He really would....but who could blame him for being where he is?

It takes two to tango - do you (Rogues) have a particular club in mind?

League doesn't really have an international aspect to occupy a top coach full-time - without treading on the toes of the club coaches - which I guess explains why we have a relative no-mark currently in charge of our national side.

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Classic https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BFgY6-rCIAAjcXM.jpg'" Lovely stuff Quote ="tvoc" Quote ="Harrigan"On another note too, who likes to see their national team lose at anything? '" How about this fella ? www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/21795146 __________ My only real interest in Union is in hearing about England getting beat.'" It's always fun. I watched the last 20 mins of the Wales v England game, whenever I get dispirited about rugby league's or Leeds' lack of creativity or attacking flair* then I only need to watch a small amount of Union to bring me some perspective. * or tackling, defence, passing and handling, lines of running and even kicking these days

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Classic https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BFgY6-rCIAAjcXM.jpg'" Lovely stuff Quote ="tvoc" Quote ="Harrigan"On another note too, who likes to see their national team lose at anything? '" How about this fella ? www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/21795146 __________ My only real interest in Union is in hearing about England getting beat.'" It's always fun. I watched the last 20 mins of the Wales v England game, whenever I get dispirited about rugby league's or Leeds' lack of creativity or attacking flair* then I only need to watch a small amount of Union to bring me some perspective. * or tackling, defence, passing and handling, lines of running and even kicking these days

Of all the players from the world cup winning team the one player they miss the most is Will Greenwood, the current England centres offer nothing and although Barritt will tackle anything but you need more at this level and Tuilangi is a strong runner but again is very one dimensional. To be fair though the back three are average as well, Ashton has been terrible in this in this 6 nations and has been found out big style, Goode is a fat cart horse who offers nothing from full back and Brown is playing out of position. I'm also not sure why Owen Farrell seems so highly rated, the 'related to panface syndrome' perhaps?

On a side note I think George North would be a superb RL player.

Good goal-kicker apparently as his 1 from 3 bears amply testament to. What's Sinfield for Leeds since the start of the play-offs in 2012 - 48 from 49 (98%)

I noted as someone said earlier that the MOTM made 4 carries for 35 meters in total (most of those presumably came from the break for the second/final try) and a monumental 8 tackles....... outstanding effort



Meanwhile at the same time in a proper game of rugby taking place in Huddersfield, Danny Houghton was making 65 tackles and plenty of other as yet unstatified contributions.

Back at the other event the referee was penalising virtually every scrum and at one point was telling the England hooker the precise blade of grass he had to stand on and woe-betide him if he chose to stand on even the one next to it. It took three attempts and he still managed to find an infringement somewhere for something or other..... against England obviously.

I laughed when they flashed up a stat that showed one of the welsh forwards had made 4 carries for 4 metres.

It was Sam Warburton and it was 3 carries for 3 meteres.

I have just read this right?

England only scored 1 try in the whole competition?

Why do people watch this sport?

I hate to stick up for them (even slightly) but they got 5 tries in the competition. 4 against Scotchland and the offside one against France.

Oh...Ok.

So that's an average of 1 try per game.

All makes sense now. With that kind of strike rate I'm surprised the sport doesn't attract even more supporters.

In defence of RU forwards, unlike their league counterparts, they have to compete for the ball by rucking or mauling at evey tackle and they do have to push a bit at the scrums. I would love to see some league forwards stats for average metres per carry if the defensive line didn't have to retire 10 metres and there were 15 defenders on the pitch. We would see minus numbers for some of the Leeds pack.

Thats why those of us with half an ounce of common sense view it as a different game with a different viewing head on and its why those who p1ss and whine all the time about the two codes demonstrate admirably that they don't actually possess even the half an ounce of sense required.

Number of tries ?

Presumably the 70+ point thrashings that occur from time to time every season in superleague are the pinnacle of the season, for tries is what its all about isn't it ?

Its why 0-0 scores in football are obviously the lowest point in a season for most fans.

True. The game isn't all about tries, it's about scoring points.

My gripe with England is that they can't score tries when they should score tries and they can't score tries when they come up against opposition who don't give away penalties. They don't have the alternative option to kicks for goal.

I would love to see the front row in RU in RL environment - they would struggle to make a tackle they so immobile also it would interesting to RU forwards having to tackle regularly with big guys running at them from 5 metres at top speed most of the stuff i saw was guys not running more than 1-2 metres.

Where is our resident RA RA Sherbert Dip ? I am sure he will defend them ( unlike his team did Wales )

Quite right. Who gives a **** about yawnion

Who cares about Union?

We all should, as it affects our game no matter what you think

Fully agree.

A bit sad really that there are folk who seem to get pleasure from the defeat of an England side. A rugby one at that and one that has connections with the city of Leeds our ground and our players.

The two codes are different in many ways and I can understand why some of the subtleties of each code are lost on each others blinkered supporters. But many of the skills are the same rugby skills that form the basis of each code and only the perverse and those of a prejudice nature fail to acknowledge them.

Interesting that some of those who have been so quick to bob up with their negative postings had kept their heads well down when this same England side were winning all its previous matches in the Six Nations and when they beat the World Champion NZ side last autumn.

