I have no 'hatred' of Union whatsoever, I am just relaying the facts as they have been broadcast.

Media Bias
Is it not simply that RU is of more interest and relevance to more people in the UK than League and so it's higher up the media priority in reporting? Top flight RL is only played in the NW of England and has no international appeal to speak off. RU is played in England, Scotland, Wales and has the draw of a World Cup and a thriving international scene.

wallowing in our negative self image
Bang on. We seem to be obsessed with RU and be "outraged" by what we believe to be injustice rather than just focussing on making our own sport more of a spectacle and tacking the dwindling live attendances.

I think the tone of some of the media reporting and the whole witch hunt surrounding Sam Burgess shows a distinct bias....

I think the problem that the home nations teams have is that there is no place for thinking outside the box or individual flair especially where the international games are concerned. They all seem to schooled in going through the "phases" even if there is a gaping hole in their opponents defence & the kicking game is still the be all & end all of the game, whether the punts into touch or the reliance on goal kicking. The emerging nations are so much more inclined to run with the ball & from our point of view better to watch. Another problem that RU gets bogged down with is the obsession with technical infringements at line outs & scrums & at times the games seem to be more about the ref. We could, however, learn from their use of the video ref.

Agree with this and specifically the kick and phase analysis.

I had the 'pleasure' of reading Guscott's appraisal of the Australian defeat. In short and amongst other things, blame was laid at England playing to an RL style where passing and keeping the ball alive through offloads gave the advantage to Australia because their top flanker could overturn the ball, or gain a penalty as the ball carrier was isolated hanging on to the ball as opposed to being under a heap of his mates, or having someone booting it up field...you know proper rugby.

Completely agree with you Mark.

This tone shows the blatant bias, the media are the controllers of popularity and they have no intention of flinging us into the limelight, that's not a chip that's a fact.
I'm surprised though seeing as Murdoch owns Sky?

Plus ask yourself why is it more popular?
More countries play the sport...well partly due to Union destroying us in any way it can France/Italy/UAE/Japan etc etc.
Marginalised into obscurity.

Oh and another reason for the Guardianista generation, Union is more inclusive, why you ask, well as a parent once said to me, me son isn't athletic enough to play Rugby League, there is a position for everyone in Union

Quite correct, biscuit

I go back to my post on page 4. People in this country are like sheep. They are TOLD what to do/like/watch, and like sheep, they obey. I'd lay a sizable lottery win, that the majority of people who've actually been to a match in this WC, haven't been to a Guinness Premiership game in years, if it all. It's just the "place to be seen at", or to drop in conversation in the work's cafeteria, the following day......"Hey. I went to Samoa v Uruguay, yesterday. It was awesome..." REALLY?

Biscuit recalls the Olympics. Evening Athletics events didn't have a seat going spare in the stadium in 2012. A year later, and top class athletes are invited back to compete at Birmingham, Gateshead and Crystal Palace. Guess what. Swathes of empty seats. You couldn't get a seat for Dressage/Basketball/Rowing in 2012. I've not seen a stampede for the grandstands when these sports have been televised, since. People get carried away in a whirlwind of hype.

Now, to me, Union is as dull as 3 hours of Soap Opera. It simply does nothing for me. I'll never understand why (in terms of entertainment) Internationals are ALWAYS packed out. BUT, matchday at Twickenham/Murrayfield/Cardiff is "where it's at". Media give it pages/hours of coverage, because people are told to like it. Will Mrs Brown of 23 Acacia Road, Tunbridge Wells, be reading match reports of Sarries v Bath, in a few weeks time? I very much doubt it. I bet a pound to a pinch of poop, that she was "glued" to the TV for the last couple of Saturday nights, though.

As a sport, RL hasn't got a chance, even if it had Alan Sugar's/Richard Branson's Head of Marketing in charge. Sky/BBC/The Press give it the bare minimum of coverage (particularly the press. I get the feeling they'd rather us not be here. We just take up a few column inches, that they'd rather give to other sports/teams). This is far from a "chip on shoulder" whinge, but they see us as little more than a parochial sport, that's got more punters than bog-snorkelling/cheese rolling/shin kicking etc. The media will NEVER change it's attitude to us. Sky see us as "filler". The BBC as an inconvenience. ITV don't see us, at all. And I'd be very surprised to see any RL coverage in any national newspaper, that has a printing press, south of Crewe.

