Tony Ward is a 'senior' person in RU and his solitary piece means 'another sport is considering'?

Meanwhile in other rugby league news, Scotland's wheelchair curlers have lost 6-3 to Germany in their relegation play-off at the World Championships in Finland.

*spoiler* cheers i was going to watch that later

Union is already evolving, the rucks are becoming more like rugby league in that teams want to put as few people into the contact area as they can get away with.

Whereas before sides might have been committing 6 or 7 players into the ruck leaving 8 or 9 to play in space, now they may only throw 3 or 4 into the contact area. That leaves 11 or 12 players spreading out across the width of the pitch in defence, much as there would be in league.

Unlike in league however, the offside line in union is the back foot of the ruck rather than 10 metres away from it. Combine that with the recent trend towards "blitz" defences, and attacking players get absolutely zero space to work in unless the ball is recycled quickly. So teams try to avoid taking the ball into contact, but players lack the basic skills to keep it moving, offload in the tackle, run the correct lines etc.

So you end up with some turgid knockonathon of endless reset scrums, or sides choosing to kick because they don't back their own handling ability. Taking two players out may create additional space, but unless the offside line changes it won't create the additional time on the ball that creative players need to flourish.

It may not help your creative players, but your elusive runners like Eastmond would be far more effective with less players on the pitch.

Pot, kettle...
It's interesting that you magically appear every time there is a post vaguely related to union.
It is also interesting that you adopt the exact same style of post as a certain Mr. Gutterfax.

Thats because i like Union and League. You always seem to magically appear on Union threads too. Pot, kettle...

Just a journalist wanting to push some buttons.

It wouldn't harm rugby league.
If the dropped flankers those same players would be lost to the game as they would find it hard to move to another position in the rugby union team.
The tall ones would become locks or No.8 if more mobile but there are only so many places.

Rugby League lends itself to a flanker friendly style of play. Big running forwards who are fit enough to get around the field will find a place in all the pack positions in League.
Let them change it. We'll take their cast offs and make them good rugby players.

Erm...
I have posted in one Union related discussion since you 'joined' RLFANS... meanwhile I haven't seen a single post from you yet regarding the actual game of rugby league.
Keep digging Gutters, it is embarrassing but yet so, so funny at the same time.

Quote galliant="galliant"Tony Ward is a 'senior' person in RU and his solitary piece means 'another sport is considering'? '" Its not one man and a single opinion piece. The is being quite openly discussed in the union press. www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... orthampton

Quote galliant="galliant"Tony Ward is a 'senior' person in RU and his solitary piece means 'another sport is considering'? '" Its not one man and a single opinion piece. The is being quite openly discussed in the union press. www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... orthampton

Quote GlobalRugby="GlobalRugby"Its not one man and a single opinion piece. The is being quite openly discussed in the union press. www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... orthampton'" Rugby League changes the way video refs are engaged and nobody mentions it in the press, but a long retired Irish fly-half gets his musings published in an irish paper and it's headline news? Union seems to have "done it again", stealing media coverage with a nothing story (you're/we're discussing it here on an unrelated sports forum)......is this really the basis for a viable thread on a RL board? This is more worrying [urlhttp://www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-league/31497227[/url

Quote GlobalRugby="GlobalRugby"Its not one man and a single opinion piece. The is being quite openly discussed in the union press. www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... orthampton'" Rugby League changes the way video refs are engaged and nobody mentions it in the press, but a long retired Irish fly-half gets his musings published in an irish paper and it's headline news? Union seems to have "done it again", stealing media coverage with a nothing story (you're/we're discussing it here on an unrelated sports forum)......is this really the basis for a viable thread on a RL board? This is more worrying [urlhttp://www.bbc.com/sport/0/rugby-league/31497227[/url

Is this really so worrying ?
A top league player is tempted to try the other code, so what !
If union can come up with the cash and make an offer that Inglis can't refuse, what can we actually do about it.

In the UK, there is a massive disparity between the spending power of Union over League but, this isn't the case down under.
And if Inglis is considering a switch it mean one of only two possibilities.
Either he genuinely wants to try the other code or, he wants to negotiate a better contract in league.

If players want to gamble their future in the other code we should not stop them.
How can we, as supporters of RL, complain about poaching players, when for 30/40 years we were trying ourselves to cherry pick players from the other code
and as happened in reverse, there were no guarantees of success.
Some players adapt well and others fail but, you cant stop anyone moving.
What we have to do is make League the better option so that fewer players are tempted.