There's an interesting piece on the BBC comparing league and union. Giving their opinions are Jonathan Davies (37 Wales union caps, 10 caps for Great Britain and nine for Wales in league), Jeremy Guscott (65 union caps for England and eight for the Lions) Jamie Peacock (26 caps for Great Britain and 21 for England in league, and captained both), and Tulsen Tollett (former NRL and Super League rugby league star, and Premiership rugby union player).

I might be biased, but the conclusion at the end seems to lean towards league, and you can't be surprised I go to his club to watch the game where its usually packed full of Rhinos supporters, whenever I've been there on a first team training night their coach is forever banging on about running angles "like they do in League" - there has always been respect for the league code in union.

Just on the BBC, I noticed that a couple of days before thew WC final, RL was removed from the top list of sports on their website (at least in the international version). Its now relegated to a line in the "Other Sports" menu.

In UK always a main panel for rugby league, see below:



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Before the recent Ireland v NZ RU game I was consoled by colleagues who had watched the semi final the day before. Whilst acknowledging I was gutted I said at lease it's good to see a game of rugby won by scoring tries.
At that game I was (surprisingly) supporting Ireland and was gutted at the end that they had failed to achieve a first ever win over NZ after being in such a great position, the game was won a minute after the full 80 minutes by NZ scoring a try to win 24-22. There were 6 tries in the match, it was an extremely enjoyable game, played in the way I think rugby should be played.

The England New Zealand RL game was superb, as was the Wales Australia union game.
The highlight was a master class of passing and running from the Aussie quade cooper. If he had played for Australia against the lions the results may have been entirely different .

Most union fans will never like league because it's too formulaic - 5 drives and a kick, repeat. Theres much more variety and areas of combat in union.

It depends what you grow up with most of the time. What we see as fast an open, they see as repetitive and predictable. What we see as ugly, slow and boring, they see as fascinating tactical battles and variety.

That was a great game. I don't mind Union, you have to watch it with an open mind rather than the rugby league chip on your shoulder. Obviously brought up with league, i think a great game of league beats a great game of union, and a terrible game of league still beats a terrible game of union. But a great game of union is still bloody enjoyable, it just depends how it's played and how the game unfolds. Plus, we can actually beat the aussies in Union, which is a major plus.

Yea sure loads of fat guys roll about on the floor for ages till the SH passes back to the FB who hoofs it down the pitch. Repeat ad finitum

I agree totally with this.