, in a way, he was right. We under-performed and it was embarrassing to look at the scoreboard. Certain key players didn't click.

"I've played in good international sides and pretty ordinary international sides and there's no way there's 50 points difference between Great Britain and Australia. But as long as we can learn from it.

"It was a poor Great Britain side but I know every individual and I know they can play better than they did last night."

The 19-strong British squad were flying back to Britain on Saturday ready to resume the Super League campaign with their clubs next weekend.

The majority of the Australian players were due to turn out for their clubs in National Rugby League action this weekend.

A notable exception was St George Illawarra stand-off Trent Barrett, who was detained in hospital overnight after suffering a neck injury trying to tackle St Helens centre Martin Gleeson.