Superb piece by Stuart Barnes in today's Times (see first section of link). Nice to see them actually giving credit to Rugby League. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 974605.ece

Superb piece by Stuart Barnes in today's Times (see first section of link). Nice to see them actually giving credit to Rugby League. www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/ ... 974605.ece

Simon Barnes is the multi-award-winning chief sportswriter at The Times please dont get him mixed up with the fat idiot that used to play for Bath and England and talks utter rubbish on Sky sports.

You would'nt really, he's called Stuart.

Glad you mentioned the surname Barnes and that each Barnes family member could have a different forename,i would have seen the name Stuart Barnes and would have immediately have thought of Liverpools ex England wonderstar John!

Kick and clap should now be scrabble-and-pheep, brilliant!
Union followers argue league rules could have been written by a five year old, union thought is far too contrived hence the ball being out of play for long periods. Know what I'd prefer to watch

Let RU keep their rules and no matter how much fancy marketing they do the game will be dead on its feet. People will not be prepared to pay good money to watch fat lardy blokes fall on each other and give away penalties then the ball kicked between the two team until someone knocks on and give a kickable penalty. Desperate stuff!

But unless RL can market itself as an alternative to Rugby Union it will remain in the shadows of Union.

The Curse Of Tranmere

Why not? They seem happy enough to watch a bunch of midgets hoof the ball around a pitch until one person can fool the ref into thinking he's been pushed.

Few consumers generally, let alone in sport, are discerning in their choices and neither are their choices based on much logic. That's a major reason why rugby union has been able to attract crowds in recent years - their marketeers and media friends are masters of weaving the emperor's new clothes.

They also understand that what goes on on the pitch isn't of massive interest to their highly lucrative corporate customers.

I've no love for or great interest in rugby union but I don't think it could be described as dying on it's feet - far from it.

Me too.
Having lots of rules or complex rules isn't a pre-requisite for a challenging game.
For example, how many rules does chess have? (not many).
And how complex are they? (not very).

Least accurate post of the year so far...

Given that Union have had roughly the same rules (with the occasional tweak around the edges) for over 100 years and the game shows no sign of "dying on its feet" just yet, I fail to see how it will suddenly do so.

The RFL would kill to have a side that could realistically use somewhere like Wembley for a one-off home game without it looking laughably empty, or pull 65-70,000 for international games half a dozen times a year.

...and more importantly, have their own national stadium, pay for its existence, its complete redevelopment and its maintenance for just a handful of games per season, jesus even the Scottish RU have a superb national stadium and most of their club sides name chickens and dogs as playing members.

The OP apparently did get them confused though......