Quite right and the fact is Australia RL has a very high profile. You have to ask yourself apart from the money thing, is the attraction the fact that as a Union international you play competitive games against several nations in front of massive crowds whereas as a Kangaroo you play NZ! This was the point I made about Ashton, look at the profile he's got now.

and no matter how much RL tries to spread the international game we need to understand that RL will never be as successful having the international spread as union. There's no way for example that we will end up with quality RL teams in Argentina, South Africa, Italy, Ireland, Scotland (made up of scots not Aussies) etc

Part of me is thinking that the RFL should stop concentrating on expansion of the game in the UK and focus on what it knows works. On the back of the world RL should maybe stop concentrating on growth and just focus again on what works.

Sadly there's no answer to keeping good young players. We have to ackonwledge that in the next 10-15 years the shift may even go further meaning RL becomes more a feeder competition for RU.

If that happens you have to think it is over as a full-time sport. Clubs would either operate as Championship clubs do now or jump ship to RU. Heart says the former, head says it'd be a slow death.

Depends really. Clubs jumping ship would be an interesting one.

I'd be more inclined to think that due to the loyal fan base RL has in its northern heartland we may be sustainable as a sport but just with slightly lesser players playing the game. If the level of the players drops slightly across the board theoretically it would all be relative and the competition should still be competetive enough to keep the fans interested. Does mean imo that the RFL will have to shift their mindset though away from growth to survival.

Would Sky pay anything like what they do now for a feeder sport? Union has its attrative-to-advertisers demographic and successful International competitions at least.

Union is not without its issues and they mirror League's in some respects.

This interview with Ian McGeechan highlights some of their issues and a few will look familiar to RL fans (if back to front on North-South).

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2010/aug/31/bath-ian-mcgeechan[/url

I'm not sure of the exact figures but i'd guess Union gets far more sponsorship from Sky than RL does already?

It's also interesting as you say that Union can attract sponsors of the size of Aviva. Just further highlights our inability to compete in the future.

Sky and Setanta paid £54 million for 3 seasons of GP:


[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/11/sky-setanta-guinness-premiership-rugby[/url


When Setanta went belly-up ESPN stepped in.

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/14/espn-guinness-premiership-rugby[/url

That's £18 million per season between 12 clubs, which is £1.5 million per club. SL clubs get £1.2 million from Sky iirc. The big difference will be in revenues earned and distributed by the RFU from the international game. Our television revenue covers 75% of our cap, theirs covers 37.5%.

That £4 million cap is high too for most GP clubs which might be why Leicester and Wasps have won 12 of the 14 professional championships. There has been talk of lowering it and enforcing it properly - a team that plays about 300 metres from where I'm sitting is regarded with suspicion by their rivals, I belief. And I can't see much potential for growth tbh. The silver lining to having a crap int'l game is the potential for improvement. Don't think I'd ever want it to dominate the sport though - I'm unashamedely club-first.

Interesting thanks for that. (just to be a pedant its now the AP)

RL in England won't die, nor will it become a feeder competition for RU. People have been suggesting that since RU went professional in 1995 (or whenever it was), yet RL attendances and TV audiences have been on the up ever since. Next season I believe attendances will increase even further. A sport that is averaging >10K per game over the season is not dying, and should be able to support a full-time structure.

Looking back over the players that we've lost to RU, how many of them do we really miss? Apart from Robinson, and maybe Ashton and Vainikolo, I can't think of any that have had a detrimental impact to the international game. RL and RU are just too different to justify massive player shifts between the codes.

Our biggest problem is Englands lack of competitiveness against NZ and Aus. We can put this down to crap imports/coaching/player development/dodgy refs

, but not RU poaching players from RL.

Dont think RL will die, but our success may decrease based on a number of factors. The one thing not touched upon is the youth setups. With more and more money in RU it may well be that they start to pick up top RL kids from the junior sides for their academies. That to me is one of the changes that i think is likely to happen that will have a far bigger impact then picking up a handful of established 1st teamers. I know for example that Ionians have a lot of good local RL kids playing for them. I also know that as part of the Aviva sponsorship deal an element will be spent on skills schools around the north of the country attracting kids to RU from RL backgrounds. We cant stop that either.

RL may not die but the development of RL will plateu if the anticipated changes start to happen.

Couldn't agree more, as a strategy the RFL need to look at what is acheivable and focus on that. Expansion world wide of the game is a nice thought but in reality it's not going to happen so why waste money, time and effort over chasing the end of the rainbow.

I believe the countries love affair with football is waning and people are looking for an alternative to prancing primadonnas driving ferraris and treating the paying public like thick peasants. RU will benefit from this and I believe that if we market and improve our domestic comp that too can benefit. The product we have is already a pretty good one, has decent viewing figures and as long as we walk before we run it can be a profitable venture. There is just a fear that if we carry on looking for world domination we could ruin what we already have.