I am doing an MA in Sports History and the last essay of this year (due June) has some RL topics, namely:

1. Why does Wales play rugby union instead of rugby league, despite sharing the same
social and industrial environment as the north of England?

2. Discuss the history of the Anglo-Australian relationship in rugby league. Account for the
reversal of that relationship since 1970

With reference to the first question, geography would be the obvious answer today but the famous 1905 Wales v All Blacks game was a decade away at the time of the great split. Why did Wales not turn to RL?

For the second question many an old player has said we are no nearer to beating the Aussies today than thirty years ago but at least till the late 70s we were ahead.

Any thoughts from anyone out there? The course leader is Prof Tony Collins who is familiar from writing academic works on both RU and RL - very fair with no northern axe to grind.

In response to your first question – as you clearly state S Wales and North England share social and economic similarities, however the industries served in these areas are totally different. In 1895 league broke away due to broken time payments for the Mill workers of the North – the welsh industry was based around coal and steel (still is!), these are 24 hour operations so I would guess that the workers were on rotating shifts and maybe that is why they didn’t join the Northern union at its outset, as the workers (and mine/steel mill owners) were not losing out.

Get yourself to the George hotel in Hudds – should be loads of info

As for part 2 – where to start but I’d suggest that Aussie RL has been a full time pro sport longer than in the UK, thus tactics, fitness and knowledge gained has kept them at the forefront of the game

On point 2. The Australians had enough of being 2nd best and looked to how other professional sports had developed in the fields of training, fitness and coaching. They identified American Football as being similar enough game-wise but light-years ahead in on and off-field activities. A study group went to the US and came back with proposals to change the way the game was coached & played and a more scientific and professional approach to all aspects of fitness, player-development, game plans etc was the result.

There used to be great website: rl1908.com but now sadly taken down. It might be worth trying to get a copy of one of the Aus Centennial books.

As with the North, the Rugby players in Wales couldn't afford to take the time away from work to train and play rugby. They wanted paying for their time and effort to compensate for the hours missed at their 'normal jobs'.

After seeing the same happen up North, and the split in 1895, the RFU poured a lot of money into Welsh Rugby (and turned a blind eye to any payments to players), to stop their players and clubs from being lured away to RL (although some players were still turning to RL up until the early 90's).

This effectively made Welsh RU semi-pro and covered up by the RU world.

There was a good article about this I read last year (tried looking but can't find it).

Don't know about Yorkshire but in Lancs it was mainly mine workers. There were plenty of cotton mills but they were predominantly in none RL towns like Bolton, Blackburn, Burnley etc. Think the heavy industries, apart from the mills, were common to both South Wales and Northern England.

You might be right, apart from the fact that Wigan certainly had its fair share of cotton mills.
However, most of the workforce in the cotton mills were women as this type of work, although hard, was less pphysical than some of the heavy engineering or coal mining.

Interesting but when I did a Masters degree the academic focus was on researching then assessing academically published articles to support an arguement rather than gathering largely unsubstantiated opinion from a public forum.

Then again it was an MSc rather than an MA..........

I can't wait to mark this essay!

Whoops - busted!

Erm...credit for initiative??

ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5 ... AA300_.jpg Try this Written by Ian Golden who is the current Welsh RL media guy and all round good bloke. It does cover the history of RL in wales too. He is on twitter too I'm sure if you needed any explanations you could contact him and get some good opinions.

ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5 ... AA300_.jpg Try this Written by Ian Golden who is the current Welsh RL media guy and all round good bloke. It does cover the history of RL in wales too. He is on twitter too I'm sure if you needed any explanations you could contact him and get some good opinions.

Might I also direct your 'reading' towards the RFU turning a blind eye to paying players in wales (shamateurism) for fear of losing the welsh to RL they had some idea that if Wales turned to RL the southwest would follow and RU would be confined to a small area around London.

Should be plenty of that

Victorians and sport by Mike Huggins was one of the books I used for an essay on sport and class last year. It's good for some general background reading and as far as I remember had a bit to say on the 1895 split.

I'd say a significant change for Australia were the gambling laws and leagues clubs. A lot of money was put into the game at that time which changed their capabilities compared to other sports.

Tony....can we all submit essays?