It could be about to get a lot worse. I was reading something on the internet the other week about how the RFU are looking to make the Guiness Premiership (Or whatever its called these days) as powerful as the French league is becoming financially. Union is a really well run sport, they could get 60,000 for an Under 8's game if they wanted to. The money Twickers generates is massive and they are also being really succesful crowd wise, with them now eclipsing SL for domestic averages. Give it another 5 years and the gap could be huge.

It also works the other way as well. One french club went bust last year and the 3 northern Guinness Premiership clubs are struggling in more ways than one. The clubs that get the crowds are Leicester and Gloucester. Have a look at the teams in Wales and Scotland, all struggling financially.

Why worry, if they go to union we can discuss on here how they were overrated and crap anyway like Kyle Eastmond. Remember when we thought he was going to be Ellery Hanley mixed with Jason Robinson? Now he's on his way to Bath his faults have been well discussed on here. Same with Chris Ashton the Wiganers talked about him as though he was the new Billy Slater when he emerged, once he had agreed to go to union we were allowed to discuss how his defence was actually garbage and he's an arrogant overrated waste of space.

I can guarantee that if any of our players are credibly linked with going to RU in the papers, there will be a 16 page thread on here of which the conclusion will be that we're better off getting rid.

Of course I'm sure a few agents will use it to hold clubs to ransom but in general I would always say to any player if you want to go to union you're free to go. Many have gone over, a couple, Robinson and Ashton, have done well, but most have come back and the problem for every player who leaves SL is the game moves on without them, when they come back it takes them a couple of years to get back up to speed and they are never the same player they were before. Look at Iestyn Harris, Henry Paul, Gareth Raynor, Chev Walker and so on, they never got back to the same level.

Also I think some RL fans overrate the money in union, most of the Premiership clubs have got financial problems, the discussion within the RU press regarding RL players is more or less what we think of NRL players coming over here, the view is why do clubs seem willing to take gambles throwing handsome salaries at players on their reputation in another league, when its hit and miss whether they will make it or not settle and end up stuck on a biggish salary and being a problem for their clubs to offload.

But many RL fans enjoy predicting the doom of the game and going on about the 'threat' of union. I remember ten years ago how many people thought there would be a hybrid game within a decade because Sky would force the two codes to come together. I can just see that going down well with the hierachy in Twickenham, or Pretoria.

Most Leage players who go to Union do not make it. People look at the succesful ones like Robinson and Ashton but forget the ones that did not make it. Harris, Pryce, Walker , Smith, Henry Paul, probably some I forgot

I know quite a few Saints fans who be glad to see the back of Eastmond. good player from broken play he is, but organising half back he isn't.

His performance on Friday summed him up. Lots of hype but no depth, and Myler who most people decided on here was not up to it had his best game in the P+B.

Depends how you class 'making it'. Harris played loads of times for the Welsh national team, and Henry Paul got a few England caps as well. Stephen Myler is doing pretty well at Northampton, too.

i'd say henry paul did, he did two stints there.

Rugby Union offers a good package for a fame/money happy player. I'm told, from a very reliable source, that £10,000 an international series is offered on top of a lucrative contract from clubs. I can't blame them, its a high risk, short term career. The only way we will ever compete is if we put bums on seats, especially against Aus/NZ....

These players get parachuted into the international set up because of the money that has been spent on their wages. Remember how Harris got picked to play for Wales against Argentina pretty much as soon as he had crossed over. Andy Farrell never really established himself at Saracens but he got parachuted into the England team because the money had been paid for him to replace Martin Johnson as a leader figure. But winning caps doesn't mean you 'made it', would you class Sean Long making it as an international RL player because he had a lot of caps? Making it is like Jason Robinson did, or like some of the Aussies did (Rogers, Tuqiri and Sailor).

In fairness to Harris, by the end of his time in union he had started to crack it, in the 2003 World Cup he was good. But the Welsh RU had him on a big contract when he signed in 2001, and they weren't going to keep him on that big contract which is why despite him starting to be a good union player, he had to come back to league in 2004. As for Henry Paul, he got a lot of caps but they paid all that money expecting a world beater? Was he a world beater in international RU?

I'm sure some RU sources will defend the signings of these high profile players but its just like the debates we have about some of our players from the NRL, when Paul Rauhihi joined he was supposed to be the top prop that would take our pack to the next level, did he make it? Well yes he was a first team regular and played a lot of games for us and got some contract extensions so I suppose he did. Was he what we expected? Was he worth the money? Not sure.

Henry Paul played 6 times for England 3 as sub and was mainly used as a specialist 7's player.

Hardly a stellar career.

Henry Paul also won player of the season one year at Gloucester and was one of five players up fo the Guinness Premiership's player of the season.

If he was crap doesn't say much for the rest of the players in the competition that season.

Never said Paul was crap, just don't think he made the impact there that was expected due to the financial outlay. Same with Farrell.

Paul was a great player. Just league and union are very different games and it's not that easy to switch particularly today.

All I am saying is if Eastmond goes it's not the promised land.

The financial outlay is not the fault of the players, though. Farrell was a ludicrous scenario, granted, but who's to blame those who make the move for taking the union lucre. Just because they haven't scored in a World Cup final doesn't mean they have failed per se, just that they might not have lived up to expectations which may have been unreasonably inflated.

It might not be the promised land for Eastmond, but if he's offered a lengthy contract which hugely outstrips what he'd get at Saints, he'd be plain daft to reject it out of hand.

we can use this as a positive, look at gareth thomas i know its a one off but i think he may have put at least 8-900 poeple in the racecourse ground on his debut last year who have returned. he had mickey rourke and joe calzaghe watching him at MM and both enjoyed the game and the physicality involved, i imagine joe has watched union before

I think the gap can be reduced a little bit with our help as well, i am currently in my first year of university at northumbria, all of my flat mates are big union fans i made them watch the wire saints game on friday as a warm up to my birthday night out, they all said that league is far more entertaining, explosive and dynamic than union and we now have 3 more wire fans. i know it wont make much of a difference but if they go back home praising league to their family and friends it could increase TV ratings for SL.

I also think both codes are starting to appreciate each other more than ever in the press, maybe not behind closed doors but if the union crowd hear that johnson wanted the england team at the WCC then they may choose to check it out themselves, and if they did it was a brilliant advert for the game.

i think we can use our prowess in the backs over unions backs to establish a little bit bigger of a fanbase, im not saying union fans will see the light but they may start to become interested in our code and watch it on a fairly regular basis, maybe getting to a couple of games. every extra viewer on sky or fan in a crowd is a small win IMO

Their marketing team must work miracles as the product is absolute e. I can't sit through 5 minutes of kick and clap without falling asleep.

We've also given them Ricky Sheriffe who is currently at Tynedale up in deepest Northumbria before joining the Falcons next year. He'll be OK until someone realises that he can't catch, then the high balls will start and he'll be wrecked.