Hell yes! More than anything else in the sport. I've been waiting 30 years to witness it and every year I wait will make the moment all the sweeter. Here's hoping it's the World Cup Final

Well you did say "specialist skills" rather than "obselete skill"




Which shows just how skilled the modern player is. Almost ever player has an extensive skill set.

Indeed those from the 60s would. They would be amazed by our modern game (as a few of the older posters have said) as I'm amazed by footage of the old game as how bad it was. The skill set, capability, athleticism, tactical awareness, and organisation are indeed light years ahead of the old game.

It's only in sports where we can't get a direct measure of era vs era we have this idea that the old eras somehow had something better about them. When we can make a direct measure, e.g. in athletics, we can see quite clearly the progress made.

I'm usually very calm when watching the sport, whether it's SL, the team I coach, the amateur club I work with, or even players that have graduated from my team. But when it's against Australia, that's when I get really emotional about the game. I'm sure Australians are nice people, but I f****** hate them when they're their national team.

The basis of this thread was obviously Bradford's recent troubles, but i don't believe the mess they're in or the similar woes Wakefield faced last year are down to the state of just rugby league only but the way clubs from all sports have mismanaged since the millenium.
In football we all know the plight of Leeds United, Portsmouth have gone from FA Cup winners to 2 administrations in around 4 years, even Liverpool of all teams were looking dodgy just over a year ago. In cricket some counties are paying the price for chasing Test matches and doing their grounds up to achieve that.
Owners of sport teams have horribly managed clubs hoping for success or just plain not had a good balanced structure in place.

I think that comment alone sums up the answer to the question about the game itself.

As to if the game as a business has improved? Probably. There was the comment earlier about the 100,000 attendance at Bradford. That must have brought a smile to the accountants face that day, but how much would he be grinning if he'd been able to include advertising and sponsorship deals into that figure?

The game as a whole is on a slide. I still doubt that it's anything to do with SL/Sky/Lewis/ineptness of the RFL, but a wider range of things - Sundays are no longer a day with little alternative to a local game of RL for one thing - but the one that concerns me most is touched on earlier - that of the media appeal of football eclipsing our game. I don't think there's anything we can do about that now, we had our chance at the creation of SL, but unfortunately you can shout as loudly as you want but if the media choose to ignore you then there isn't anything you can do about it, other than to grumble into your ale.
As one of the contributors to the RL Fans book from a few years back, I contacted many of the RFL's clubs chairmen for opinions on why the media ignored us. No one had a conclusive answer, but the general opinion was 'We're not football'.


Finally, when I first started using this forum, the suggestion that scrums should be scrapped would have got you lynched. Thankfully, we seem to have moved on from there....

I'd agree the lack of national media exposure can harm the game - but I don't think that's really the crux of the matter, I'd say that all RL clubs are in catchment areas more than big enough to sustain them if they can get sufficient interest within those catchment areas and you don't need national newspapers and TV news channels to do it - local newspapers and advertising should be the first port of call - perhaps if the stadiums currently in use were more regularly anywhere close to their capacity, it might make the national media sit up and take a bit more notice.

Pre 1996, Rugby League was a game played by teams along the M62 that got very little attention from the national media and was only ever in the public spotlight when the BBC showed the Challenge Cup Final.

Thanks to ESL and SKY TV...

Rugby League is now a game played by teams along the M62 as well as a unsupported team in London and a French club. It gets very little attention from the national media and is only ever in the public spotlight when the BBC show the Challenge Cup Final.

Sadly i suspect that Ellery would be inside centre for the English RU team if he were in his prime today.

And players back then had an equally extensive skill set - albeit in different areas of the game.

They are certainly amazed by the athleticism, size etc. But those are the areas which we have chosen to concentrate on at the expense of others. You also forget to mention that older players, whilst marvelling at improvements in specific fields, also lament the loss of specialised skills that were essential in, say, contested scrums.

The fact that you think old rugby is bad tells me you have no appreciation or understanding of the nuances of the game that were important to fans back then and judge it purely by today's standards. Which is no judgement worth listening to.

I mean, if you could somehow prove fans enjoyed the game less back then you might have some kind of a point.



There is no point of comparison here. Rugby league in the sixties was a different sport, with different priorities that were appreciated as much as any that have taken precedence today.

Apart form the obsolete "art" of scrummaging, what were they? They weren't running, passing, tackling, catching, organisation, tactical awareness.

Why do you think it's at the expense (except the obselete irrelevant) of other skills? Rather than as well?



Now you're sounding like a unionite (if the contested scrums didn't do it) - "if you don't like it, it's because you don't understand it."
Look, watch the game from those days. Watch the modern game. The ability of those past players to run, pass, evade, tackle, catch, was far far less than what we see now.


If I had ever tried to make a point that people enjoyed the game less back then, then I might have tried to prove that. But I didn't, so I haven't.



Why have you moved to talking about "appreciation" ? How much people then appreciated the sport was never in question. What you asked though, if those fans could be transported to the modern day to see our modern game, what would they think? I would assert that they would be nothing less than amazed at the skill and ability of our modern players.

I agree with you in terms of what your statement is saying but given the amount of RL shown on the BBC pre SL and the viewing figures for such on that basis SL is much less improtant in the mindset of the UK public.


As for the arguement at hand, each has its own plus & minus points from each fans pov.
Aspects of SL that I dislike that make it worse than yesteryear(IMO of course):
Tackling round the neck incessently, the wrestling/fannying around at the play the ball
Not playing the ball with your foot properly
Forward passes
Offsides at scrums never enforced, packing down not enforced, 10m at the ptb not enforced
Attacking play is much more predictable, sometimes boring even if done at speed, low risk attacking strategies are the norm
Hardly any wingers have guile, it's mostly about power/athleticsim, barring a few players the halves are as dull as watching paint dry coparatively
Interchanges (too many & should be 4 permanent subs)
referees unpredictability & choosing when to apply the laws of the game which is so random that fans are incensed
You can't have a decent bit of biff without the officials getting all twitchy
On report
The disciplinary committee
There's no characters in the game, players cannot interact with the referee in a jokey way for fear of reprisal.
Did I mention that the officials are pants and the RFlL couldn't market water in the Sahara desert?

This might sound like a one sided arguement but it isn't, there's porobably loads of things I didn't like about the old days, however I feel I was more content watching rugby league back in the 70s/80s than I am now even with the fine tuned athletes we have today and the speed of how the game flows. But for me there's too much wrong with the game as I watch it week in week out that bugs the hell out of me ( & other fans alike) yet simple application of the rules would resolve some of the problems in a short space of time.
I've watched a lot of old time stuff and yes the 50s/60s/70s is far more entertaining and varied.

I'm with Richie. Some of the defence in the 'good old days' was laughable. If you watch games from the 70s, the tackling and running with the ball are laughably soft in comparison to today. That's why old-fashioned ball handlers could play the way they did - the defence would stand off them (sadly a bit like england tend to do with Aussie halfbacks). If you look at NRL Grand Finals from the late 80s/early 90s the defensive lines are worse than they are in SL today, and the intensity isn't there.

To reverse, mugwump's argument, if you put Cunningham into RL in the 80s or earlier he would have been seen as the most destructive prop ever. He would never have needed to be a hooker. Bring a hooker from the contested scrum era into today's game and where, exactly, would they play? The answer is amateur RL at best. The one skill they had - hooking - has gone, never to return.

Bottom line is people tend to remember the good old days fondly - and I have no problem with that, I do it myself. But it does tend to add a rose tint when comparing to the modern game. Any player even from less than 20 years ago would have to be trained to modern levels to avoid looking anything like a complete numpty.