Oxford, he's the club president too. Mind he has been known to dabble in union in the past

As far as im aware only the RU, Rowing and RL are televised in the Oxbridge contests.

Surely people can see the advantages of being in that category? The fact that given our history, geography and tradition the fact that there is an Oxbridge game is fantastic. For it to be televised is even better.

To compare its value to Dewsbury v Leigh is narrow minded at best, ignorance at worst.

Events like this have influence. Its for the same reason I would love to see a world sevens/9s series of some sort too.

Sky are showing it to fill the absence of lower league action caused by the Challenge Cup weekend. So I'm not seeing the argument in this thread at all.

Their is Thursday Night Co-Op league or Rail Cup action every week on Sky from next week until September 16th with the only exceptions being April 16th (Challenge Cup 4th Round) and July 15th (showing the Rail Cup final on the Sunday) - sol their is plenty to look forward to.

This Oxford v Cambridge match is not my cup of tea - but its better than nowt!

American Football ( NFL ) is structured so that pretty much all it's players go through college football to play at the top level. I'd say a handful of players over god knows how many years have made transition from SRL to Super league. By 18 they are already in a super league academy, and probably not going to Uni in that case.

If RL had a draft system from Uni's i'm sure we'd see more interest in it. I think SRL is played at a quick pace. Skill level isn't too great. A lot of union converts, but that's not a bad thing.

Thanks, saved me the trouble



Although it is annoying that some sports are bigger than rugby league at a lower level!

But it's not. Are you saying that from the first day college football started, they instantly got 50K crowds and played to an almost pro standard?

you say it has influence.i'll say this fixture has been going 30years & nothing has changed.my examples are quinns & skolars.
by the way.i watched tonights game & it was by far more entertaining than 3 of the 4 SL games i've seen this season & yes i know there was a lot of mistakes.

Yes to the crowds. No to the "pro standard" because there wasn't a pro league at the time. For the earliest days of the pro league, college football was considered the higher tier of quality.

It was a fairly good game in the end.
It's what's at stake that makes these things exciting. After all, when we watch a competition such as Who Wants to be a Millionaire, we don't complain that it isn't the highest standard of contestant, but it's entertaining because of the stake. Last nights game had more at stake for the players than a league game or a CC game would have for a pair of Sky's normal Thursday night teams.

Not a bad game all in all

Agreed. Well contested game.

Obviously not the highest quality, but very entertaining game between 2 evenly matched sides.

It's actually only 5 as the Cowboys stadium is expandable to 100,000k capacity.

I fell asleep during it.
Okay I have had 8 nights drinking and getting up for work so it wasn't really the games fault but yeh, from what I saw it actually looked alright, better than I thought

Miserable b'stards the lot of yer.



I enjoyed it. I enjoy watching RL of any level - even the 5 year-olds at half time legging it round the pitch in a big gang at Wigan.

I doubt any of those lads will make it to any level at RL, but it was an entertaining game that swung one way then the other as Oxford came back from 16-0 down to win 32-22 (iirc). Some poor handling and amateurish tackling, but they threw the ball about well and there was definitely plenty of passion.

I'll never complain about RL being on TV.

I thought it was a good end to end game with plenty of entertainment on show

That was a good game with some good individual players along with some amazing lack of defence.
Entertaining all the way.

At least it "proves" that when the other twickers is filled for the rah rah version, Entertainment is deffo not at the top of the list!

Who did that nice Mr Paul play for once and remind me what his first name was?

Harlequins RU, wasn't it?

So a good and entertaining game then, as opposed to a "yawn".

Enjoyed, it seems, by all who admit watching it.

Who'da thunk it?

I live in Oxford and tonight I got home from work, whacked the telly on and the local news is talking about Rugby League. That's gotta be a good thing.

Although I live about 150 yards from where the Uni team play, I never see anything other than Onion in the town's papers and on the town's tv/radio stations.

It's great to watch any level of league including this game. Actually, I believe Sky should show a uni league all through the season, what better way to show the game truly is national (and international if you include Wales, Scotland, France and Ireland.) I thought it was great to see a game not hampered by the stereotypical tactics employed by the "top" teams.