As you rightly say, marketing is the key.... And thats where the numpties at Red Hall register a massive "Fail".

League fans just slag off union because they think they have to and have chips on their shoulders but they should remember the great history of our game has been based on bringing through players from union. The total lack of respect being shown by some fans towards Gareth Thomas is a disgrace in my book - one of the greatest rugby players of his generation and a better winger over the last 10 years than any winger league has produced (in this hemisphere) except possibly Carney at his peak.'"

A big mistake is to compare the players from both codes - its almost like religion - you get born into a certain code and that's why you are there. It is a credit to the game of rugby league that some of the games greats came from Union, were embraced and placed in the highest esteem. I would like to think that players who came from Union to league and made it were good enough to start with but ended up as much better players.

I don't buy into the "chip on the shoulder" theory. I can really understand how Union, to a League follower, is an illogical and messy sequence of plays punctuated by lots of stoppages and very little "rugby". The opportunities for the likes of Chris Ashton, Dan Carter, SBW etc seem too far and few between, considering how good these lads are and compared with how much ball they would get if they were playing League.

Interesting thread this.

For my sins, i watch quite a bit of union because as well as a league fan I am a sports fan at heart.

If you watch the tri nations or the super 14, you will see a lot of great rugby played, and there are some terrificly talented players playing rugby union.

However when it gets to the world cup, it is much like the football world cup, where it becomes incredibly cagy , and the teams are petrified of taking any risks whatsoever.

My main criticisms of union are

1) rewarded for kicking into touch
2) time wasted at scrums and lineouts is just laughable
3) killing the game with a few mins to ago is ridiculously easy

I have got nothing good to say about Union at all, awful to watch, awful supporters. Cannot see the attraction at all.

Come on... Get off the fence...

You can't generalise like that and to say "the great history of our game has been based on bringing through players from union" which is a joke. They make up a small percentage of those who have played the game. Unless of course you want to start saying the likes of Shaun Edwards was ex-union because he played it at schoolboy level.

My son plays Union and now he is 17 an the rules are full union rules he can't wait to go to Uni to try and find an RL side to play for. The reason for this is he is a back and Union is a forward dominated game. We have friends at the club who wax lyrical about rucks, mauls and line outs being very skilful but if you are stuck out on the wing as the ball gets taken beck into the forwards time and time again you start to get a bit fed up!



What Thomas has done in the union game may be legendary there but given he only came to league well past his sell by date it means nothing here. Now Jonathan Davies has far more kudos and deserves far more respect in league circles than Thomas because Davies became an excellent league player in part because he came here in his prime not when he was due to retire.

Odd that the Scots watch an English Establishment game... Wonder why they never went down the RL route. Well i have ordered the Tony Collins book, so i should know more after that.

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I say It's even odder that the Welsh play or even give any time to the Establishment game. After all, where it is strongest in Wales is working class similar to Lancashire and Yorkshire.

Not really, most south walians are English by decent having moved there for work in the pits and steel works. Until the law changed, not many, as a percentage, spoke Welsh. North wales, where my family are from, is very different. All my family have Welsh as a first language.

The Scots are well..... Scottish!! Thought they would have switched just as readily as us, if only to cock-a-snook at the English. But as i say, i don't know enough to know the reason why

I think when we split up from union we very nearly had Wales in RL,union then decided to turn their backs on Welsh players getting paid so this stopped them coming from the dark side I think.( I am sure if I am incorrect somebody will put this right but this is what I have been told).

Whats that got to do with the price of cheese?

It is very much the establishment game in Scotland as well. It's the same type of people that are in the Scottish Conservatives. Union is popular in the private schools there and taken seriously at their universities like St Andrews, Edinburgh etc, the typical Scottish lawyer or accountant will be into union.

But the average working class Scot who likes beer and fried Mars bars will say rugby's a game for rich poofters.

In Wales however as other posters have pointed out, it is very much the game of the working classes.

Ireland is an interesting one, one of my flatmates is Irish, she reckons that when she was growing up, rugby union was viewed with suspicion in the Republic, the real sports there were hurling, Gaelic football and football, rugby was always associated with being the game the colonial English brought. But there has been a definite change in the last 10 years with union growing in popularity thanks to the emergence of high profile players like Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara etc, and it is definitely more accepted as a mainstream sport.

Wigan Peer wrote:Odd that the Scots watch an English Establishment game... Wonder why they never went down the RL route. Well i have ordered the Tony Collins book, so i should know more after that scotlandrl.com/index.php Scottish rugby union is very much split into 2 catagories. 1. The FP (former pupil) clubs with are by and large based in the central belt (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and north and are more or less considered middle class . 2. The Border clubs from the mill towns like Hawick , Gala , Kelso , Selkirk , Langholm etc. These are very much working class clubs where most of the Scottish players who took up Rugby League originated from . Regards , EW PS dont knock the fried mars bar until you have tried it (i haven't)

Wigan Peer wrote:Odd that the Scots watch an English Establishment game... Wonder why they never went down the RL route. Well i have ordered the Tony Collins book, so i should know more after that scotlandrl.com/index.php Scottish rugby union is very much split into 2 catagories. 1. The FP (former pupil) clubs with are by and large based in the central belt (Edinburgh and Glasgow) and north and are more or less considered middle class . 2. The Border clubs from the mill towns like Hawick , Gala , Kelso , Selkirk , Langholm etc. These are very much working class clubs where most of the Scottish players who took up Rugby League originated from . Regards , EW PS dont knock the fried mars bar until you have tried it (i haven't)