Still no comment on the OP then?

I think the OP is actually criticising people for talking RL down.

You've taken it (as always) as an attack on RU.

Nope, I've taken it as yet another example of a badly thought out use of something in Union that isn't good to make a League fan feel better.


This is factually correct. The Recent RL 4 nations had a Samoan squad with 2 Samoan born players in it.....the RLWC 2013 was farcical with 9 teams having on average 17 "heritage' players in their 23's.

The Notion that the RUWC where the average across the board is 4 heritage players per 33 man squad is comparable to the RLWC is quite laughable as it is a polar opposite situation. 74% Heritage in League, 11% in Union.

So thus far, the comparison doesn't hold up to scrutiny and therefore doesn't work.......so just in case let's throw media coverage into the mix




I fail to see how the number of heritage players in a sport and the fans ability to see this as a negative is connected to the lack of column inches afforded to Rugby League? It's a different topic totally.

So it was a "pop" at Union and it did, as so many others do, fail. On the pitch we are light years ahead of Union, but nearly everywhere else they dwarf us and especially at International level.

There is no shortage of places on the internet for the discussion of RU and the RUWC in particular. This forum is for the discussion of rugby league, and whilst rugby union is obviously going to be mentioned tangentially at times, it shouldn't be taking over threads completely, or, as loiner quite reasonably says, posters will just lose interest.

Not every poster here is going to hate RU (although some do), but almost by definition they vastly prefer league. And that's what we want to talk about.

International rl has seen a world cup seen as a roaring success which will be followed up by 3 England games in england in 3 years.

If you want to know why international rl is failing. There is probably a pretty clear answer there.

I don't think anyone disputes that.

One of the reasons League has fallen further behind Union is the small minded attitude from many in our game that comes from the outdated class based problems of more than a 100 years ago. Both codes, players and most fans have all moved on and this head in the sand attitude of "I don't like it because I have never tried it" shows a closed mind set.

The two codes are different games with different tactics yet so much of the handling and tackling skills are the same, therefore to pretend that there are never great moves and tries scored in Union or say there is no excitement and good sporting entertainment to enjoy is ridiculous.

I too prefer League but this World Cup is a massive event and the profits will pump considerable money into Union clubs and schools the length of the land to improve facilities, coaching and recruitment. This includes League's own back yard so the sooner SL wake up and start to learn from the way Union is run and marketed the sooner our own game will regain some lost status.

Surely they have? The last RLWC was a massive improvement on previous ones.

Yep.

It's more than just looking at Union and doing what they do. For starters we can't do that. We don't have a Twickenham and we don't have a base in London and amongst a rich support base. We also don't have the media profile Union has and we certainly don't have the same sympathisers high up in media outlets and larger, richer, companies.

So we aren't starting from the same points and don't have the same capabilities or resources. That's not to say we can't learn from Union or can't do things better (we definitely can). But we could put the exact same people who market & run Union into League and they wouldn't have anywhere near the same impact.

What we CAN do is use the things from Union that would have an effect. The biggest change I think we need to make is to establish a regular international presence in London. Every time we play the Aussies or Kiwis over here there HAS to be at least one game in London. It's not a nice extra anymore, it HAS to happen. I'd then like to see all those who bought tickets outside the heartlands targeted with discounts and offers for other games and events in London or near where they live like other internationals, the Magic Weekend, Cup Final, Grand Final etc.

We also have to get some kind of regular international games every season. So that we know when they're going to happen. I understand we aren't going to get the Aussies and Kiwis coming over here every single year and they're even more unlikely to come mid-season. So we could setup a regular calendar with France and Wales. I'd suggest 2 Tests v France, 1 in England and 1 in France, and 1 game v Wales in England. (I'd also have Wales play France in France). That would give England 2 mid-season internationals every year in England. We'd know that they were definitely happening and we'd set the dates in the calendar so they always happened at the same time. Then everybody knows that every year we're playing France in early June etc etc.
Its not perfect but it's a start. And it gives France and Wales regular competitive games too.

And we have to realise that it isn't going to magically turn into Union-type highly attended internationals, we have to build over time. But if we never know if there's even going to be a game, never mind when and where, it'll never build. For instance I never even realised England were playing France before the NZ Test Series this year.

If we want to follow what Union has done then we have to do it our own way but we still HAVE to establish the international game as THE most important aspect of RL in this country, not an add-on to SL.

