You are really "cjhatesunion" and I claim my £5

Sonny Bill was due to Toulon offering him a crazy amount of money. Money will always be a factor I am afraid!

Least down under the tables have turned and now it is Rugby League that has the big money and not Rugby Union. I doubt we will be seeing many big stars going over to the darkside anytime soon.

Also talking about losses to Union

Mat Rogers and Wendell Sailor was big losses..

Nah, Ashton's overrated. Wales were abysmal in that match. With the exception of Toby "Hammer of the Welsh" Flood, both sides were equally dire. Ashton just got on the end of a bit of Flood genius.

And Italy have even less strength in depth than Wales. It was the injuries to too many key players that did for Italy.

Though 4 tries against the IRB 12th ranked team, decimated by injuries, is a decent start he's no better than any of the other "great league hopes". He may be a loss to League. It remains to be seen whether he's a gain to Union.

Score a try against a top 5 team Ashton, then we'll talk again.

Now Jason Robinson. THERE was a successful convert. The human try machine. No Shane Williams, but a DEVASTATING attacker in a successful English team. His selection scared opponents. NO other league player has done that.

Lesley Vainakolo was meant to be England's answer to Jonah Lomu. We in Wales found that highly amusing. Especially when he was dumped on his arrse by Ickle Shane. The Volcano is now only ever picked for Saxons (Ingerlund 'A')

you know what I find funny is when you heard the BBC commentators waxing lyrical over Sonny Bill's handling skills when NZ last came over.

Rugby League players have been showing these skills for years..



I think Sonny Bill will come back to Rugby League. One thing that he will always have in his head is that he missed out on NZ winning the RL world cup and 4 nations. I have no doubt that he would have loved to have been part of that team!

But being a Union All Black is hardly second best. They are the top team in the world at NZ's most popular sport, even if they ARE RUWC chokers.

As regards handling skills, All Blacks ALL have those skills. There's ferck all else to do in NZ than to handle one's balls, so no wonder they get good at it.

Ashton's first 3 tries were against Australia, 1 down in Sydney and 2 at Twickenham, one of which was a great 90 meter try, which got voted IRB try of the year.

Roger the rabbit!

Nowt do with me nick but i wholeheartedly agree with him.

Our biggest loss to Rugby Union is surrendering the name 'Rugby' and losing the opportunity to build our brand

The biggest lost is what happened in France.

hopefully oneday it might recover....

I hate union, but that ain't me!

What happened in France?

Can't argue with that Dunbar.
It really pi55es me off when you hear about the rugby(union) world cup coming up later this year.
We should try and claim it back ASAP.

No mate it's me.

you're either taking the mickey or new to the sport,which one is it.

Quote ="cjhatesunion"you're either taking the mickey or new to the sport,which one is it. '" Thinking the same myself cj. Thoth - either way, read the link or buy the book of the name - it's an education and is a huge pointer as to why League is where it is in comparison to Union in this country - tweak the nose of the establishment and it all becomes a little difficult. www.rugbyleagueinternationalscor ... h-tragedy/

Quote ="cjhatesunion"you're either taking the mickey or new to the sport,which one is it. '" Thinking the same myself cj. Thoth - either way, read the link or buy the book of the name - it's an education and is a huge pointer as to why League is where it is in comparison to Union in this country - tweak the nose of the establishment and it all becomes a little difficult. www.rugbyleagueinternationalscor ... h-tragedy/

But for the Vichy regime, Rugby á XIII would probably now be the dominant code in France.

The ru turning a blind eye to payments to welsh players pre ww1 was a massive influence on the current state of affairs. The ru were worried that welsh teams would convert to rl and that fear was increased when it was suggested the southwest following suit. This would essentially have given the ru an empire of London and the home counties.

The biggest loss to ru in my mind is all the column inches sacrificed. Nationals cover next to zero RL t. Coverage outside lanc/Yorks is minimal.

Occurs to me that the TV rights going to Sky didn't help either. Not everyone has Sky Sports, note even everyone who has Sky has Sky sports.

Say what you like about the BBC. If they have the rights to a major sport, they tend to show a lot of it.

Obviously the Sky money is critical in keeping many clubs solvent, but it doesn't exactly spread the game into new areas.

No was just replying to a rather daft comment. Arguably Post WWII RL recovered quicker than RU did. RL golden era was during the 1950s, during that period it was enormously more popular than prior to the outbreak of world war II; so to say it was the biggest loss.

Despite what has been written in terms of clubs and participation RL at no point overtook RU. What did change during the 1950s was the the RFU got it's act together started producing a stream of players that resulted in success on the field as RL began to wane in france it occured just after FRU were having on the field success in the 5 nations. The opposite had happened in 1931 when france were kicked out of the five nations this had a massive impact on the RU communities many of which adopted RL. It is not a coincidence that french RL and French RL have never been strong at the same time.

The biggest problem in France occured when RU started becoming embedded in french culture, that has never gone away. You want to see evidence of this look at how the likes of Toulouse and Perpignan RU are run and play and compare it with les Catalans ( you could almost mistake them for Wakefield). Until player development in france is run so abysmally they will allways struggle.

Fair do's mate you know your stuff.

I dunno. I never followed Rugby League before it was on Sky so I cant say how the situation was but from what I have heard and read, lots of Rugby League Clubs were going to the wall. I found Rugby League as a 12 year old tuning into Sky Sports on a friday night so it being on Sky worked for me.



Also how much coverage would BBC really give Rugby Leage if Sky never purchased the rights? Would have we seen summer Rugby league? Would have BBC shown at least two live games per week? How about a championship game?

I have serious doubts that the game would be better off or bigger if it stayed on BBC.

I have to say that Henry Paul was the biggest loss for Super League. He was a truely talented player who added a lot to the competition.

I agree that Ashton did have a lot of holes in his game, who knows what would have happened but given that our lack of a fullback in last years 4 nations we could have done with a few extra options.

France is a clever one and hard to argue against, nice post Damo.

I would have to say that from a GB perspective that Iestyn Harris was a massive loss. I great play maker when the GB team lacked great playmakers.

The truly sad thing was that Paul and Harris were not very good Union players. So it was a loss on both sides (money for them, talent for us).

When you think about it the NRL have suffered a lot more than us. Losing players of the quality of Gasnier, SBW and Matt Rogers should have crippled them.

After watching the Barnes vs Stevo debate on Skysports.com I have to say that English Rugby Union are taking short cuts rather than putting the hard work in. I know we are not benefitting from having our players taken but they are not really benefitting from it either. Its a sad state of affairs one both sides.

I think Eastmond will struggle because of his size, the only place he could play is in the halfs, but good luck to him. I feel sorry for Saints who developed him into the player he is & they let Long go as he was to be the new man, but maybe they should have tied him to a 10 year deal then they would at least have demanded a large transfer if he was intent on going? If our clubs want to hold on they must show faith & offer good long deals to young players they would just have to structure the deal to reward succsess by insentive based payments.