In OZ people only care about their local clubs.For some reason sadly when it comes to the international game people don't give two hoots about it.Since NZ has won the WC in 08 and the four nations last year things may change since we have someone that could match us.Now It's up to the poms to stand up and deliver for a change.

Go to ChCh. While the Canterbury Crusaders are famous the world over, I belive this is because of the Bronco factor if you will i.e 1 team town that has little to no competition. Bring in the South Island Bulls into the NRL (gutterfax should know that the Canterbury team in NZ League is called the Bulls)

Rah Rah in the 70's in Australia almost disappeared. We got belted by Tonga in one game from memory and they were still considered minnows.

The brits don't have a big enough pool of players to ever really challenge at international level - its a minority sport played in a small area of a soccer obsessed country - add to that SL teams full of very average NRL players - e.g. Salford.

Very poor coaches such as McRae would prefer the easy life of not having to develop young talent preferring instead to rely on has been Bulldogs - and he wonders why his teams get a hammering

The point is the strength of the clubs is unimportant to the overall strength of RU - RU is all about the international game end of

eden park didnt look this empty when benji was there leading the mighty kiwis for battle

looks like union in nz is declining quicker than id hoped for.

this crowd in canberra looks poor too

dont forget the kangaroos kill the wallabies in terms of tv viewers

the best union test match rarely beats a normal friday night football game yet our tests will get around double the viewers

yeah shows your ingorance there

the brits for 60 yrs were dominant in int. RL

good because without fans coming week to week the game will die.

in RL the club game is everything, its why we are such a strong sport

Yes I know about tv viewing we kill all.But he was talking about attendances.

But it is still going and regularly draws crowds for games against NZ in Australia that RL could only dream about.

The two sports have very different focusses and if you think because you get a big TV deal you will kill rugby union and their players will all come to RL and kids will not want to play for the all blacks you are in for a nasty shock.

he was only talking about attendances cause hes a troll and he picks the bit that makes union look good whilst ignoring where it looks bad like all trolls do

no one knows of the wallabies in australia unlike our boys

inglis, slater, smith, lockyer, thurston etc are household names

i doubt many people in australia can name a wallaby player off the top of their head

Since you have said that now,it's true i cant name any wallaby player either.And I'm not being selfish.I just don't hear of the wallabys no more,like we use too.

just to summarise our sitauation here :

Cumulative viewers each week in australia :

Union : 550,000
Rugby League :m 4.5 million

indeed our under 20s competition, the Toyota Cup, regularly beats the S15