When are the RFL gonna start promoting the test series vs NZ?

Lots of people will go to these RU games at the Olympic stadium for example. These people are causal sport fans who wanna see live sport.

Should the RFL have flyers being given to fans at the end of the game promoting the London test.

Not sure if they are doing it. If not then I want to know why not.

You have a huge catchment of fans to target and you just ignore them.

The NZ RU team are gonna be in the London adidas store on Sunday 26th. Hell if the RFL wanna give me some flyers to hand out to the hundreds of people queuing outside I am willing to hand them out.

or

which is it?

Watched the first 5 minutes of France v Romania as sat on couch with a cold. How they can fill a stadium for that tripe is beyond me. Talk about emperors new clothes. Goes to show hype and marketing over product will work every time, jut need to keep working on better promotion of the game, sadly something we have never been good at. As said the NZ test series should be in full,swing for marketing now.

If you'd have hung on, there was about five minutes of rugby played at the end of the first half...

50,276....……there's your line in this sand and that's without england playing.....if.only we could get peoples to watch us....

Yeah, because every minute of every game of every year in the history of RL has always been exciting



That explains why (according to a bloke on general RL forum) crowds and TV ratings are down this year and why RLs own fans are getting bored with it.

(Now you come back and say the well-rehed line of even a boring RL game is miles better than any RU game)

Tbh if you can show me a start of a RL game that was as dull as the first 5 mins of that game I'll totally agree with you, it went:
Ko
Ball received ran up maul, kick into touch
Line out ruck, kick down field
Mail, pass, maul knock on
Scrum pass, pass maul, turn over
Pass kick straight to opposition 30 metres away
Run back pass, terrible attempt at chip over
Knock on, scrum.

At that point I had enough and flicked over to golf which was marginally more exciting.

Like I said if you can sell well it doesn't matter how poor the product is.

But the product in international rugby union isn't - to a large degree - what happens on the pitch. It's being able to say "I was there" when you're at the golf club bar with your chums the following day, to paraphrase Max Boyce.

Same way that probably 20% of the people who turn up at Test cricket have little or no interest in the game but are there for a day out.

No disrespect intended to Hull, but a trip to the KC to watch an RL Test doesn't have the element of an "experience" that you can sell to the less than committed sport watcher. Until RL finds a way to make its international games an experience which ranks alongside the Grand Final or Challenge Cup Final, rather than an afterthought tacked onto the end of the season, it will struggle to sell tickets for them in anything approaching the volume that Union does.

i do agree with the theory there, but, if RU did that at one of our competitions then there would be hell on!

in ideal world both codes could and should support and help each other, sadly it isn't an ideal world

So you watched a game that you know has mauls, kicking, line-outs, scrums and passes in it and then are surprised that they carried out those parts of the game?

Havent watched a union game for years, people kept saying it had become closer to RL and was more open. Being on my sick bed I was flicking and thought I'd take a look, will come back in another few years to see if it's got any better.

It's absolutely tragic, but unfortunately it's true.

And the corollary of that is, we won't make great inroads into union's popularity by tweaking and 'improving' our own product (even if we were able to do so).

Everyone in my office is talking about the RUWC right now. None of them show any interest in the sport at any other time of year. In fact, not being funny, I reckon I know a damn more about RU than most of them do.

That's like someone watching the first ten minutes of Widnes v Hull KR and deciding that all of rugby league is terrible, played on plastic pitches in front of half-empty, soulless stadiums.

The Super 15 and Rugby Championship in the southern hemisphere have moved substantially closer to RL, with a focus on avoiding taking the ball into contact and a move away from setpiece-based game plans. Sadly, as in RL, the northern hemisphere is lagging behind in that transformation and persists on playing forward based styles primarily based on the fact it's still a winter sport and is often played in conditions that don't encourage an expansive game.

The Japanese are probably the closest thing this World Cup has to an RL side, simply because their setpieces don't match up to the big teams so they have to be more expansive with the ball and keep it in play for as long as possible.

So people told you that RU had stopped doing mauls, line-outs, scrums, etc? If not, why were you surprised that RU still did them?

Japan Rugby are more like a 7s side than a RL side, Japans 15s and 7s sides interchange and work together a lot.

You probably do but so what? That's how you attract new fans into the game (sorry, 'product').