I think we've got to put up with the media's love for international RU, and their disdain for League. It won't change within the next 20 years, bar a miracle.

Some great points made LG, I'm convinced most of the media still perceive RL to be not far removed from the one portrayed in 'This Sporting Life'

The reason why most people don't care much about RL is because they don't have a team of any note in their area - and suddenly franchising one in isn't the answer to that - and the international game is extremely weak. Their really isn't any more to it than that.

It isn't in our genes in Warrington, Wigan, St Helens etc that we will like RL, it's simply a fact that we grow up with it because it's been part of the fabric of our towns since the inception of the game over a century ago. Therefore we're exposed to it in the same way people in Leicester, Bath and Bristol are exposed to union. The reason why people who don't have local teams in either code might get involved at World Cup and Six Nations time is because RU has a strong international game that is relevant in all four home nations plus the three southern hemisphere powerhouses and then a handful of other countries as a bonus. It is a far cry from a truly global sport like football, but it absolutely dwarfs anything RL can muster and that's what captures the imagination of the more casual sports viewer who sees it as an event, because it most certainly is. Other sports like cricket operate much the same way - the international game completely underpins it. In RL we watch our clubs but no one can pretend the internationals are great. The best we've ever had has been the GB V Aus tours, but since both leagues started operating concurrently it has been impossible to truly get them back. Sad but true.

There will be plenty of people in Ireland who firmly believe GAA sports are "The Greatest", and similarly people in Melbourne, Perth etc will deem their " footy" to be superior to the codes played in the east of their country. For one reason or another the rest of the world doesn't agree with them though does it?

Personally I'm happy to just enjoy RL for what it is and not concern myself about what it isn't.

Let's see how many column inches and broadcast time is set aside for one of this countries greatest sporting spectacles, you know, the one on Saturday.

behave .....Sam Burgess ISNT playing for England on the Same day....England are sure to be world Class again and play like a rugby equivalent of the Harlem globetrotters on Supersize bags of whizz.... it'll be all over the news.....

League will jolly well get a column next to Chinese ladies baseball and be thankful for it....

No doubt the Royal diaries will already be full when the RL internationals come around.

parochial
synonyms: narrow-minded, small-minded, provincial, insular, narrow, small-town, inward-looking, limited, restricted, localist, conservative, conventional, short-sighted, petty, close-minded, blinkered, myopic,

Sounds about right for the RFL.

many years ago when i was a kid, there was a massive problem for league playing lads at my school.

My high school (lymm) didnt play rugby league.. the welsh PE teachers hated it infact.... There was a strong core of lads in my year that played rugby league. We all played for Grappenhall & woolston at the time. There were 6 of us... anyway we went to the warrington schools trials and all got in. Then when we were selected, it was town teams games on a saturday and Grappenhall games on a sunday.

The school blocked us playing league on a saturday for "warrington schools" saying that Lymm high school doesnt play league, so we had to play union for the school on a saturday... We were the best 6 union players in the school team had... 5 of us were forwards.. we were basically their pack... with us in the team it didnt lose in 3 years.. without us it won maybe twice... Basically the team was 6 very good league players, 1 or 2 union players and a bunch of lads that were scared of the ball and wanted to stand on the wing.

Kevin Tamati had to come into our school and try to reason with them to let us play rugby league... it was a right mess.

Even at junior level, Union is trying to put a spanner in the works.

It was reported on national news programmes earlier this year that the plan of the RFU was to establish their game in every school in the land.

The "plan" of the RFL is probably to do that as well. It doesn't mean it's going to happen.

Tickets for the mighty RU World Cup going for £2.50. Smoke and mirrors.

