Good post. You make a lot of sense. However, because i'm a League fan in the Heartlands and to help ChangingGutterGalliant in their crusade against league, I have to disagree with everything and say Its all unions fault why we aren't as popular as them.

They are saying it could cost England RU £60 million should they not qualify, with branding contracts to be renewed such as O2 and Nike.

All Rugby League clubs should offer all registered playing members of amateur RL and RU clubs in their catchment area season tickets for a fiver.

I have always thought a similar thing.

I have never known Hull FC target the large University student potential in the City as well and offer them discount tickets for games and get flyers up around the campus - there will be plenty of people there from Union areas of the country who cannot get their Rugby fix

When you say 'they', do you mean Dave Hadfield and Nigel Wiskar?



A RL fan worrying about a sporting organisation that makes £150 million in a year and has a spanking 82,000 seater-stadium in London that is paid for is a bit like Granville in Open All Hours worrying about the finances of Harrods.

I've seen the £60 million quote too. It's not RU that will lose it, just the country in general, from beers on the semi final weekend to England flags to Betting at William Hill.
Same as when England football don't progress. The potential earnings lost is massive, but it isn't all income to the governing body.

I know that RL fans often diss RU fans, but what are these other species at the RUWC? Are they less advanced than humans?

There is only a finite amount of money in circulation. If it's not spent watching the yawnion it will be spent on something else. It is not lost to the economy. Anything lost to the RFU, however, is a bonus.

same thing wit us, we had a long standing partnerships with the university but to my knowledge apart from offer students/employees cheap match tickets never really targeted the large student population in Huddersfield, had we done that, then maybe, some of the students would still be avid fans after they'd graduated and maybe got their family and friends involved.

we need someone in RL with a vision to sell the game to the likes of O2 and NIKE and make them want to be a part of us.

Offside Monkey makes a really good point about the amateur game in the 2 sports.
It's a huge recruiter for the international and event games in Union. The reason it is is that the amateur game in Union has much stronger links to the sport itself but also its more inclusive. It allows people to keep playing and so keep involved in the sport.

If we want to do the same we have to make some big changes in our amateur game.
First and foremost we have to make it much less confrontational, much less about violence & intimidation and much more about enjoyment and inclusivity.
I don't play, partly due to lack of fitness, but mainly due to the fact I simply don't enjoy being around a bunch of violent, intimidating, swearing, aggressive people, many of whom have either been or are one step away from jail.
That's obviously a generalisation and doesn't apply to all, but it sadly applies to far too many of RL's open age amateur players.
We need a purge of these kind of people from our sport. And it's not just players. Coaches and club officials are too often the same.

Even if we do that, the nature of open age RL is still very physical so it will rule out a lot of people who don't fancy it. So we need Touch RL teams and leagues. Far, far more than currently. It can be our 5-a-side football. And it involves people in the sport.
On the same theme we need far more girls and women's teams. Am I right in saying that from Year 7 onwards girls can't play in the same team as boys?
Whilst we start to see a drop off from boys as well at this time I'm sure there must be plenty of girls who want to carry on playing RL but can't or don't because of the lack of girls teams.

We then need a much stronger link between the amateur clubs and both their local pro clubs and the governing body/national side.

The amateur game is a huge gateway to the sport for both young people and adults, and too often it's closed to far too many people.

On the £60m, nothing will be lost. It will stay in the bank accounts of the followers of the host nation, mainly the English supporters or those marketing to the supporters. Those who traveled to the UK will still spend and will probably still watch the same games on the TV without any real change in spending.

You may have missed the point. The article suggests that is mainly sponsorship of the shirts, both the maker and advertiser, as the England brand wont be as strong.

They make it a must attend event not the rfl its scared of telling people we exist,love the fact they spun the line 450 million world wide watched the opening ceremony but only 8 million in this country so that leaves 442 million other people to tune in

big TV viewers in aus,Namibia? The whole of Samoa ? Ah must be Argentina,great spin by them nearly as good as 3.1 billion watched the last final

half the world's population its still on the BBC website

its about time the rfl thought big time for once

Is English not your first language?

