Union has changed a lot, in Wales and the Southern Hemisphere.

10-man rugby is still king in England, Scotland and Ireland - particularly when the harsher conditions come around in the middle of the season.

KICK AND CLAP

You and Mclaren Field are looking back through rose tinted glasses. Do you not remember how players could be given lifetime bans from Union for being "tainted" by having played league (union's terminology).

I bet Steve Pilgrim doesn't recall with fluffy nostalgia the days when players were happily allowed to play both codes.

Oh, and the "tainting" was only ever one way.

I know players who, in the 1970s, played for Leeds RL Colts and also Roundhay and Headingley RU in the full knowledge of each club concerned without incurring wrath or sanctions, it happened and many were aware that it happened and turned a blind eye.

Mind, there were a lot of blind eyes in RU at that time - the mate I mentioned on the previous page, the one who would have been signed on RL pro terms if he hadn't been so keen on his career, played under other names on several occasions for RU clubs who were considered the "upper tier", particularly in competitions such as the John Player Trophy - we went with him to a quarter final game at Fylde once and the cash that he found in an envelope in his kitbag afterwards paid for one hell of a p1ssup in Blackpool for three of us that night - and then I drove us home - ah the 1970s, those days will not return

Look at the pace & quality of Super Rugby, great value entertainment

Loz, you can't educate those who wish to bury their heads in the sand or carry huge chips and grudges around all day long, they probably still hate the Germans too.

You know where Super Rugby is played, don't you?

Not quite sure what point you're trying to make there?

I've no chip on my shoulder, I've trained at and with two different union clubs this year and am considering a run out with the thirds of one such club.

But if I am to be educated I'd rather it be someone with an accurate recollection of what it was really like when union was a shamatuer sport.

What relevance does it have to todays sport ?

I'm agreeing with you regarding Southern Hemisphere rugby

If mine are rose tinted then yours are Stevie Wonder's! I was brought up to be open minded thank goodness and the opinions expressed were about the two different games of rugby. It is unfortunate that you unable to rise above the class based history of the two sports to discuss the merits of modern day rugby of both codes.

Of course I am aware of the broken time payments history and the snobbery and the shamateurism and "boot money payments" that went on. I recall Ronnie Cowan telling me of when he first played for the Lions and he was shocked to find "taxi" money from Selkirk to the South of England in his boots after training.

The "tainting"was only one way of course in those days because League stood to gain from an open door policy and Union to lose.

However I also remember the League welcome that most Union signings received in their first season which was also only one way. Alun Rees Wales International stand off signing received a broken nose from a deliberate foul in his first game for Leeds. This welcome was typical through the years right up to the John Gallagher spear tackle. The recent BBC programe on Jonathan Davies showed a funny clip of him in the Widnes dressing room before his first RL game, I think, and his teammates were all around him stroking his nose and making comments as to how it would look after the game.

Times have moved on and the Luddites are in the minority. Union is now professional and has the money and on it's day offers good rugby skills and entertainment for followers of the handling game.

None, but you and Juan were the ones that started waxing lyrical about some fictional, historical halcyon days of free love between the two sports that simply didn't exist. I was simply calling foul on the re-writing of history.

A lot more dynamic. If you browse the BBC Sport site from London you don't even get RL in the main nav.