www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-w ... -1-4481612 I wish they would just bugger off

www.wigantoday.net/sport/wigan-w ... -1-4481612 I wish they would just bugger off

The only problem i see in that artical is the match between the 2 teams knock it on the head and get on with each others season

Off season yes mid season no

No problem with it at all. We should learn from ALL sports, including Rugby Union.

I agree, I've learned a lot from women's beach volleyball

The problem is that I just don't trust them. While we've benefitted hugely from taking a Union conditioner in Mark Bitcon, that was down to IL spending big money on a staff member whose earnings are not compressed by a cap.

Aside from that, the only real movement I see between the codes is RL youngsters going to RU.

While I know it would no longer take a cross-code annihilation of Bath or a Twickenham Sevens victory to alert RU to how good our players are, I'm just not happy about allowing them into our camp. It's bad enough that their scouts are always there.

Can someone please tell me - and this is a serious question - what advantages we get from sharing know-how with Saracens?

I unlike most like the idea of the Hybrid game. Leeds are planning it too www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... 195719138A I think it would attract loads of attention which is great for our sport to showcase the attacking qualities our game brings. Would be great if sky build these games up too. I also agree we could learn bits and bobs with other sports training methods. But its the official partnership i don't like the sound of. We wont learn too much (apart from how to put in decent kicks!)

I unlike most like the idea of the Hybrid game. Leeds are planning it too www.google.com/hostednews/ukpres ... 195719138A I think it would attract loads of attention which is great for our sport to showcase the attacking qualities our game brings. Would be great if sky build these games up too. I also agree we could learn bits and bobs with other sports training methods. But its the official partnership i don't like the sound of. We wont learn too much (apart from how to put in decent kicks!)

This basically sums up my feelings towards the matter. I cant trust them, give them half a chance and theyd poach half of our players. I personally think its madness allowing them into our bubble

The Hybrid game was dreamt up by Dwyer the Aussie Union coach.
It is of 13 a side with League rules in your own half and Union rules in the opponents half.
So is this the "visionaries" game or just another set of rules to make matters worse?
Union people I know will never, ever, buy into 13 a side with some League rules. They love their 20 scrums a game plus 20 line outs and even more penalties. They even have to have bonus points for try scoring tries, that's what a secondary function that is.
With Hybrid we could well end up with 3 codes of Rugby. League, Union and Hybrid.
The idea obviously is one code of Rugby, is that what we'll end up with though?

For me the new threat to our star players and young talented ones from next year is the NRL. The money, lifestyle and competition they will be able to offer will be hard to compete against. Although people may say well they are staying in RL and will benefit England for me its a major worry and we will experiance what we have been doing to the aussies for the last few years.

I agree with the others in saying that i dont trust them one bit. They would certainly love to take some of our backs into their game including charnley and tomkins and could offer them sooooo much money to do so. The only benefit i can see would be from a marketing point of view as the RU somehow manages to get 80000 people to go and watch that crap at Twickers.
As for the partnership and potential player movement between them it really wouldnt surprise me if Sam Tomkins played for them for a portion of the winter as he clearly has an itch to play union. This was seen by his inclusion onto the Baa Baa's team and made me wonder what else we may have promised him he can do as long as he signed a new deal at Wigan!

UNFORTUNATELY, we are not in the same position as the NRL, we don't have the money in the british game to compete with them financially to keep are stars here if they are targeted by an NRL club. Neither are we in the position to curtail their international career by putting a representative embago on players if they don't play in SL as we dont have the strength in depth they have. We just have to accept that we have to try and tie down our stars to longer contracts why they are young and at least get a transfer fee for them if they do move to Yawnion or the NRL whilst under contract.

Then look seriously hard from the top down to increase the revenue in the game as a whole so we can compete on a level playing field with them both.

Totally agree. I just don't buy into this idea that sending our best players to the NRL is good for the game.

How is it good for the game?

They won't improve the Aussie competition and their loss will weaken ours.

In Test match terms, we might have a few players who are used to a slightly more intensive competition, but I haven't yet seen a huge contribution at Test level from those who currently play in the NRL.

Could be that the higher ups realise RL has gone as far as it can go, at least as a professional game and Yawnion has reached a dead end as far as entertainment goes, especially at club level. Might be the first steps towards some sort of amalgamation. Either way I'm not worried about a game like this leading them trying to poach our players. Rugby Union is a small world as is Rugby League and I'm pretty sure that coaches and scouts from both codes are fully aware of who the best players are. We need to make sure we've got the funds and the game has the exposure needed to keep our best players in League. As a stand alone game, I'm not sure if that is possible, so maybe a hybrid is the way forward.

If it was global and everyone bought into a joint code... it would be the best way forward. It would be huge.

The international game would have potential to rival football and the global club competition would be better than what football have now.