Despite playing yawnion at school & watching it before I got into rugby I am now completely unable to watch a game. When I see the highlights on the news or sports reviews I never fail to be astounded at the lack of technique in attack & defence.

Misguided opinions like this are holding back rugby league and have been for several decades.

I played Union at school, because inexplicably in west Leeds that was what we had.

I was never much interested apart from that. I watched more when I was at Uni as I had a couple of house mates who were Union types (one from UAE, one from Surrey) so we had a cultural exchange. Both are well into League now (Surrey one is a Wests fan over in Sydney, Arab chum is still in NW England but retains the Leeds loyalties I instilled). By the by. These days I watch RU when its on and I've got nowt else to do, and might watch it in a pub if mates are doing it as a social activity. I don't think the standards are necessarily as poor as some would suggest, though I don't think its caught up with League in the basic skills. This is partly because I don't have SKy so I'll watch most sport if its on the Beeb! There just isn't enough RL on there to fill the gap.

Generally, the international game has become increasingly ponderous of late. Some of the Heineken Cup games can be pretty good though. I do think people sometimes gloss over how poor the quality of some of the televised RL matches can be though. At it's best, RL is my favourite sport to watch by a country mile, but a good game of RU is still better to watch than a poor game of RL in my view.

Also, I find that round Leicestershire (where most of my pub RU watching mates hail from) the class issue isn't all that relevant. RU is widely watched and played in some pretty working class parts of the county. RL is barely played anywhere, so there isn't any divide to bother using class to explain.

Agreed. I played Union in Leics for years, and the clubs I played at weren't exactly upper class. The game may be run by toffs at the top, but at the bottom, most people playing it are like you and me

When people talk about basic skills in Union, they really should make a distinction between what they see in the Premiership and Heineken Cup and what's on offer in the Super 15 down under.

The gulf in skill levels between the hemispheres in Union makes the one in League look miniscule by comparison.

Agreed. I don't watch much RU, but the Southern Hemisphere stuff is just a different game. That Northern teams can 'compete' is largely down to weather and ability to spoil a game

A point not lost on many Unions who trying to rectify the problem from U7 and up by changeing the game that youngsters play. U9 (the first year of contact) is now (as of this year) basically rugby league in everything but name - no rucks or mauls, no scrums and no lineouts - just tackling and ball playing. Kids are encourageed to offload from the tackle - defenders are not allowed to stop this - unless they put the player on the floor in the tackle (enourages low tackling and better technique). Mind you, guess the one of the only two counties in England and Wales that hasn't adopted the new rules?
Players coming through at the moment have little knowledge of how to do anything other than take a tackle and let someone else take responisibility - watch even an international player when they make a line break and end up in space. It's embarrassing.
The main problem Union will always have to deal with is that you don't have to play any "rugby" with the ball to win a game. It's more about position than possession, and then waiting for the infringement. SA played absolutely no rugby on Saturday in the first half, they simply watched England fail to deal with re-starts correctly and defended until England infringed - then took the points.

Spot on


Out of interest which are the 2 counties not to adopt the new rules?

Gloucesteshire and Yorkshire.

Cheers, I guessed one would be Yorkshire. Sadly Yorkshire appears backward in both codes of rugby then.

Out of interest, the RU club I have played for for a couple of years, has had a bit more of an influx of players from Outlaws. We now have a 10, 12 & 13 from Outlaws, with most of the back row there too. Our wide defence is great, and when we run the ball in the backs we do well. The problem is that the rest of the team aren't so good at the Union things like scrums and lineouts. We won a game away at the team top of the league on Saturday that we had no right to win, simply because we could defend one dimensional rugby, and take advantage of teritory when we got the chance

Hypocrite.

As I recall you possess a pair of cufflinks yourself. In fact, typical of your attempts to bludge your way to ebourgeoisement, you didn't even pay for them.

I can't. I just can't shake it.

It worsened last week when I couldn't park at the Union club where we train because the local RFU bigwigs were taking up two spaces with their 4X4s. There's was no room for me to park the pony and trap.

Anyway, us genuine, working class salt of the earth type league lads showed 'em Monday night when we churned up their waterlogged pitch by training through the downpour. The union toffs that usually train were conspicuous by their absence in the rain. Bloomin rah rah's.

Must dash, ferret needs feeding and the wife need her weekly beating.

