Historic win could help league rival union

An unflattering crowd of 36,299 turned up to watch the culmination of the rugby league calendar this weekend in Brisbane, as New Zealand and Australia contested for the four nations championship. Meanwhile 80,000+ people packed into Twickenham on the same weekend to see a international rugby union friendly between England and Australia.

Rugby Union’s Super 14 attracts more fans than rugby leagues NRL down under, whilst the Guinness Premiership does likewise with super league at this side of the world. However Rugby League domestic finals do tend to have the edge over rugby union domestic finals. But off the field whenever its internationally or domestically rugby union owns rugby league pretty much every time. We might have minor victory’s over them in that department, but nothing to really shout about.

Now on the field I’m obviously going to say that league is better, but that’s only because I’m bias thanks to been born and bred rugby league. However this year has seen rugby union emerge from cow slapping to some rugby that I like. In the past I’d put rugby union down as the faster version of the very slow going American football. How times have changed thanks to rugby union looking like rugby league was many years ago before league became what it is now and union fans that I talk to agree. In recent months I’d even go as far as saying that I’ve enjoyed rugby union much more than rugby league.

If I had side step of Benji Marshal, kicking ability of Johnny Wilkinson, speed of Bryan Habana along with the leadership of Kevin Sinfield and was approaching my sixteenth birthday then I know which code of rugby I’d go for professionally once I became of age. Rugby League I’m afraid is dieing a slow painful death thanks to replacing quality with quantity. The Salary cap nature of both super league and NRL has seen talent spread out too thinly meaning that the entertainment standard has declined.

My overall view of sport is any sport is great to watch when its played by great sportsmen. I’m afraid that rugby league just doesn’t have enough great players to keep the week to week game entertaining and that shows in the declining attendances. Rugby Union on the other hand has cherry picked some of the best that league has had to offer over the last couple of years with the likes of Sonny Bill Williams, Chris Aston, Andrew Farrell and more converted to Union. Whose come over from Union to league?

In the past a hybrid game of rugby has been thrown around a few time to merge the codes together but that won’t work because a majority of league and union fans hate each others sport. I’ve witnessed this at first hand as most debates between union fans and I normally decline to my sport is better than your sport. There’s very few that I’ve come across that watch both games.

What we need is a solution that’ll see the best of both codes play each code. I’d love to see the likes of Andrew Sheridan, Toby Flood and others play for England Rugby League as I’m sure that rugby union fans would love to see some of our league stars play for their rugby union squad. Well that’s what rugby union has pretty much done with Chris Ashton, but at rugby leagues expense.

A solution that I propose is that we have an elite rugby season in England where one half of the year is rugby league and the other half is rugby union. This way the best of league get to play in union and the best of union likewise get to play in league. Then at the end of the season we’ll have play offs and the internationals of both codes pretty much the same way. Of course this’ll mean shortening domestic season’s and the amount of teams playing in the top league, but the quality will be so much better. The flexibility will see both codes enjoy each others players.

This is just a brief idea that hasn’t really been thought through. Even now I acknowledge it’ll probably take a very wealthy person indeed to see something like I’ve just mentioned materialise because people have big investments in the current structure of the two sports and this is just one complex reason why it probably won’t happen in the near future. But its about time that both codes give the fans what they deserve and that’s the best of the best at no ones expense. Days of players prioritising which code to play for should be long over because its upset either code at one point or another.

The day I see a Leeds Tykes Player playing for Leeds Rhinos in the sort of season structure that I mentioned above will be the day that Rugby will take over as the worlds number one sport. Until then we shall watch both codes compete for the best players when in reality we could co-exist together in such a better way. Surely there’s a better way than the one that is now?

Until then I shall enjoy the sinking ship that is rugby league because even though we’re sinking, I’d rather be a Rhino than a Tyke. I just don’t think that league will ever compete with Union with the way things are going. Even with more NZ sides in the NRL.