Wales with crucial home advantage went into this game as clear favourites. Key injured players were returning as was their form in recent games where as England who had started well had hit a downturn in form. Wales were current Champions with a very experienced and skilfull set of individual which hadn't been perfoming collectively perhaps due to injuries. With Lions places the stage was set for a big showdown. The young England pretenders versus the experienced Champions in the unique atmosphere of the closed in stadium with an emotional all singing majority of pumped up Welshmen in the big 72,000 crowd. I don't think we choked but that atmosphere must have played its part in depressing confidence.

On the day Wales rose to the occassion and gave their best performance for many years and were better in all departments. Their superiority was based on destroying the English scrum and winning free kicks and penalties that gave them momentum and a big possession advantage. Despite all this the youngsters from England defended well and Wales only had a 2 penalty advantage at the break. They tackled manfully too in the second half until exhaustion took its toll. But the English on this occassion were clearly outmuscled which was dissappointing but they will learn from the experience.

We must not forget that the new England coach started with a clean sheet and his young team is by no means the finished article. That they were beaten to the championship only on points difference and coming so close to winning it should be celebrated.

Thing is right, if rugby yawnion is "so rubbish, crap" etc how do they convince massive sponsors to fork over loads of cash, get masses of folk to fill some of the biggest stadiums in 6 different countries, get massive exposure on terrestrial channels and fill pubs the length and breadth of the country?

Instead of us instantly writing off what the union mob do wrong, why the feck cant we get folk to look at what they do right? which to be frank, is a shedload better than some of the tin pot gimmicks we do.

We have a tremendous product in rugby league to sell, a raw passionate game that really should be more further up the food chain in this country, but I can tell you one reason it isnt and thats due to a poisonous cocktail of complacency, inepitude of a series of ruling elite at the top and the inability of the majority of RL fans to even admit that maybe, just maybe the "rah-rahs" are actually doing things in the right way and maybe we should think about y'know moving with the times?

And I dont even like yawnion.

I have - remember Dai Young?

You could reverse your statement - there isn't a prop in league who could survive an international union scrum - it's that specialised. Union props are as fit as they can be for the game they play and the role they have to fulfill and can be mobile. Considering that they have to weigh in at 17st or over (many come in at 20st these days), they have to scrummage and maul - which is a colossal physical effort - and there is no interchange, they do pretty well.
And what you call "big guys" in league are the equivalent of wingers in Union. The average pack weight of an English forward is close to 18 stone. Last year the Welsh team (including backs) averaged over 16 stone.

Yes, league forwards have a higher workrate in terms of tackling and running with the ball, and yes the ball is in play longer in a league game, and yes, they have to be extremely mobile and defend on the balls of their feet against quick attackers - and as a result league forwards are the size and shape they are - often lighter than some of the backs. Mayeb when you do look at the completely different physical requirements of the two games you begin to realise why so few forwards have ever made the switch from one code to another - let alone made an impact. I can only think of a handful - Quinnell who was a big bruising hard running back row forward and Farrell who went from prop in his last season with Wigan in to the centres at Saracens - same for Joel Tomkins. I think Steve McCurrie did something similar way back as well going from hooker to centre I think.

I have to admit I still carry a bit of my old dislike of this game especially like yesterday I came in after a few beers and in our dining room and old guy called me over to tell me about the game and gave him all the usual stuff about the great split and the stuff that came from it etc ,but as usual he didnt understand.He just wanted to tell me how impressed he was.I will have talk to him today and say I'm glad you enjoyed it.However have just seen a photo of te two most smackable faces in sport messr's Inverdale and Gusscott I still hate those two along with Iiiiaiin Robertson

Ray French was a dual forward international.
There were many more in that "amateur"era, usually going from RU to RL.
Now it's the other way round.
Of the recent "defectors" post Jason Robinson, the most successful, arguably, is Brad Thorn.

I watch both codes on tv but would only pay to watch RL live.
There have been some outstanding rugby athletes on display in the 6 nations - most of them flankers/loose forwards - Tipuric & Warburton from Wales, Picamoles from France, O'Brien from Ireland but my personal favourite this year has been the Italian skipper Parisse.
What a player he is.
Finally it would have been brilliant to see Brian O'Driscoll playing RL but it was never meant to be.

I never understand what so great about 'contested' scrums in union but to me they're a bigger joke than the non contested scrums in RL. The refs don't know what's going on, the players don't and I dear say even the spectators don't. Brian Moore was even baffled by the scrumaging laws yesterday, and he played in the front row at the highest level.

i must admit that i am jealous of the crowds and the media coverage that union gets over league but having just looked at the stats for England's 5 games and to not score a try in 3 matches to me cry's of boredom but the main stat i did notice was that England averaged 41 errors a game while the opposition averaged 39 errors,so 80 errors in a 80 minute game and i would guess that at least 15 - 20 minutes the ball is not even in play ! and yes i do not understand union but thank god i love rugby league

It was like watching the St Helens play in October.....

Did anyone challenge for the Leon's "Hide and Seek World Championship Belt" yesterday then?