This is accurate, as is Lefty's analysis. We do have a genuine chance to capture interest with GOOD international matches, though, if they are seen on terrestrial TV. Several non-RL friends down here watched the England v NZ semi at the RL world Cup and were blown away. One said to me : 'who are these heroes?' He'd simply never seen RL as a sport that represents the country until that match. We won't grow as big as Union internationally but we can continue to improve. There's another reason, to Lefty's points, that folks go to Union internationals. There is a genuine 'sense of occasion' at them. I went to a few games ( corporate entertainment of clients ) last time the RU WC was in UK, including the final. It's like the old joke: 80 minutes of thrilling atmosphere and entertainment - then the match kicked off. The NZ series next month is a GREAT chance to pick up where the WC left off.

Some well connected marketing & media men wouldn't go amiss at the RFL.

That's a fair comment too, and is the same for every other minority sport. RL fans always compare the coverage it gets with RU - and some advocates of either code even compare them to football which is another stratosphere altogether - but it does okay compared to other minority sports. England RL is seen as representing English RL fans, in the same way as the national hockey team for example would only be viewed by most people as representing fans of that sport.

The only way to change that is for it to become a much bigger contest. England football, RU and cricket teams are seen as representing the whole country because you don't need to be a regular viewer of any of those sports to enjoy the big international occasions. RL is seen as representing northerners and ultimately being won by Australia. The average armchair sports fan in Reading or Watford isn't going to connect with that in the same way the equivalent viewer in Hull or Leeds who has absolutely zero interest in their club Premiership probably can still connect with the England RU team at tournament time.

A competitive GB V Aus series would be bigger than the World Cup but I don't really see how it's going to happen so personally I'll stick to just enjoying Super League and let the more popular sports get on with it. Much as some would like to pretend it is, it really isn't rugby union's fault that rugby league isn't more popular!

Unfortunately, most sports on the world stage that UK international teams are involved in usually finish up with the same regular permutations of winners & not including the British sides. A masterstroke was pulled for the RLWC seemingly by employing the lady who was the mastermind behind the organisation & marketing of the competition. We could do worse than make her an offer she couldn't refuse to take Rugby League in general by the scruff of the neck & drag it as a business into the 21st century.

Love it or loathe it I've just watched the finest game of rugby of either code in the Scotland vs Samoa game

You must have missed the nrl grand final then? Wales and Australia back to the norm

Perfect

In 13 pages, I think we can sum the whole debate up in this one paragraph.

Let's not get a chip on our shoulder because the 3 point code gets a lot more people through the turnstiles, than our sport. Yes, I wish more people came and viewed the product, but, you can't press gang people into turning up. For some reason, International RL hasn't "floated some people's boat" in the last couple of decades. This can be explained by

a) lack of English/GB superstars. We don't have Edwards/Hanley/Gregory (x2)/Davies/Schofield/Lydon/Sculthorpe/Farrell playing for us, anymore. In recent years, we've simply had v. good SL players who just aren't International quality, or have just not shown it at International level. I give you Sinfield and Ellis. Sinfield, despite his importance to Leeds, has barely had any good games for England. They've just been above average. Likewise Ellis. He "tore it up" in the NRL. Not so, in an England shirt.

b) Lack of success. People will simply give up on sides that aren't getting results. The biggest fluff up on GB'S behalf, was not winning that 1997 series against the Aussie SL squad, when hardly any of the "names" came over. That's the worst touring Aussie side I can remember , yet they still won the series.

c) We only really have the Aussies and Kiwis to play. You're not going to get too excited about playing a load of Championship players donning the red of Wales ,are you. Likewise France. Half the Catalans squad (who don't travel well at the best of times) and a bunch of makeweights.

Let's not get too downhearted. We all know we have the best game on the planet, but the majority of the public aren't exposed to it. I like a certain band, who will remain nameless. Their stuff isn't fashionable or even catchy, but, their stuff is a thing of beauty, and even the majority of critics (not that I pay ANY attention to them) say they're superb, but they've sold only a few records (one Top 10 album). Contrast this to Peter Andre. Complete 5h1te, yet numerous hit records/albums.

I'll stick to my product being better, just not as popular.