Me and my friend were having an argument on who covers the most ground in one match between football and rugby. In the football matches it normally says how far they have covered and it is around 10Km but I have never seen official statitics for rugby league players?

I would guess it is rugby players as in football a lot of the passes are from one end of the pitch to the other, and the players tend to 'hover' in or near their area.

Rugby players move up and down the field both when attacking and in defence, and I would guess that the only player who doesn't move as much is the full back and that is only in defence as he stands back from the defensive line!!

I reckon a midfielder covers more ground than rugby players.

Not saying what's right or wrong just that obviously soccer is 10 mins longer and also there is more player rotation in RL.

Reading somewhere that Refs often run the equivelent of 8 miles in a football match

but to offset that the ball is "live" for longer in a Rugby League game.

True, in your average Premiership match last season, fans only saw the ball in the field on play for a total of 61 minutes, that's probably more than Rugby Union though, to be fair.

I'm not sure about Rugby League or Football, but in a recent Interntational Union game, one prop forward astonished everyone by exceeding 100yds in a rare 80 minute game.
He was rested the following week due to fatigue.

In comparison the full back kicked the ball for a total of 14,739 metres distance in the same game.

The Ref also awarded 127 penalties, of which 6 were understood by the crowd.

A forward will cover 4-6 miles per game as I remember from somewhere.

Probably rugby players. Footballers are usually in a certain area of the pitch according to their position, rugby players are constantly up and down the pitch with every set of six.

This kind of stat needs forwarding to Phil Clarke! He is good at coming up with precise stats

i.e. how many trys scored within the first ten mins, from kicks, off the back of penalties, by wingers who have played in the NRL and SL.

Would you need to pro rata it due to football being 10 mins longer than rugby league?

I recall some source or other stated Roy Keane covered over 10,000 metres during a particular game but he may have been chasing that ref mentioned earlier!