Yep, their attacking skills are pathetic (in general). Their passing is generally slow and inaccurate (and for some reason every single pass is spun regardless of the distance, never quite worked that one out) and their lines of running are rubbish/non-existant.

There are obviously a few exceptions but only a very few, however I have been quietly impressed the few times I've seen Cipriani play.

I decided to have a quick look back at some of Mr Bills previous pieces of prose for the Belfast Telegraph and back only on the 12th of December he wrote this -

rlhttp://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/rugby/peter-bills-university-challenge-to-professional-code-14595370.htmlrl

I suddenly think that Mr Bills piece on the 26th December is more of a cry for help... I think he is clearly coming to the realisation that, in general, RU is indeed a poor spectacle and is struggling to come to terms with the fact that a game he clearly loves is no longer satisfying him in terms of on-field action and entertainment.

I really honestly think someone from HQ or the RFL should invite him over, all expenses paid, to come to either Leeds v Cas on the 5th Feb or indeed the WCC at Elland Road. It would be interesting to see what he would then write when he got back!

Personally, I think he should give in and start and watching Super League.

Ok, I thought this Peter Bills was Irish but I think he might be South African.

[iPeter Bills is Chief rugby correspondent for Independent News & Media worldwide. He contributes regularly to the group's titles in Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand and England, including 'Rugby News' magazine in London.
Peter is an award winning sports writer who has been writing on rugby union for almost 40 years. The author of 12 books on the game, he is also a former editor of 'Rugby World' and 'Rugby News' magazines in London.
He covers rugby all around the world and has written on the game from every major rugby playing nation, from Argentina to New Zealand, South Africa, Fiji and Japan plus all over the Britain, Ireland and Europe. His columns on rugby appear in many of those countries.
He has worked with some of the greatest names in the game on their autobiographies including Gareth Edwards, David Campese, Jean-Pierre Rives, Bill McLaren, Willie John McBride, Corne Krige and Dean Richards. He also wrote a special anniversary book on the history of London Irish and his most recent publication is, 'Rucking & Rolling', a look at international rugby over the last 60 years.[/i

It would be interesting to know whether he has ever seen a top-flight RL game in the flesh and whether someone should make sure he should! He is clearly a reformist judging by his other pieces!

That's quite a CV he boasts, which makes his ignorance all the more impressive, and his moaning all the more petulent

That has to be one of the finest disections of RU Vs RL i have heard in a while and i know you only scratched the surface. Nice one, my faith in southstander is returned from exile.

He's clearly yearning for the days when international Rugby Union matches consisted of 60 scrums a game ...

That is the one thing that divides RU, the inability of forwards to release their grip on the "old ways" when forwards saw themselves as being the main playmakers in the game and the backs were called "the ladies".

Despite the law changes last year and all the efforts of the ERU to open up the game and make it more attractive and simpler to understand for new spectators, you still see the same old forwards running the ball over the top of a maul straight into the next power struggle, and on and on up the pitch yard by yard - the enlightened teams play that for four or five movements, draw in half of the opposition then throw the ball out wide, the rest just plod on regardless.

Too true, plus I'm old enough to remember a game in the 60s when the then Welsh scrum half Clive Rowlands just kicked the ball up & down the touch line for line out after line out. How boring was that?
The problem as I see it is that the modern game - dependent as it is on penalty kicks - produces close games that seem exciting for solely that reason.
How on earth RU has the cheek to complain about RL scrums really grates too.
Sadly, an open game game of RU can be an exciting spectacle, fortunately for RL that doesn't happen too often.

Perhaps the most damming evidence against Union is the old Mitchell & Kenyon films that were taken at the turn of the 19th / 20th Century.

Of course, during those days 'Rugby League' was still playing to 'Union' rules post the 1895 split.

Go 65 years in to the future and Rugby Union (where an international during the 60s had 60+ scrums during the course of the game) looked more or less the same as the M & K films. Meanwhile RL, even with the no-six-tackle rule er, didn't ....

The game had seen sense, pretty much as soon as it twigged that it needed punters coming through the door to make the game pay, got rid of a sucession of stupid rules that were killing the game as a spectacle.

League scrums ?



Union Line Outs

I actually enjoy watching RU line outs, not that I'd wish to see them in RL.
But I think (as your picture showed) they are very technical, requiring great skill & bottle & normally get the ball back into play much more quickly than scrums.

I can't help but think that if they didn't throw the ball so high they'd all have a chance of catching it.

Or just throw it to the bloke right infront of the lineout? No one would suspect that.

Piggy in the middle just got serious.

Whilst lifting always went on covertly, they've just made it a joke now by having one nominated catcher that goes about 11 feet up ....

They do get the ball back in play fairly quickly but it leads to specialised back and 2nd rowers whose 1 and only job is to be in the lineout and are subsequently unable to run, catch, pass or tackle.

The biggest step forward Union could take is to do away with the lineouts as then they could have mobile 2nd rowers who can actually do something in the rest of the game.