Rugby Union has scored a great coup over rugby league in the USA. At 3pm Chicago time the All Blacks vs USA kicked off in front of a 61,000 sellout crowd at the iconic Soldier's Field, watched by a national television audience on the free to air NBC network. Among the star players in the All Blacks team is Sonny Bill Williams.

This is why players like SBW and Samuel Burgess have crossed over to rugby union. They want to play big internationals in front of huge crowds.

Rugby league still does not have a permanent international office. Nigel Wood of Halifax acknowledges the weakness of rugby league's international program. But what is he doing about it? Keeping France weak by keeping Toulouse out of Super League is his idea of solving the problem!

Rugby league needs to have a non-parochial full time professional staff promoting the international game.

Rugby league needs to acknowledge the USARL, not the failed AMNRL, as the legitimate organization of rugby league in the USA.

Rugby league needs to have the RLIF hold the NRL and RFL accountable for progress in promoting the game in France, USA, Europe, the Middle East, and the South Pacific.

Incidentally, Sonny Bill Williams has scored the All Blacks 4th try. After 23 minutes All Blacks 26 USA 6.

Lots of Americans seeing how crap RU is, good thing!

Sonny Bill has run 50 meters, beating three men, to score his second try!

SBW getting a good talk up, the commentator even mentioned RL briefly!

As I feared, they are talking about him as a future NFL player.

It's not, most Americans struggle to understand that RL and RU are different sports, they refer to both as just 'rugby' and their perception of the sport usually depends on which code they were exposed to first. Americans getting a good look at RU and seeing how bad it is is definitely not good for RL. On the other hand, RL could probably piggyback pretty effectively off any publicity or interest, although there is no RL presence in Chicago anyway so this whole thread is pretty irrelevant just like most of the threads created by this OP.

We're not dealing with the sharpest knives in the cutlery drawer here....so no harm done!