The only way Leeds should touch this is if the rules are amended to remove competitive scrums.

If a Union team loses specialist front rowers to injury and are forced to put other players in there, scrums are declared non-competitive on safety grounds. I can't see how it could then be considered "safe" to scrummage against players who have no understanding of how to do so safely.

Removing flankers will actually destabilise the scrums, making them even more unsafe IMO.

At the moment, this is just an approach from Bob Dwyer to see whether Leeds would be interested. I would be surprised if it got much further than that without some serious negotiation on the format of the game taking place.

Agreed. As a former tight head, I know of what you speak. If you don't know what you are doing, regardless of how big and strong you are, you will get hurt.

One day these morons will realise that every code of football there is is defined by the state change, if any, that happens at the tackle and that if the state change of two entirely different sports is diametrically opposed there is no sensible possibility of either merging them or forming a hybrid that makes any kind of sense at all.

I can understand the need of Union to test itself occasionally to see how far it has come since the advent of professionalism but that's all this is.

And as a hooker in Union I'd agree, unless the League boys are having weeks of training with people who know what they're doing then as a coach I wouldn't let them anywhere near a competitive scrum with top level professionals, it's dangerous enough at College level.

I'd agree too, I've played everywhere in a Union scrum except hooker and I can't see how competitive scrums could be allowed in this hybrid version. If the Union lads wanted to they'd win every single scrum and somebody would end up getting seriously injured.

IIRC when Wigan played Bath the Bath lads simply packed down but obviously were sensible and didn't push that much, I'm not sure you could rely on that kind of thing nowadays since Union scrums have changed a lot even since then.

Taking into account all the opinions voiced in this thread, the idea of this game should be abandoned. I am not a Leeds fan, but I am a league fan and would not like to see any of their players injured through taking part in a folly like this.

Union is a boring sport which is stuck in the past, whereas RL continues to evolve. The USA is the place where Rugby League could thrive, and if it ever does make it big in America people might finally understand that RL is the only Rugby worth watching.

Surely the best type of game for a cross code would be 7s match. A lot less complicated than trying to play two games at once.

rlAnyone remember this?rl

Would be nice to see some league lads in the olympics playing for GB in 7s come 2016.

I fear for the Union lads getting absolutely smashed in the tackle. There wouldn't be enough of them left on the pitch to form a scrum by half time.

I would expect that the two players to be dropped from the RU side would be the props rather than the flankers which would limit somewhat the bias of the scrum to the RU side.

The fitness required is massively different and they would struggle in RL as much as an RL prop would struggle in RU. RU props simply wouldnt have the defence, the fitness, the ball skills, the speed or agility to even basically function in RL. Similarly no RL player has the sheer strength, power or size to function as an RU prop.
If you tried to play the RU prop in that game, yes they would dominate the scrum, but they wouldnt be able to handle pace of the game, the 10metres, nor would they be able to defend against a player like Burrow, Mcguire, Webb etc on the field with only 13 players, they would get more and more exhausted lessening any impact they would have at the scrum.

I wouldnt wanna see that either unless it was a rugby league 7's.

under the union umbrella it only benefits their game.

if it was to go ahead a two match series, one league one union take out competitive scrums. Points for a try, penalty and drop goal is the same in both matches. Aggregate score wins.

If it was done on one match then 7's or nines match.

I'd rather see Leeds Rhinos vs New York Giants. That'd get some media interest!

That has a chance of happening with Sinfield supposedly heading the NFL. Maybe with the Jets, not Giants though.