I have been watching this great game of ours for exactly 50 years and in that time I have lost count of the number of times this point has been raised. I can even remember the famous Maurice Lindley quote that Rugby League would be the pr-eminent spectator sport in the UK within 5 years - back in the eighties! In reality we are two different sports. When RL threatened RU by taking its top stars did we think that RU would fall into oblivion? Now that RU is professional they have the ability to attract our best players the other way. But they have a long way to go before they can match the number of players that we took from them. And if we look at France the RU code has done its level best to obliterate RL for many years - and that in a country where RU has been professional for many years before the rest of the world and RL was for so long amateur. In my opinion it is a concern but, as with all businesses, before it gets to be critical the game's leaders will do something about it. Tony Smith at Warrington has suggested raising the salary cap for example. If Sky suddenly announced that they were pulling out of RL that would be critical and could damage the sport. But because they too are business men who understand that Superleague as a product can pull in the fans they too would do something to halt any demise in RL. Put simply - there are far too many vested interest to allow RL and RU to merge - unless any merged game play by RL rules of course!! And in reply to Fishta - yes, there are occasional exciting RU games. I can't remember one recently.....................unless we are talking about a certain swan diving ex RL players antics of course.

38k at the Auckland game today which I am told is more than the combined total attendance of the last 4 super 15 RU games in NZ.

What makes you think this? I would suggest (but I am by no means certain) that there are far many more amature union teams and registered players than League.

There was some sort of study and official report done into popular sports. In terms of amateur following, tv audiences and overall attendances, RL is the second most popular sport in the UK, second only to football.

The only thing that lets us down is a marginally lower average attendance in week-to-week league matches than Union. We average 7,414 more fans per year for the Super League Grand Final than the Union Premiership's Grand Final. We average 11,100 more fans per year for the Challenge Cup Final than the Heineken Cup Final.

A Union fanboy I used to go to school with made fun of League recently, saying Rugby League could never bring 80,000 fans to a match. Presented him with the facts and he went strangely quiet.

Our biggest problem is the lack of space devoted to the Greatest Game in the newspapers. With people like Jim Holden (Daily Express writer, one article of his resulted in rlthis bookrl and the movement behind it.) being so ignorant our sport through whatever bias/prejudice they may have, we may be waiting some time to "break the walls".

Did anyone hear the report on Radio Manchester, think it was last week, where a long-time Union broadcaster and fan "dragged" himself along "begrudgingly" to watch the Wigan-St George match? His reaction afterwards was that he had never seen such skills and intensity in Rugby before, that the quality and excitement far outweighed anything he had ever seen on a Union field.

Final points to be made, things that Union fanboys often don't have an answer to; ask them why ageing RL players who were past their best can literally WALK straight into the England Union team (and a World Cup-winning team at that), why Wendell Sailor left Union (answer: he was too bored) and why they think it's ok to pay over £20 for an 80-minute match consisting of only 37% (30 minutes) of action, whilst we pay £17 for 69% (55 minutes) of action!

We were talking about sky tv viewers.

I think this is where Saddened's point was aimed?