I blame London.... just saying

I once had the misfortune of watching part of a Rugby Union game live, it was a double header at Harlequins (Quins RL v Huddersfield) and the union game was on 1st, i swear the 'play' never moved from the same 10 square metres of grass for 15 minutes...scrum/kick/line thrown thingy/....Scrum/Kick/line throw.....continuously, i think only 4 players actually touched the ball, how on earth people can sit and watch that i will never know ..awful game !!

Officially the biggest home attendance in broncoquins sl history.......

Correct, given at 12,000 i think as the Union game was 'supposedly' a sell out !

I have tried and tried to watch Union, but I just find it tedious. Too much kicking, not enough hard running and the amount of times the play disintegrates into a pile of blokes laying in a heap is too much to bear.

Can't fault the RFU though, they have managed to peddle their shoddy wares much better than our lot, so fair play to them.

How I miss those threads, when conspiracy theorists could be found together, discussing brown paper bag payments and 30 aussies in a 25 man squad....life was so much simpler back then





Prior to that visit to the Capital, Huddersfield Giants were usually responsible for an average attendance of 2,700 or so. On that day, Harlequins Union side played their last game in the lower tier having easily gained promotion back up to the Guinness Premiership. They averaged 9,000 that year and we averaged 4,600 but without the double header, 4,000 that year, so the crowd total of 12,301 was pretty much accurate and the Stoop held 12,500 back then, so it wasn't far off a full house. We had about 750 cross-code fans back then.........alas, they are all now back to being Union only fans as we now try to convert Barnet FC supporters to the cause...

I said supposedly as there were plenty of empty seats while the borefest was on !

Not everyone who paid to get in that day watched the Union.......that's where your empty seats come from. I know I rolled up with about 30 minutes left on the clock of the union game and headed straight to the bar. I would have expected about 10k for the Union with the 2,300 or so rolling up for the League.....both sets of attendance figures for both clubs that year would support this.

Agree, good post.

Now the original reason for the RU/RL split has gone away (open and transparent payments to players) I wonder if there is a basis for a re-unification of rugby under a single set of laws - to create a game to start to challenge soccer globally.

All that has to happen is for RU to irrevocably reduce the number of players from 15 to 13 (get rid of 'wing forwards') and scrap line-outs and we are on.

"It will never happen" they will say - but so they did about the Berlin Wall coming down and Russia and China converting from Communism to Capitalism.

It's a fairly accurate appraisal. Only the other day I was reading that the play moves 55m per minute on average in the English premiership. The following day I was out with my dad - he's 92 - and he moved considerably faster. That said, the pub had been open for at least 10 minutes.