Oh....screaming liar liar pants on fire at the IRB isn't going to make their comp any smaller....they have spin down to a fine art, which might be down to the quality and quantity of people they have in their marcoms departments. Just a thought!

I did my degree in Warrington and played for the RL team who played in a Wire strip, we were coached by Brian Chambers and I did my 9 week 2nd year work experience with the Wire. Now I've always been a RL fan but coming from Manchester I never actually supported a team until I went to uni and I've been an avid Wire fan since.

They've made the event 'feel' big which is a trick in its own right.

The grounds are sold out even for the lesser games, which are all being played in big stadiums, the pubs were packed Sat night for the Eng v Wales game and will be even busier this week with the Ashes game, and we're still only in the group stages

Well done to the RU. We should learn some lessons.

A poor game it may be, but brilliantly marketed.

The Chairman of the event, the head of Eng RU...... when interviewed all come across as smart, eloquent businessmen who promote there sport to the world, unlike the fat, parochial, northern buffoons that represent RL.

I'm not sure what you read when you look at posts, but that's not what he said. He said we should use more spin when it comes to promoting our game.

Agree with this. Amateur R.L is a more intimidating enviroment since i stopped playing over 20 years ago. Even at some of the junior games where some of the parents/spectators act like unruley mobs baying for blood.

I have also seen some local club union games,and despite the action on the pitch the spectators seem better behaved and more friendly.

Re-read his post and tell me it's English.....

Yep. I've said before on here but it's why I stopped playing League and started playing Union.

Now I am a bit of a soft lump but we have to realise that most people DONT actually enjoy large amounts of heavy contact and most people certainly don't enjoy the fights and/or intimidation.
I went to Union and thoroughly enjoyed it. There was enough contact without people going over the top or trying to prove how hard they were. The vast majority just wanted to enjoy playing sport.

As a result they had plenty of kids teams and 4 adults open age teams plus a colts. I still occasionally turn out for their 3rds team despite my appalling fitness!

IME of playing league in the South the OTT violence on the pitch and even the goings on off the pitch is vastly different to that in the North.
I was connected with St.Albans Centurions for quite a long time and even at the highest level of the amateur summer rugby leagues there wasn't that intimidating atmosphere. I experienced a bit of biff on the field of play but nothing on the levels seen in the game in the North. There was a lad from Warrington in our side almost always got involved every game, I think he was atypical of that type of amateur Northern monkey that just couldn't help themselves.
Despite thge odd one or two though & there being a lot of ex-pats in the teams I think the mixture of union lads and that most ex-pats were playing or had played union down here made a difference, the speccies often were union followers first.

I did play a few games of masters which should be likened to the 'old boys' in union except it kind of isn't even with the adjusted rules for age. There's still the very much competetive spirit even if the body is unwilling and because of the (still) relatively fast speed of the game compared to union it's not easy even playing 25 minute halves. You also have to travel big distances as there aren't that many teams about whereas in union every team has an old boys side.

I've a gammy hip, two gammy shoulders, have Crohn's disease & the wrong side of mid 40s yet I still reckon I'd do alright playing union and I might still get around to popping down the local club because though masters is/was a struggle I actually love the physical contact, it was always the hits that did it for me (either way) but fitness wise league is just so much more difficult even when playing against old farts like me

Need to reclaim touch rugby (sic) and remind the tens of thousands of players they are in fact playing a version of RL regardless of what union tells them!

This.

I'm afraid it's symptomatic of the way that the Union and the rest of the nation outside the confines of Rugby League followers, use the term Rugby to describe their sport.

I get the impression that a few posters on here don't understand just how much Rugby Union is a social event rather than a sporting event.
I've lost count of how many times watching Union in the pub I've turned to discuss the game, only for the person next to me to admit that they have no idea about the rules and have never been to a match.

I think they do, it's just how we can turn RL more into a social event rather than a die-hard supporters event