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

Lets be honest, we like our sport for what it is.

We don't need to start changing things and adding union rules. The only things I'd take from union is the media coverage and money

Wouldn't mind the contested scrum.

got to admit I kind of miss the contested scrum.the scrum we have now is a joke

I'd rather we took a line out than have the scrum we have now. It's a waste of time.

The scrum can be contested. Teams just choose not to.

And when they do how often does the ref let them get away with it?.