I was thinking about how all those years ago that when the Northern Union was formed how it didn't include Wales. Considering that South Wales industry was based on mining it seems odd that a predominately working class game of Welsh RU has more social comparison with RL than say English RU.

Anyone know why?

So if you speculate on what would have happened if Wales had become a League nation, you would have to consider that they could have been World Champs from the 60's through to 80's at least. Just think about all the Welsh RL greats and the other Union players that never made the switch to League.

The RFU was run by toffs for toffs and didn't like oiks playing their game, the WRU was also run by toffs but they were intelligent enough to see that Wales was too small a country to cut off its heartlands in a fit of pique and turned a blind eye to "boot money".

Plus Wales only really became rugby overachievers after the 1895 schism. The fact that Welsh miners were able to give posh public school boys from England a good kicking was very much part of how it became the "national sport" of Wales. Before 1895, England had been top dog.



Tony Collins wrote a piece on it in RLW a few months ago.

"Boot Money"

www.walesrugbyleague.co.uk/cymru/what-if.html Basically Wales didn't switch to league as the RFU turned a blind eye to them paying players.

www.walesrugbyleague.co.uk/cymru/what-if.html Basically Wales didn't switch to league as the RFU turned a blind eye to them paying players.

The 10 years before the schism England had won the home nations outright on one occassion the same number of times as wales and Ireland, during the same period Scotland had won it outright 4 times. Top dog was clearly Scotland. The championship following the schism Wales suffered a heavy loss. The following two years Wales with drew from international competition due to the WFU sanctioning perceived professionalism due to pressure from the RFU.

And the RFU allowed them a degree of independence and the setting up of the WRU about ten years before the split. People compare the North of England and the South of Wales (rightly or wrongly!) and the comparisons were even more evident back then with mining being a dominant industry that was an integral part of the economies of both.

No Welsh clubs attended the 1895 meeting, but a year later a player in Wales had a testimonial game and the RFU deemed him professional, the IRB backed the RFU, and the WRU withdrew from the IRB in protest. At this point it was seen as likely that they would follow but for once the PTB saw sense and caved in, having lost many clubs in the North only a year earlier, and the possibility of the whole sport disappearing altogether, as the international game would lose a major force and also the West country would lose the majority of their fixtures. Basically pressure came from the clubs to say we need them to stay and they did, and unions own rules on professionalism were bent and broken in Wales more then anywhere else in the game.

It was close, and IMO but for pressure from the West country and a few people at the 19th century RFU and IRB seeing the bigger picture they would only play the 13 a-side game in Wales.

There are so many what ifs? Missed opportunities and general questions on why the NU seemed to give up on expansion that we would probably all go mad thinking about them!

Still, that What if? article was an interesting read.

Didn't the Welsh vote on it, but the governing body gave a vote to each of the public schools (or clergy?) to ensure that the clubs didn't breakaway?

It was Arthur 'Monkey' Gould. I was reading about him recently.

Quote: Thoth "The 10 years before the schism England had won the home nations outright on one occassion the same number of times as wales and Ireland, during the same period Scotland had won it outright 4 times. Top dog was clearly Scotland. The championship following the schism Wales suffered a heavy loss. The following two years Wales with drew from international competition due to the WFU sanctioning perceived professionalism due to pressure from the RFU.'" This is misleading. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Nation ... .80.931909 England were the most successful team before the great schism and Wales were bottom.

Quote: Thoth "The 10 years before the schism England had won the home nations outright on one occassion the same number of times as wales and Ireland, during the same period Scotland had won it outright 4 times. Top dog was clearly Scotland. The championship following the schism Wales suffered a heavy loss. The following two years Wales with drew from international competition due to the WFU sanctioning perceived professionalism due to pressure from the RFU.'" This is misleading. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Nation ... .80.931909 England were the most successful team before the great schism and Wales were bottom.