Just like with Warrington and their owner

It is true though that anyone taking on an RU "franchise" needs to be prepared to invest shed loads of cash to assemble a team for the top flight as Nigel Wray did at Sarries. I am sure when he started back in 1995 he wasn't expecting to have to sell half the club to the South Africans to secure a cash injection and was expecting Sarries be self sustaining like Leicester and Northampton but it didn't happen.

In contrast IL has got Wigan making a small profit in the short time he has been here so why he would want to lump Wigan RL into what would be a loss making version of Leeds Rugby or whatever its called I don't know.

One reason IL has been able to do this was the generous deal Dave Whelan gave him for the club including the Orrell facility and the lease of the DW.

And of course the other obstacle to any professional RU side in Wigan is where would they play? Orrell is not big enough and in any case to be part of the brand it would need to play at the DW with all the prestige that would bring but as RU is a winter sport sharing with Latics in winter is never gong to happen.

I think there is some mileage in a hybrid game.
Starting with RU they could reduce the number of players to 13, get rid of those silly line outs, remove the competition element from those dangerous scrums where most of the serious injuries occur, downgrade the value of those boring drop goals to, say, 1 point and introduce a recycling element to the ruck after a tackle is judged to be complete (this would remove all that tedious pushing and shoving), maybe teams could be required to kick the ball after, say, 5 tackles to avoid continuous possession by one team. Surely there is the potential to compromise on this basis.

It's the success of the club game not that of show-piece events that will determine the viability of an RU club.

RU does recognise there are problems with the game but seem stuck between a rock and a hard place about changing the rules. A couple of years ago the Doctor who was the RFU chief medical officer wrote that due to the way the game had developed it was essential from a safety point of view that all scrums become uncontested. I don't think he as that post any longer! However the result is scrums take an age to set and what this and the other rules do is make RU a very inaccessible sport to all but those who have convinced themselves such messing about elevates the sport to a higher plane.

This is reflected in the crowds at club games at the likes of Sarries and Wasps so while people turn out for the six nations or world cups that doesn't help clubs get big crowds or encourage fans to start watching the sport. This is another reason why it would be a huge risk to try and start a pro RU side in Wigan. It just would not IMO get the crowds because the game is essentially boring. The fact the World Cup or Twickers sells out for Internationals does not change that.

Nah, Rugby League is every bit the [ichess game[/i union is.

It took Asutralia 60 minutes to break us on Saturday. They had to be patient, wear us down and then break when they had the chance. Lose control and they'd have let us take it.

The equivelent rugby union game would have seen Australia 18 points ahead at half time, because of the multiple penalties they'd have picked up from the many infringements that happen when a team is under pressure. The game would have been over.

I switched a european game on the other week, I think is was Worcester vs S.Francias. I thought i'd give it a go and sure enough, the first minute showed some adventurous handling and running. Eyup, says me, leaning forward. The they spend the next 10 minutes faffing over a scrum and then a line.

I spend my pomp playing rugby union, which I enjoyed immensley and I also have respect for any player, but don't tell me it compares as a spectator sport, because it simply doesn't.

IL has just order a grey button front tunic,hes also planning plastic surgery to have a scar placed down the right hand side of his face and hes already got a white cat to stroke when he moves into Dave Whealans office.

The Name plate on his door has already been engraved with Ian "Bloefeld" Leneghan.

I think he is also planning to have a bevvy of beauties in planes circle over twickenham spraying laughing gas to cheer them all up when watching such a miserable sport

I can see there being one code of Rugby within the next ten years.

Wigan, Saints, Wire, Leeds, Hull will be top flight Rugby (Union) clubs

I can't. There are too many diehards on both sides for that to happen, you'll just get three forms of rugby that'll advantage no one. I certainly wouldn't watch an hybrid game that took any of the overly technical elements of RU that allowed the game to be stifled in the way it can, leading to the kicking competitions we see in so many top level RU games.

I agree, but is it just me that i am sick to the back teeth reading about Rugby Union, our game is far superior, i'm not knocking their players but how they play is boring, how Joel Tomkins can say he wants to test himself is a bit pathetic, i would have respected him more if he'd gone to NRL, he'll be lucky if he gets 4 passes a game and he'll hardly break sweat.

Only way that would happen is if the sports merge. That would be beneficial to both sports.

