When RL lived in fear of reprisals over the Varsity match ... timesonline.typepad.com/rugby_league/

When RL lived in fear of reprisals over the Varsity match ... timesonline.typepad.com/rugby_league/

A bit of a side comment here -

Who in their right mind called their company Pcubed? Is it me or does it look too much like Pubed?

i see what you mean wadski - if it didnt have a 'c' in it it would do haha

...and if it didn't have a P and you swapped the bed for a N and a T it would be what Ben Westwood is!!!

..or even Stanley Gene?

how does that spell LEGEND ??

In the dirty player league Stanley Gene is Grimsby Town compared to the ARSEnal Ben Westwood.

I can't believe they get a game on sky each year, they're awful compared to the top uni sides.

Expansion
Sponsorship potential

It's the future.

Yes, less RL on telly please.

Welcome to the yearly 'why this game is on and they don't show Leeds Poly' debate...

Is there a RL Sponsoring company run by a former Oxford/Cambridge Student that has played in the Varsity Fixture?

Well, if you bothered to watch, you'll have heard some discussion of this.

Yes. Yes definately. I'm just trying to find the relevant website which indexes former Oxford/Cambridge Students that have played in the Varsity Fixture and who now run a company which sponsors RL. Bear with me...................

You'd have thought if a compnay decided to sponsor say, Harlequins with the Director behind the sponsorship deal having being a former varsity player, it'd be made into a big deal

I never thought I'd live long enough to watch a rugby league match with a Rupert on one side and a Quentin on the other. Great stuff. Nice to see a Spanish lad scoring a try also.

This is a match between students from the two top universities in Britain and it's live on TV. Most of those players will go on to get good jobs and a few will end up in positions of influence. Only in RL could people find something negative to say about it.

I missed the word "potential" off my script. That word "potential" was used much in the franchising debate but that's been buggered to death on many of these boards. Mr Mittal is just round the corner

Indeed. There are times it makes one consider pulling out hanks of hair.

It was hardly some of the greatest rugby you're going to see, but it was an entertaining game, full of passion, and with the added emotional factor of Cambridge player James Sherman, whose father is very seriously ill, being named man of the match.

I'm not even sure that it's a major concern about what direct influence playing it or screening it will have on the sport as a whole.

The other code's Varsity match is screened live – we should see it as progress that ours is now accorded the same essential treatment. What that in itself also does is to provide one indication of the development of the sport in the UK.

I just argue that it paints Student Rugby League in a poor light, there are some bloody good players in SRL that don't get the chance to play on sky every season, but these lot who are vastly inferior do.

No it doesn't. Anybody who watched that game and expected that the standard should be something other than two teams of amateurs needs their head examining. I thought it was a decent game, with both sides playing passion and effort and that's what counts, not that there are better sides out there, if we took this logic to it's extreme there would only be a couple of games a season worth watching.

I cant believe some people could turn this game into a negative.

The game struggles to get rid of the "Northern" stereotype, yet the two most prestigious universities in the world, and darn sarf are playing this game and its bad????

as the yanks would say, go figure!!

To all those negative posters, GET REAL!
There were 300+ Corporate types wined and dined in the east stand last night and a fair few young, well spoken fans from each Uni. These people are the future editors, TV moguls, MP's and corporate giants of this country and therefore, this Varsity game is important to the game of RL in general.
If we have a minister for sport in 20 years who is a cambridge RL blue from this year, then I would imagine the sport of RL will benefit. Or....would you rather that sky just showed more wendyball


Some people shouldn't be let near a computer without adult supervision.

Here's one person (almost): Me.

Although I missed the Varsity through injury two years running, as it goes. And the Exeter Uni side I now coach beat Oxford 76-6 this year.

The Varsity isn't the pinnacle of Student Rugby, but it is an exceptionally important promotional device for the national profile of the game. Same as the boat race... before Steven Regrave, it was the only time rowing ever made the telly. Oxbridge RL is conclusive proof of the expansion of RL from the northern heartlands into the mainstream establishment. Long may it be shown. Especially when the right team wins.

Perhaps that, for some people, is the heart of the problem?