Union players seem to bang on about the mental concentration, and the skill of the game, and a thinkings man rugby rather than 5 drives and a kick thick head league.

When it's all total BS. Anyone who has played or knows both codes will know that making a decision is far more difficult at speed, more difficult when under pressure and more difficult when physically drained. All of which relate more to League than Union.

So what about the tactics of a game? League require breaking down a line of players, union often has a broken line due to the kicking and number of men, mainly forwards who are part of the ruck, here it's easier to find space and gaps in a line. League requires more ball movement and skill to break down a solid line.

Union now knows it can't pretend to as fast or intense as league, so they come up with this.

If Union wasn't as well protected by the London Media (which controls the nation) and the public school boys, fans would have spotted the differencies between the codes long before now.

I feel having all the league games on Prem Sports is either an own goal by the RFL or possibly once again the the national networks not offering a strong deal and promoting the sport, in favour of having England RU v Oz.

If RL had the right people in charge, had people with gusto and drive which could market league correctly, it would blitz union, at the end of the day, as a sport there's no comparison

I once heard the difference described as when a league player & union player are given colouring books & crayons, they'll both have a go but the union guy will manage to keep inside the lines.

If the crayons had been thrown to the players instead of being handed to them the yawnion guy would have been the one who dropped them

The union player would also be the only one to devise an aftermatch game based around inserting the crayons into his team mates.

The union guy would also be the one sat
underneath the ceiling with crayon marks on it
and all his crayon broken, from constantly kicking them!!

In this case though England v Aus RL was on free to air terrestrial as are the rest of England's WC games. The Union games are on Sky Sports. More people will have the potential to view our game in their home than the RU. The terrestrial FTA channels seem to have opted on this occasion for RLWC over RU internationals, or in the case of ITV to have no sport at all rather than the RU.

Hopefully Mr Pollard will have had it written into the transfer contract for an additional payment to be made if JT played for England and the Lions.

pretty sure it was in Joel Tomkins contract that he would be fast tracked to England squad.

....so it's physically easier....



I think that is nonsense. When the ball is in play the game progresses as it does. From maul to a ruck and if you are lucky out to the backs. Otherwise the ball is kicked away. It's pretty predictable what is going to happen in the next phase of play depending on what went before with plenty of time to think and organise the line. In fact that predictability is part of why RU is a dull spectacle that can be try-less between evenly matched sides. There is a real tendency at International level to retain possession and keep recycling the ball until a chink is found in the line or until some infringement brings the game to a halt. In 2012 the Aussies and the All Blacks drew 18 all with no tries scored because that is exactly how the game went despite these two sides supposedly the ones who run the ball.

It makes perfect sense that after 2 years within Union he would be more developed in one arm.

Clive Woodward wrote a column in the Mail yesterday (Friday)
in which he ran through all of the options for the back positions for the England RU team. This is what he said about Sam.
" Outside centre is the one big question mark for this generation of England payers. Sam Tomkins was born to play 13 for England and we should never have allowed him to leave the country to play rugby league in New Zealand".
Woodward has always liked RL players and I think it was him who was instrumental in signing Jason Robinson and trying to sign Rads.
I think Joel might have been a bit p*ssed off if Sam had switched and blocked his way into the England centre position.

You're comparing our world cup, biggest international tournament with a RU autumn international. It's not like for like. Lets see the coverage and hype on the national networks during the RU world cup.

maybe he can see a centre should have some skill instead of being a crash bang wallop guy who cant pass.

No I'm not. I was responding to a part of your post that asserted that national tv networks had not made a strong offer to broadcast our WC and that they were not promoting it. I merely pointed out that one of the national networks (BBC) is showing all England RLWC games (so obviously did put in a good enough offer to gain the rights) and highlights of all other games as well as radio coverage of them all. They are also promoting it regularly including team profile pieces on the news, website and red button pages. During the coverage they are also regularly mentioning that games are being and have been sold-out and the atmosphere at the games (without constant referral to the size of the respective venues that would downplay that statistic). This further sells the tournament as an event to be part of to the viewers.

In two years time when the RUWC is taking place in this country RU will get lots of coverage and hype but like it is now for us that will be their WC on home soil so I don't begrudge them that coverage. They probably will get more as the majority of the media is down in London and the south and caters to its local market and tastes. C'est la vie, at least this time around our WC is on terrestrial free to air tv, is getting promoted on tv, has good crowds including sell-outs and good entertaining games and has been well organised and seems to be catching the public's interest. Unlike in 2000 we seem on course for a positive impact from this WC. Off the back of this WC we could well see much more interest in RL internationals from the BBC and co. in future.

If you think the media will go overboard in 2015 then brace yourself for blanket coverage from the point at which the soccer WC draw is made later this year with coverage in sports bulletins, weekly features on the England team, players appearing on talk shows etc. and adverts for everything from the official football to the official toilet roll of the FIFA World Cup. All that for an England team that don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning in Brazil. At least the England RU team (and probably Wales too) like the England RL boys have a chance of winning their competition (and the other home nations are capable of taking part in the tournament). Guess which WC will have more coverage though.