The "old sport" was rugby union. If there is a thing called "rugby football" distinct from both union and league then it was the form of football played at rugby school. The likes of Huddersfield and Hull never quite played that.

It invented some of the rules. It merged all the differing rules clubs were playing and codified them into one game. That was the whole point of setting them up, so that everyone played the same game.

The RFU didnt inherit the rules from the northern clubs. They inherited the rules from Rugby school and the other differing versions of the game at the time. Not one northern club was at the meeting to form the RFU. If history tells us anything, the rules would have been made to spite the northern clubs!


Exactly! That's what we've been saying. That "same game" was rugby union. And rugby union became rugby league, hence the term used "rugby union spawned rugby league".

Took you a while dally but you got there in the end!

Northern union was RU too. over time the game evolved into RL.

rugby union under the control of a northern governing body

for the clubs of the north the game in 1894 and 1895 was essentially the same

if the RFU want nothing to do with the northern clubs then they cant claim their history as their own

those clubs helped develop the original rugby game and when they left they took their history with them, splitting the game of RU in two

the northern union spawned rugby league

the RFU had nothing to do with it.

That's precisely what myself and Wellsy argued.

It depends on what you mean by "claiming their history". AFAIK the Huddersfield RU team claimed to have won the Yorkshire cup before they had actually been founded when it was the team that became Huddersfield Giants that won those cups. This is clearly absurd.

If you mean that the RFU can't claim that RU was ever a major spectator sport in Yorkshire and Lancashire or such-and-such a player was a RU international (pre 1895) then I'm inclined to disagree.

You're changing your argument now.

Before, you were arguing that rugby union did not spawn rugby league
So are you admitting now that you got this wrong?

Absolute boll*cks of the highest order. If a club plays a sport under a governing body's rules, why can't that governing body claim the history of a club that played the sport it governed?! It's absurd!


In what way did they help develop rugby union apart from participating? They had no influence, which was pretty much why they left in the first place. You can't just take history. History stays where it always was, otherwise it isn't history it's a lie!

When did rugby league begin in Bradford? Can we not claim the history of Bradford PA in our sport because they left us to go play football?

You've said all along that league didn't come from union. That is the point being argued. You can say anything you like about the history of rugby, the RFU, when rugby league became a new sport, etc. But the fact is that YOU argued that rugby union did not spawn rugby league. Not the RFU. The RFU wasn't mentioned. They're a governing body. YOU said that rugby union (the sport) didn't spawn rugby league.

And you've said that they played "rugby", but you haven't acknowledged that it was rugby union until the last few posts. I thought I may have misread your posts (you know, you Aussies referring to union as "rugby"icon_wink.gif, but then realised you had been arguing that "union" has no right to the "rugby" game on its own. So you haven't been arguing all along that they played rugby union. Just "rugby". So again, changing your argument.

Here's a few quotes to help jog your memory




...A load more quotes repeating the same thing...

And then finally, the quote that made the massive U-turnunion (i.e. RU for northern clubs = Northern Union).

Answer this question:

Did the sport of rugby league come from the sport of rugby union? Not "did the governing body NRFU come from the RFU?" as that is a totally different question.

Did the sport of rugby league come from the sport of rugby union? Yes or No?

for the 100th time, RL did not come from rugby union (as controlled by the RFU).

RL came from the northern (rugby) union, a game of union which was administered by a northern governing body, thats where we came from.

unless you think the original rugby game is an invention of the RFU - clearly wronr - then RL has its own independant genesis.

the game of RL has its roots before the RFU to the game of rugby. both sports originated from the original rugby game and neither can claim ownership of this history

maybe if you read some books on this topic it would help

this is my last response at repeating myself.

So none of these lads had ever seen the RFU's rule book up until 1895 when the new Northern Union came into being......

Dally the RFU's rules were drawn up in 1871 - 24 years previously. You are insane if you think that people in the north were not using those rules.



Both Wellsy and I have already mentioned Rugby school rules.



That's probably just as well.

sorry to get back in but rugby schools rules werent invented by the RFU.

they later codified them but those rules were in place before hand.

northern clubs played their part in the development and playing of the game before the RFU came around

the northern union can trace its roots back to rugby school. so can the RFU.

sorry to dissappoint you but the RFU get zero credit

rugby was not invented by the RFU, they adopted it from earlier games, games which northern clubs which are older than the RFU played

to simplify : NORTHERN (rugby) UNION. no new sport was set up in 1895, it was a continuationn of the old game

i am now done