I like him. I didn't even know who it were at the time so I googled him on my phone and I kinda recognise him a little. He's got one of those voices that don't match his face though I think, like all football commentators. Apart from Barry Davies. I love him.

His autobiog is a good read (the old one), i noticed he has something out now too, big league fan too, has pics in his book with Chris Anderson when he was at Halifax.

Had some very tough times in his youth (despite obviously loving adoptive parents), bright, driven bloke who played a huge part of dragging England out of the dark ages on and off the pitch. Pigeon holed as the shop steward and a firebrand in some of the players battles with the RFU but was rightly fighting for parity for him and his colleague compared to what was happening officially or unofficially in the other countries.

Used to love his routine winding up of the french in his playing days - week before england france game his interviews would ensure the french were ready to explode and lose their control come kick off time, worked a treat for years. His account of the 91 wc qarter final in paris v the french is superb, talking about he and Pete Winterbottom were feeling.

He's the poor man's Yawnion answer to Steveo ....

"Yes, I know ... A mere 'solicitor' ... How dare he speak to us in those terms. He should be at least a Baronette before he speaks to an RFU committee like that"

the RFU didn't like the players having an opinion back then, i think it's in his book that he makes reference to the committee men coming down to the changing rooms to gee up the team and impart their wisdom before the match...Will Carling called it right.

Me??

Already said I watched the game as I was curious and had nowt better to do.

As a contest it entertained me but not in terms of the skills - I'm glad I watched it but shan't bother with any more of the 6 nations.

Only thing that angers me is the unfair difference in how the press treat Union and League (exemplified by the hyping of Chris Ashton). And before anyone says about how much more of an international game they have don't forget that most broadsheets dedicate 2-4 pages per week on the Union club competition yet attendences and TV audiences are no better than League (which is lucky to get half a page on grand final weekend).

I would suggest alot less forward passes than you would see in the average league game.
I think what makes Ashton world class is the fact he played league and full back. Most of his trys are from following the ball waiting for offload.

I actually enjoyed the game.

think we spend too much time worrying about it and comparing. It's a different game. League is a northern game and union is more based in the south where all the papers are based.

Oh and internationally union achive much more than we do.

Yep. The day after the 2nd Leeds v Wigan playoff game last year in the Telegraph (IIRC) there was 2 pages dedicated to a couple of Union games (just regular league games) none of which were on TV and which their combined attendances added up to just less than 9,000. The Leeds v Wigan playoff with an attendance of over 13,500 and a significant TV viewing got a small column on the right hand side of a page which didn't even stretch half way down the page.
There is no justification for that kind of bias which is prevalent amongst the media.

Not sure if that still stacks up anymore, I'm sorry to say.

At its full time professional level RU has a much broader national spread than RL, it has a fully competitive European tournament and twice yearly international rounds of games.

It attracts greater media attention because it has all the bases covered, not because there is any sort of bias - thats the sort of thinking that makes RL so insular and will condemn it ever to be second best in the media's eyes.

You're right .... it does now.

It is finally justifying the bias that has always been ingrained regardless of what it had to offer.

Yet the single game rugby league game received 50% more support through attendance than the 2 Union games, plus the TV audience. If Union has such a broad national appeal then why don't more people attend?

If the papers and media want to report 2/3/4 times as much coverage for England Rugby Union than England Rugby League then fair enough, the attendances warrant that. Yet the papers and media aren't doing that, they're reporting 2/3/4 times as much coverage for domestic rugby union games which (in this instance) was obviously 3 or 4 times less popular than it's rugby league counterpart.

Lets be honest, its always had a wide spread (location wise) appeal and the further we go back in history the more apparent that is, and its always had its home internationals and full international games, EVERY year.

Its always going to be a much easier game to sell for that very reason, in fact RL can probably count itself lucky (thank Sky for that) that it gets the coverage it does - ice hockey and speedway to think of just two sports have a far greater national spread than RL and get virtually no national press attention.