Saints didnt touch the ball in the union half due to ruck, maul and technical penalties, boring as sin that half was.

people go on about union being fitter but so are we.

There is just no point to something like this. In the league half, the league team will dominate, scoring points for fun, and in the union half, the union team will dominate and score points for fun.

What would be better would be Red Bull Air Race V Rugby League.

Have a RL match with a league team against the pilots. Second half they all have to fly planes through the posts in a figure of 8 pattern.

It makes as much sense anyway.

I was at the Sale Saints classic.

First and thankfully last visit to Knowlsley Road.

Sean Long missed a last minute coversion to win the game in front of the posts.

Pity Saints can't mess up like that against Wire.

I think there was a notable improvement compared to the Wigan Bath game.

Wigan scored 3 great tries in the Union match. The only three times they touched the ball!

Saints scored no points in the Knowsley Road farce.

I'd love to watch a Wire Leicester game. Rather than a nice friendly, with plenty of points, they should concentrate on the physical side of League and batter them in attack and defence.

Actually it is a pity there wasn't a game last year. Mauls were basically outlawed last season, so Union teams would potentially have struggled to break down League defences.

Actually Sale were so god damn awful I'd expect a League win in both halves.

benedictblog.dailymail.co.uk/ interesting article saying how union can learn from league. Union has long since borrowed, adapted and ised defensive strategies from league – in fact most top-flight union clubs have former league players or coaches in charge of this particular discipline – but settling down to watch Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final between Leeds and Saint Helens (I went to confession the following morning to cleanse my union soul), it was the attacking play that was scintillating. hits the nail on the head for me. ball in hand for longer, so you have more opportunity to attack. offload point is very relevant too

benedictblog.dailymail.co.uk/ interesting article saying how union can learn from league. Union has long since borrowed, adapted and ised defensive strategies from league – in fact most top-flight union clubs have former league players or coaches in charge of this particular discipline – but settling down to watch Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final between Leeds and Saint Helens (I went to confession the following morning to cleanse my union soul), it was the attacking play that was scintillating. hits the nail on the head for me. ball in hand for longer, so you have more opportunity to attack. offload point is very relevant too

i think we should leave them alone and let them play their game and we can play ours

the Saints Sale game was a hybrid scoring system, cant remember exactly how it worked but it was the same in both halfs. Sale won the toss and we had Union first, they just kept it simple and played it effectively as one big ruck in the middle. Saints couldnt compete and it was just a mass of players rolling down the field followed by a penalty conceded by Saints. 41-0 at HT.

In the 2nd half, Saints got pretty knackered (it was pre-SL season, and mid-RU season) we got it back to 41-39, basically by chucking it round a lot, not really playing in our usual patterns. Long missed a conversion to tie it up in the last second.

Had they played RL first, I am fairly sure that Saints would have scored more than 39/41.

Completely pointless event - although the crowd was around 12/13k for a preseason friendly.

The nature of the games means that union players always find it easier to pick up league than the other way round. RL is a more simple technical game which focuses on the purer elements of union (running and tackling), so the union players that are good at those purer elements, have always done well in league throughout history. Sometimes league fans like to claim that league is a much tougher sport and that the union backs can't handle the physical side of it, but this is absolute rubbish, top level union players can quickly adapt to league and they have been able to do years before union went professional.

Here are some names to prove the point: Jonathan Davies, Allan Bateman, Scott Gibbs, Jon Devereux, Alan Tait, John Bentley, Martin Offiah, Frano Botica, Inga Tuigimala, Craig Innes, or if you look in Australia, Matthew Ridge, Michael O'Connor, Ricky Stuart, Daryl Halligan. All of these guys were fine players in league and some of them were some of league's greats. I'm only thinking of players of my own era of watching league here, the older fans might remember John Bevan, Mike Nicholas at Warrington....these guys were union amateurs and were league greats. And of course now you have Gareth Thomas who at 36 is holding his own in SL (against a lot of doubts), if he had come over aged 26 he would have been a GB regular for years, he would have been far better than any winger we've had in the past decade apart from Carney at his peak.

Problem for league players is that because union is such a technical game, being a great league player means no guarantee of how well they will go in union. The ratio of success from union players who crossed to league is mostly they made it, with a few flops, but from league players who crossed to union it is that a handful really made it, some flopped, and a lot were ok but didn't make the same impact they did on league. Embarrasingly a lot of them picked up lots of international caps in union because the authorities wanted to justify the big money they'd spent on bringing these players over.

Robinson, Rogers, Sailor, Thorn and Tuqiri are the only league players I can think of who really made it in union, and to a lesser extent Andrew Walker, Chris Ashton and Berrick Barnes have done well there as well. There are a lot of league greats who have been ok but not outstanding in union - Henry Paul, Sonny Bill Williams, Harris, Farrell, Gasnier, Tahu, Gower, Vainikolo, Schifcofske. A lot of the guys who went over with big expectations, ended up returning to league soon after, Blacklock, Raynor, Chev Walker, Carney, Lee Smith.

they do half and half an keep the point system of the first half so if was union first in second half when it is league u still get 5 points for a try or at least thats what they did at saints vs sale a few years ago

I still hate the b@st@rds though.

Ask the likes of Jonathon Davies and Scott Gibbs what the tougher game is.
They will both say RL.

No they wouldn't, they didn't say that in their books.

I am League through and through but I maintain that if you watch NZ v South Africa this weekend you will struggle to think of any League side, & I include Queensland & Australia in that as the two best League sides at the minute, who would cope with the All Blacks at the flowing and destructive best. At club level League probably would have the edge, right up to S14 when it would probably even out, but at international level League can't hold a candle to Union.

Magic Piano - not sure I quite agree.

The Green and Golds at their best are pretty formidable unit. I know international League is a bit of a joke, and they play far less often, but not sure they would struggle to cope (relatively speaking).

I always considered the State of Origin winners to be the best rugby team (both codes) around.

In terms of League players transferring to Union and vise versa. I always believe that more League players should be able to move to Union, but are limited in the amount of positions they can play. In theory, all League positions should be accessible to Union players, but most just aren't skilled or have the required physique.

Doing a Sale/Wire comparission at the moment I struggle to think of any players that could play League. Certain body parts of Charlie Hogdson and maybe Cueto. On the other hand I'd be happy to take a handfull of Warrington players.