Imagine a league of -

Wigan
Leicester
Leeds
Northampton
Saints
Harlequins
Warrington
London Irish
Hull FC
Gloucester
Huddersfield
Bath
Bradford
Saracens
Hull KR
London Wasps

A 16 team league with none of the crap clubs both codes currently have in the top flight. It would be huge. The second tier would aslo be very very strong with the Likes of Widnes, Newcastle, Castleford, Exeter, Salford, Sale, Wakefield, Worcester, Bristol.

This would be bigger and better than what either code has now. Not to mention the strength of the player pool or the european competition. Catalans would join the french league etc.

It will probably never happen but it would make sense. A world-wide Rugby dual code could rival football.

and what about the hundreds of thousands of people that play either code at the weekend? Do they get a say?

This 'hybrid game' will never take off.

For one, South Africa would never buy into it. There is hardly any league in SA, and RU is a key part of their culture, they retreated into their own domestic RU when the Springboks were banned from international competition during apartheid, and if they tried to make a hybrid game changing the rules, the South Africans are far too conservative and traditional for that so they would just retreat into playing RU again. And you can only make a hybrid game work if you stamp out RU and RL as separate sports otherwise fans and even players will just go back to the original codes.

I said on a thread the other day the a hybrid game would only ever work if all the clubs and all governing bodies bought into the idea. That includes the ametuer game.

Hence why it will probably never happen.

I would suspect that if Super league clubs were invited into a Hybrid game, it would end up reverting toward union before long. Essentially, somewhere along the line the rugby league clubs would get royally bummed.

IL isn't going to take on a Union squad. They are 22 men a game plus others for a full squad. They cost an absolute fortune. Orrell tried a Union at the JJB and they had around 700 watching.

Sam's game with Union is to raise his profile, he and the club earn some money and his agents attempt to gain him a national brand sponsor if possible. Maybe IL sees the best way of getting Sam to stay in League is to create a Sam Tomkins "brand" rather than a Wigan Rugby brand.

It may be Sam's first jaunt into Union but I don't think it will be his last during his 5 year deal with us.
One thing we do know about IL and that he way ahead of the game. He's that far ahead he's in danger of leaving many of us behind and not on his wavelength at all.
I do trust IL with Wigan RL and to do the best for the club come what may!

Firstly I do not think the forming of an RU club is anywhere near the thinking of IL or anyone at Wigan. There is a Wigan RU and they show there is little support for the sport in Wigan. Certainly not enough for a top level club.

Secondly I think it is highly unlikely a single unified code of rugby will ever happen. The major barrier to this is the RFU and the commercial success of the RU international scene. For the codes to ever merge it would require the fans to be happy to stick with it on both sides of the divide. This would mean that neither code would have to see very much change to the rules and patterns of the games by switching from RL/RU to hybrid rugby. Fans of both codes like the elements of their own code that make it distinct. They would have to be pretty much similar in the first place to allow a merged code to work. Anyway getting back to my point about the RFU and international RU. Many of the changes to the rules after the forming of the NU in 1895 came about in order to improve the game as a spectacle. All clubs in NU were now paying money to players and had to earn that money. To do this they had to attract and keep spectators and numbers were falling. Reducing player numbers, abolishing lineouts and rucking and mauling and reducing points values of goals all made for a more attractive spectacle to attract spectators (and money). NU(RL) had no international aspect originally and has always been club focused so clubs' motivation to alter and improve the spectacle made it happen. RU is and has always been international focused as all clubs were amateur and so essentially were just mates playing and feeding into national sides. Since becoming pro (putting aside shamateurism) the RU clubs have faced and still face those same pressures that the NU clubs did 116 years ago. They may (already or in the near future) want to develop a more attractive spectacle to get more fans through the gate. To achieve this they may wish to alter the rules to get rid of some of the elements that are untidy such as contested scrums or to alter the scoring system to produce more emphasis on tries as NU(RL) did. However the RFU would have the say on this, international RU [iis[/i popular and internationals already have very large crowds. The RFU make the money they need and so will say that they do not need to change the rules as many people will watch it as it is. The RFU do not need a more appealing spectacle so won't change the rules and the codes will stay very different. The rules of both will remain too different to be easily synchronised. So RL and RU fans alike would bemoan the loss of features of their code and any new additions to rules too. They would not support it and it would wither