Well I am sorry to say, I have a long memory when it comes to Union, this is the game that would ban anybody from every playing Union again if they played the great game. The Union game is dominated by the public school elite, that is why they get all the media coverage, if the great game got the same amount of coverage as Union we would play to sold out grounds for Internationals.

Yes I was bored Saturday and watched the Union game with England and what a load of rubbish, it was slow, boring, it was clear that there were to many plays on the pitch to have an open attacking game, that is why League is a 13 aside game. All England appeared to want to do was get a pen and kick at goal. What a loud of rubbish.

100% League 0% Union

Despite playing yawnion at school & watching it before I got into rugby I am now completely unable to watch a game. When I see the highlights on the news or sports reviews I never fail to be astounded at the lack of technique in attack & defence.

Misguided opinions like this are holding back rugby league and have been for several decades.

I played Union at school, because inexplicably in west Leeds that was what we had.

I was never much interested apart from that. I watched more when I was at Uni as I had a couple of house mates who were Union types (one from UAE, one from Surrey) so we had a cultural exchange. Both are well into League now (Surrey one is a Wests fan over in Sydney, Arab chum is still in NW England but retains the Leeds loyalties I instilled). By the by. These days I watch RU when its on and I've got nowt else to do, and might watch it in a pub if mates are doing it as a social activity. I don't think the standards are necessarily as poor as some would suggest, though I don't think its caught up with League in the basic skills. This is partly because I don't have SKy so I'll watch most sport if its on the Beeb! There just isn't enough RL on there to fill the gap.

Generally, the international game has become increasingly ponderous of late. Some of the Heineken Cup games can be pretty good though. I do think people sometimes gloss over how poor the quality of some of the televised RL matches can be though. At it's best, RL is my favourite sport to watch by a country mile, but a good game of RU is still better to watch than a poor game of RL in my view.

Also, I find that round Leicestershire (where most of my pub RU watching mates hail from) the class issue isn't all that relevant. RU is widely watched and played in some pretty working class parts of the county. RL is barely played anywhere, so there isn't any divide to bother using class to explain.

Agreed. I played Union in Leics for years, and the clubs I played at weren't exactly upper class. The game may be run by toffs at the top, but at the bottom, most people playing it are like you and me

When people talk about basic skills in Union, they really should make a distinction between what they see in the Premiership and Heineken Cup and what's on offer in the Super 15 down under.

The gulf in skill levels between the hemispheres in Union makes the one in League look miniscule by comparison.

Agreed. I don't watch much RU, but the Southern Hemisphere stuff is just a different game. That Northern teams can 'compete' is largely down to weather and ability to spoil a game

A point not lost on many Unions who trying to rectify the problem from U7 and up by changeing the game that youngsters play. U9 (the first year of contact) is now (as of this year) basically rugby league in everything but name - no rucks or mauls, no scrums and no lineouts - just tackling and ball playing. Kids are encourageed to offload from the tackle - defenders are not allowed to stop this - unless they put the player on the floor in the tackle (enourages low tackling and better technique). Mind you, guess the one of the only two counties in England and Wales that hasn't adopted the new rules?
Players coming through at the moment have little knowledge of how to do anything other than take a tackle and let someone else take responisibility - watch even an international player when they make a line break and end up in space. It's embarrassing.
The main problem Union will always have to deal with is that you don't have to play any "rugby" with the ball to win a game. It's more about position than possession, and then waiting for the infringement. SA played absolutely no rugby on Saturday in the first half, they simply watched England fail to deal with re-starts correctly and defended until England infringed - then took the points.

Spot on
Out of interest which are the 2 counties not to adopt the new rules?

Cheers, I guessed one would be Yorkshire. Sadly Yorkshire appears backward in both codes of rugby then.

Out of interest, the RU club I have played for for a couple of years, has had a bit more of an influx of players from Outlaws. We now have a 10, 12 & 13 from Outlaws, with most of the back row there too. Our wide defence is great, and when we run the ball in the backs we do well. The problem is that the rest of the team aren't so good at the Union things like scrums and lineouts. We won a game away at the team top of the league on Saturday that we had no right to win, simply because we could defend one dimensional rugby, and take advantage of teritory when we got the chance

Hypocrite.

As I recall you possess a pair of cufflinks yourself. In fact, typical of your attempts to bludge your way to ebourgeoisement, you didn't even pay for them.

And Botha could have gathered the restart, a few forward phases later and someone slots a three pointer and you're licking Robshaws balls for astute decision making. That's rugby for you.