I’ve had a laugh in Halifax before!

I was also going to paste that line. I guess he's had a memory wipe, or even fake memories implanted. Until Clive Woodward came along and exposed how feeble defences - particularly in the home Unions - were (and he was ridiculed in his first 3-4 years in charge of England to boot), there were zero attacking skills in Union, other than kick and chase. I read an article in the late 1980's in one RU publication bemoaning the lack of will to score tries, the conclusion was that to make it worthwhile to attacking sides the try would have to be awarded in the region of 12 points to compensate for the huge number of kickable penalty opportunities.

Here's what they should do to make Union more exciting, reduce the number of defenders to create more space, make the defence retire 5-10 metres behing the ruck (they already did this for the set piece scrum recently), allow quick ball from the ruck area by say, making it un-contested? Encourage more mobile forwards by making scrums basically un-contested and abolish the line-out - just have a tap re-start.

I honestly don't think I've read such total cobblers for a long time.

Amongst journalists, of whom writing bollax is often part of the job description, Rugby Union journalists are frequently up there as the most prolific of bollax-writing amongst their peers. Nancy-ball writers are very proficient at the art, but RU writers never fail to provide articles of utter bollax when their teams are losing, their crowds are dropping, or they are just too p[ii[/issed on after-shave to write coherently.

i'm sure the league influence on union only came about after the cross code challenge when wigan embarressed bath
from what i remember wigan could easily have scored over 100 points in the league game but decided not to humiliate bath too much but in the union game managed to hold bath to a narrow win
union had no clue as to how to do attacking lines and even less about how to stop them, add to this a basic inability to pass a ball and you can see why they had to get better coaches with the best being ex league guys

most union people will admit that their product had become almost unwatchable at times which raises the question as to how they can then attract 75k to club games?

A question that all RL administrators should look at when we can't fill much smaller stadia for international games and cup semi-finals, finals & even grand finals.
A point repeatedly made by McF about the abysmal marketing in RL compared with RU.

Part of it is down to the affiliation that your local RU club will have with the English RU and the fact that they have effectively ruled the sport for 100 and more years from one central office rather than dividing and partitioning their organisation because of petty infighting, power struggles, and downright childish-ness.

I don't have an insight into how the RFL works at an amateur level but I've heard enough stories to understand that its often like trying to get a kindergarten full of kids to all agree in taking turns at the sandpit, I have however seen how the ERU works at amateur club level and it pretty impressive stuff.

There is no doubt that most of your local amateur RU clubs were started with bequeaths of land and wealthy patrons to fund buildings and maybe one paid groundsman etc, but these days most of them operate in exactly the same way as your local amateur RL club, with the exception that the ERU gives them an immense amount of support, both financial and administrative, if you are a trustee of such a club you are told immediately where the grants are being made this year and you are assisted all the way through applying for them, in short you are not running the show on your own, its almost like a franchise operation.

And this co-operation is reciprocated when it comes to distributing tickets for internationals or one-off "specials" at Twickenham like the opening day of the season double-headers - there are now very few freebies available for England games but if you desperately want to go to a major game then joining your local club and asking the secretary for an application form is the recommended route, its also likely that you will not go on your own but as a party from your club, usually of dads and lads and you will almost certainly all meet up at the ground and sit together, its difficult to explain if you're used to buying individual tickets for a RL international at a random football ground where you might not sit with your own party because the RFL will probably send you completely random tickets, and at the end of the game you'll be left thinking "those seats were a bit narrow" rather than being eager to get your hands on some tickets for the next international.

It all starts at the lowest amateur club and works up from there, we have the same history as the ERU, but we have handled our admin totally shambolically by comparison

Very true post. I hope in years to come RL will get their act together and improve their crowds drastically.

I would guess it all started when it was run as an amateur sport by wealthy patrons.
Since RU turned professional cracks have appeared in the solid facade.
Look at the rows between the premiership clubs (i.e. the 1st totally professional outfits) & the RFU run famously in Carling's words by 57 (I think) boring old f*arts.
The comments about RL are spot on, something that Richard Lewis was brought in from outside, therefore, bringing no baggage with him, to sort out.
But BARLA is still not fully onside in this.
Much of it, IMV, is down to petty individual quarrels & people refusing to give up their perceived power for the good of the game as a whole.

Hilarious. Is he Ireland's answer to Stephen Jones ?

I also notice he assumes all RL players have at some point "turned their backs on RU", and he fails to mention former Ireland defensive coach Graham Steadman contribution to Irish rugby.

Or Mike Ford as a coach & Rocky Elsom as a player.
I wonder if he complained when all the RU converts to RL went back into RU & helped the Lions beat the springboks on the 1st Lions tour after the onset of professionalism?
Tait, Gibbs, Bentley, Bateman.

Young & Quinnell too?

Correct, but only Gibbs,Tait & Bentley played in any of the Tests.

It's not just about the RFL "getting their act together though" nowadays you need money, lots of it, and thats something which the RFL simply don't have. As other people have mentioned the marketing for RL is relatively poor, but again to have good marketing you need a lot of money. The simple fact of the matter is that there is a lot more money floating around in Union than there is in League.
Just as an example I remember a few years ago Heworth basically having a whip round and then getting some of the 2nd team lads to build a new dug-out. At York RUFC a group of local businessmen who are union fans have part funded the rebuilding of the changing rooms and bar area, and consistently put money into the club.

This isn't to say that the RFL have/had no faults, but things are a lot easier to do when you've got plenty of money.

We also need those 60-80,000 people who attend the Grand/Cup Finals to start attending internationals too.

I'm currently watching French RU on ESPN. The simple reason RU doesn't score tries, is that they don't know how to attack utilising passing.

It is quite embarrassing.