And Botha could have gathered the restart, a few forward phases later and someone slots a three pointer and you're licking Robshaws balls for astute decision making. That's rugby for you.

They seem to get the decision making right today against the All Blacks
A game I thoroughly enjoyed watching.

Totally agree OF big wraps to the yawnion lads today they got stuck in and got teh win they deserved.

Me too. Big commitment from the whole side with the pack outstanding and Farrell didn't look out of place against Carter either!

Except there were 45 seconds left when SA got round to kicking off and England hadn't been able to manage anything resembling what was needed for the previous 79 minutes and 15 seconds. A no brainer - kick to the corner and catch and drive 5 yards for a winning 5 points. Robshaw f*****d up - simple as that.

On a brighter note, Robshaw and the rest of the England team showed some serious character yesterday, and a combined it with some real skill. Well done boys, last thing the All Blacks would have wanted was to lose their unbeaten run to England - and they wouldn't have even dreamed of a record score against them by the English.
Nice to see Freddie Burns get a run - the future for England at 10.

Got to say although theer were mistakes aplenty against the Aussies and Boks and Robshaw etc got slated i at least enjoyed watching them attempt to play an attacking game and backing themselves.
That obviously was the gameplan yesterday along with some excellent defensive aggression at the break down and it showed that "new look" England can be a joy to watch at this level and that there are new potential stars out there so please no more Tindall at 13 etc etc leave the old guard out and move forward.

The All Blacks were visibly shaken and confused - no question. England did their homework and moved the ball away from the Kiwi back row on attack - Nonu is a wobbly defender and they seemed to pick him out. Mike Brown had a storming game running the ball .
Tom Wood made a huge difference - absolutely tremendous play on the ground.
I just picked the wrong week to go to Twickenham (I could have had tickets for the All Blacks game). Mind you, I was pretty slaughtered last week, if I'd actually had a win to celebrate I might still have a headache now.
I also discovered that going into the England Rugby shop at Twikkers with your son after a few beers can be quite an expensive experience.

While I'd have also kicked to the corner, the penalty kicked and re-gather from the re-start to hopefully work a position to attempt a field-goal was also a workable option - perhaps even the higher percentage option as it didn't require getting across the line with ball in hand.

As previously stated I'm only a casual viewer but time remaining (it appears to me) is not altogether critical as they seem to play on to the next infringement or the ball being kicked out of play before ending the tedium and that coud take forever.

It was chucking it down with rain, England hadn't been able to string 3 phases together the whole match without fumbling (neither had SA to be fair) and SA were tackling England backwards at the time. SA were going to kick deep and then could afford to infringe as much as they wanted as there wouldn't have been time for England to take a lineout from any penalty kick. Farrell and Robshaw between them had already turned down a kick at goal 4 or 5 minutes earlier from just inside the SA half, bang infront of the posts - again - a really poor choice, and suggesting that in the conditions (it was truly awful) Farrell needed to be close to the posts even for a place kick. He would have needed to be 25 out, band infront for a reasonable drop attempt.
Literally 80,000 people in the ground were screeming for England to kick to the corner. Even in perfect conditions moving the ball 70 metres after the end of the match and then dropping a goal is a miracle play. Catch and drive from 5 yards out is much higher percentage. I'd rather be on the SA line with the ball trying to score a try after the hooter, than 70 yards away trying to drop a goal.
He f****d up and made the wrong call. He'll learn from it though, he's a quality player. Anyway, all meaningless now, beat the All Blacks and nothing else matters.

Was the re-start kicked deep by South Africa after the successful penalty? I didn't think it was which I thought looked odd at the time.

So are you saying that unlike in League conceding a penalty doesn't extend the play beyond the eighty minutes?

What a peculiar sport.



It appears so.

No, the game does carry on - you can tap and go forever after the clock has expired, but if you chose to kick the ball out of play then it's a re-start, and that happens to be a lineout with throw in to the team who kicked the ball "dead".
However, as a lienout is considered a "contest" there has to be time on the clock for it to take place - so you actually have to check with the ref if there is time to have the lineout before you kick a penalty dead. You can't do this once the clock has expired - you can only tap a penalty and run with it.

It is still a peculiar sport though.

Snap.
It does make it easy for the BBc to show the highlights on the news though.
They just show the try (if there was one) or the winning penalty.