Can't understand the animosity of some league fans towards union; they are played in different places. Union all over the world and league just off the M62 and the Pacific Highway and South Auckland.

Both are good games with their own merits. I personally am delighted to see any English national side doing well internationally, lets face it, not much hope of the League team doing anything.

Reminds me of when Jason Price appeared on the balcony at City Hall after City's promotion and the crowd started chanting at him,
it made a few people feel silly when it was explained that he had dreadlocks and people were actually shouting Ruud! Ruud! Ruud! in reference to him looking like Ruud Gullit.

It's a boring game played by some blokes who look like they'd be better suited to sumo wrestling

Have you ever read Stephen Jones in The Sunday Times or heard John Inverdale's opinions on the BBC? The majority of "establishment" reportage on league by union commentators is nothing short of a spiteful and unnecessary slag-off-a-thon. Unsurprisingly, given their share of voice, it gets the back up of the rugby league fanbase.

Plus Union is dire to watch. The ball is in play for half the time it is in league. The string of tedious technical penalties and endless touch kicking in an average game does not a gripping and intense physical contest make, I'm afraid. I can watch golf, a 5 day cricket test match that ends in a draw, snooker, athletics, even football at a push, but union is beyond dull.

I agree with you on Stephen Jones.

But as for Union is dire to watch, that is your opinion, I much more enjoy watching it than much of the fare Mr Agar has offered me for price of my season pass over recent seasons! But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, having played both codes union has always been my first love and I can find beauty and entertainment in a well organised lineout, a well constructed rolling maul, a powerful scrummage and even a cracking piece of rucking. But if these things don't float your boat, then you ain't going to enjoy the spectacle.

What I can't understand is the chip on the shoulder many in the league fraternity have about union whereas union folk aren't bothered at all about league, it is insignificant to them particularly in the South. Maybe it is just this lack of acknowledgement which angers the northern urban tribe.

It is my opinion. I was brought up in Buckinghamshire, and apart from the CC final never watched league at all until I was about 20 - my spectator sport of choice growing up was cricket (test matches), so I can appreciate the finer points of a pretty technical sport and find entertainment in it. Nonetheless, having been to my first rugby league game at The Boulevard, it was like coming home and I just can't watch union now - find the constant stoppages and kicking highly unsatisfactory compared to the ferocity of collision and frantic pace of league. A former colleague of mine who played union at a reasonable level always said that union was the better game to play, but conceded that as a spectator sport, league was the winner.

I don't think it's Southerners' lack of interest in league that irritates RL fans, it's the deliberate jibes at our sport by the likes of Jones, which, if union really were as superior in all aspects as he likes to document on a regular basis, are surely unnecessary?

The lack of skill was highlighted for me when SBW got his shoulders through a 2 man tackle and of-loaded the ball to create a try. Good play admittedly but the commentators raved as if it was the most amazing thing ever seen at Twickenham.. Fairly standard stuff in League I thought.

just watched the game and can never see all the raving about mike tindall. very very average centre at best. also nice to see some dodgy video ref decisions in this code as well

Laurie Daley summed Union up in his classic Qoute...."Rugby League is a simple game played by simple people......Rugby Union is a complex game played by W@NKERS".

At least the all Blacks try to sling the ball about and attack from deep...England get it and are too slow and boot the damn thing.......the props and hookers llok as though they enjoy a bloody good fish supper everyday.....just a totally boruing game that gets over-exposed and some of the Bile that comes out of the mouths of some of the presenters and commentators is laughable when you look at the set ups....most teams have a strong league presence on the coaching staff.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, I think it is easy to understand. Playing League (even at amateur level, iirc) was enough to earn a lifetime from RU. RU, particularly in Wales, might have had a negative attitude to predatory League 'stealing' their players? But I agree it was League with the greater anger. There is the social and North/South divide that gives it a bit of a tribal element.

What I wonder now is whether, now that RU has been pro for 15 years, attitudes will start to thaw. The little bit of Super 14 I see impresses me - they seem to have adapted the game, de-emphasising the (for spectators) boring set pieces. Some passages of play are excellent. England still want it to be a players game, it seems, and the rules seem to mean that if either side want to bog it down, they can.

Played union a bit as a teenager and my dad played to a relatively high standard for 20 years. It doesn't really interest me anymore as England play a dour, bland style of rugby. Even in 2003 when they were the best in the world it was dire at times.
Although Red hall could learn a lot from Union regarding discipline, they're not scared to hand out 8 week bans if needed. Think someone got a 28 week ban for gouging a couple of years back iirc.
Although i think they should allow shoulder only collision again, or else SBW isn't worth watching!

I think some of is it because I see players from local Rugby Union teams walking around in suites and ties thinking they are some sort of minor celebrities and then an hour later after drinking aftershave and sticking their out of the back window of a bus pouring pints on each other’s heads which seems obligatory before 11PM.

Some of it because of the attitude of ex public school sports journalists who not only bad mouth rugby league (“Rugby League will be dead in 5 years”) but would also prefer to give column space to a game between two teams in the Southern Hemisphere than a sell out somewhere a couple of hundred miles up the M1.

Maybe it’s because I have to see a Rugby Union player every other week on programs like a “Question of Sport” when we are lucky to a league player once a year.

Perhaps it’s from reading books such as the “Forbidden Game”

Maybe it’s because when I played League a lad who played Union wasn’t allowed to go back to the club despite years of service.

Chip on shoulder - YES

But most of all it’s because I find it so chuffing boring.

I seem to remember 13500 Hull fans singing Old Fathfull during the Haka in the last ever game at the Boulevard. Whats the difference?

FWIW I have played RL to a decent standard for 18 years and followed Hull FC for longer, but I also watch Union and was at Twickenham on Saturday. Having said that, I do think SBW is wasted and doesnt get enough ball, as we all know he is devasting when he does.

Just another example of a small minded supposed RL supporter trying to denigrate RU

It was a rlparachute minerl.

If you doubt the number dropped on Hull have a look at this rlbombing maprl, detailing where and what type of bomb was dropped on the City