problem is the FTA TV would only show the NSW conference games and the oceanic conf would get very little TV exposure. Also the travel factor would be grossly unfair on the oceanic conf and would play a major part in team performance come play off time. The NSWRL already think they run RL, giving them their own conference would make it even worse!

I was considering that as a problem. But wouldn't the rights be sold as a whole, and couldn't there be a clause in the contract to show equal number of games from both conference? Just think it would be better if there were more "big games" to show for the TV figures.

Also, I thought the IC was taking over all the little governing bodies pottering about?

Well said dally,the club that I support started in 1873 way before the NU broke away from RU.
We have as much right to the history of rugby as union does and as you say it is important to the history of our game

This is RL and TV rules. FTA now has bias towards Sydney clubs (understandably as that is the biggest TV audience) and clubs like Storm and Raiders rarely get any FTA exposure. Only way to ensure it would be to split the Sydney clubs up. For all the talk of rivalary many all Sydney affairs draw crowds no different to when they play out of town teams. There are some exceptions but mostly Sydney fans don;t travel in large numbers to away games even within their own city. In terms of IC, in theory yes but the NSWRL, QRL, WARL, VRL, SARL etc etc will all remain with the NSWRL and QRL having voting rights on the IC. If there is one thing I've learnt about RL administration its that the pigs never move far from the trough!

Nobody has said we don't and only an idiot would think we didn't.

That's not the point being argued.

The point being argued is that dally is saying rugby league wasn't spawned from rugby union. Which is complete rubbish. It isn't important to the history of rugby league to pretend that that didn't happen.

To be fair he has a point,we came from the game of rugby which we still played after we broke away from the now RFU.
It's not our fault that our game has evolved and union is still a caveman monstrosity which is trying to be like RL(badly).

Fair point.

Best way would be to split the 9 Sydney clubs + Canberra, Central Coast and Newcastle into two 6s then I guess. Keep the three QLD clubs together, and have the expansion clubs (NZ Warriors, Melbourne and Perth) as the other group of three.

So maybe something like:

[uNorthern Conference:[/u
Brisbane Broncos (QLD)
Central Coast Bears (NSW)
Gold Coast Titans (QLD)
Manly Sea Eagles (Syd)
Newcastle Knights (NSW)
North Queensland Cowboys (QLD)
Parramatta Eels (Syd)
Penrith Panthers (Syd)
Wests Tigers (Syd)

[uSouthern Conference[/u:
Canberra Raiders (ACT)
Canterbury Bulldogs (Syd)
Cronulla Sharks (Syd)
Melbourne Storm (VIC)
New Zealand Warriors (NZ)
Perth Reds (WA)
South Sydney Rabbitohs (Syd)
St George-Illawarra Dragons (Syd)
Sydney Roosters (Syd)

No, we came from rugby union, which produced its laws based on the slightly different versions of Rugby football and other similar versions of football at the time that didn't agree with the rules devised by the Football Association.

It has nothing to do with how much rugby union has evolved since we split codes. It doesn't change the fact that we evolved from their rules in 1895. To say we didn't evolve from rugby union rules just isn't true. It's not an opinion thing, it's a fact.

When we split where we not playing the same game.

Of course. But do you imagine that the RFU suddenly decided to invent a new game? Quite the reverse, they became conservative and got rid of various experimental laws that the Northern Union had adopted.

The game that "we" were playing was the RFU's

Well done dally messenger



You have successfully managed to detract attention from your assertion that the Up'n'under/bomb was a tactic learnt/copied by RL from American Football.....you truly are RLFANS version of a politician the way you wriggled off that hook



Still, it has to be one of the funniest things posted on RLFANS in 2010

Yeah, but he's not exactly done it in a clever way. He's made just as stupid a comment instead by saying rugby league didn't come from rugby union!

it matters because RU has attempted to take that history from RL clubs

eg i think theres a halifax RU club or maybe it was huddersfield and they took over the history of what the northern union club achieved pre 1895.

its also aiding the RFUs believe that they are the original game and we are the b&&tard offshoot

its wrong

both union and league evolved from rugby

then the sport split in two under 2 different governing bodies

we did not set up a new sport, we continued the old sport under our own governing body. thats all.

the non sydney conferene would include all the queensland derbies, some country nsw teams and nz.

these games are all very valuable if the storm and perth arent as much

sydney viewers will still want to watch these games anyway

according to your logic then Hull FC were formed in 1895

go and tell your club to stop lieing about their formation date.

ive enjoyed giving the history lesson

thanks for your stupid comment that kicked it all off.

No it didn't. There was the RFU before and then the RFU and the NRFU (RFL) after. There wasn't two different bodies. One was the same and the other one was new.

Yes, we continued the old sport, which was rugby union (rules devised by the RFU). If you think that the rules that we adopted were the same as the rules before the RFU was formed then you're an idiot.

We evolved from rugby union. Get over it, it's a fact.

How on Earth have you come to that conclusion? Hull FC as a "football club" was formed in 1865. The fact that they played rugby union before they played rugby league doesn't alter the fact that they were formed in 1865.

You mean in he same way Bradford Northern took over the history of Bradford Park Avnue?

the RFU didnt invent the game of rugby or its rules. it inherited them from the clubs, many of them northern clubs

these same clubs then got sick of the dishonest way the RFU was running the game so set up their own governing body playing the same game.

NORTHERN UNION = RU for northern clubs

no new sport was started in 1895, thats just the date we got our own governing body, an honest one

The "old sport" was rugby union. If there is a thing called "rugby football" distinct from both union and league then it was the form of football played at rugby school. The likes of Huddersfield and Hull never quite played that.

It invented some of the rules. It merged all the differing rules clubs were playing and codified them into one game. That was the whole point of setting them up, so that everyone played the same game.

The RFU didnt inherit the rules from the northern clubs. They inherited the rules from Rugby school and the other differing versions of the game at the time. Not one northern club was at the meeting to form the RFU. If history tells us anything, the rules would have been made to spite the northern clubs!


Exactly! That's what we've been saying. That "same game" was rugby union. And rugby union became rugby league, hence the term used "rugby union spawned rugby league".

Took you a while dally but you got there in the end!

Dally it wasn't just the amateur / professional distinction that led to the NU clubs leaving the RFU.

The RFU had an issue with working class northerners full stop. They were all right with posh northerners and relatively tolerant of working class southerners that knew their place but they just didn't like mill workers, coal miners, dockers, glass blowers etc having an influence on the game.

This is why none of the clubs "invited" to be founder members of the RFU are northern clubs and none had significant working class involvement and why the RFU refused to agree to meetings to be rotated between London and Manchester.

The idea that members of the RFU went up and had a look at what was going on at Hull FC and Rochdale Hornets before writing the rules is comical. The rules, in any case, were pretty much the invention of one player who was laid up with a broken leg and had nowt else to do.

Northern union was RU too. over time the game evolved into RL.

rugby union under the control of a northern governing body

for the clubs of the north the game in 1894 and 1895 was essentially the same

if the RFU want nothing to do with the northern clubs then they cant claim their history as their own

those clubs helped develop the original rugby game and when they left they took their history with them, splitting the game of RU in two