I have been looking at you tube and saw the clash of the leagues. Bath vs wigan in 1996...


How would the warrington wolves team of 2010 play against a premiership rugby union team now???


what do people think if we are able too promote the 2 games 15 years later and hold another clash of the leagues???

I would be intrested too know what would happen...

(before you blast me that it has been done. Union is more fitteer than they were in 1996. and i am sure we could hold it at a neutral time for both leagues that they will be happy with. and i am sure that we could give a good account of ourselves. I was too young too remember the clash in 1996. and i am sure many young fans would love too see the games...)

No contest. Dry bumming comes to mind.

Top yawnion sides would give a far better account of themselves in a league game as they are far fitter than they were back then, and there also seems to be more coaches with RL experience in that code. Would expect an RL side to win an RL game though not as convincingly as a yawnion side would win in their own code.

could be a worth while task now then. I imagine there are some coaches that have come the other way...

Didn't Saints play Sale a couple of years back??

Something like 40 - 0 to Saints in the RL half, and 47 - 0 to Sale in the yawnion half. Only win because they get more points for tries etc

stupid idea, just shows the difference in the game

While we are at it Leeds Rhinos could play a football/league game see who is better ?

It's a different game why do it, totally pointless and only panders to the cock measures of each code.

I know a couple lads who support sale who ive been bantering with who hadn't been to a league game before. They went to the Wire-wigan game a few weeks back and were blown away. They're wobbling now i can feel it!

Well done,that's what you get when you show them the true game of Rugby and not the yawnion 5hite.

My league side played union a few times, and well in the 4 games we played we won all them easily, but that becasue we played union like we would league, instead kicking for possession we would drive and pass are way up the pitch.

the main thing i found when i played them few games is that well they may be big and fit but they where incredibly slow, if you did an offload they woudn't know what to do.

League wins hands down, we have a friendly every year at Newton and from memory the league lads have won each time. On a pro basis id expect the league lads to win too, if you take the league approach of passing rather than the first forward driving it back into the maul each time, the union lads wouldnt have a clue whats happening.

I play union but I would rather watch league as the game is much faster than union and much more enjoyable, take my hat off to those guys out they are top athletes fitness levels are outstanding.

Not true at all. A professional Union side would starve a side full of league players of any ball. As soon as the league side got the ball they would be turned over in the maul or concede a penalty through not recycling it properly.

If the Union side then employed negative up the jumper tactics they would roll the ball down the field and score a try off every possession bar the odd mistake. The league game would be a something-0 scoreline and the Union game a something-0 scoreline. Union would always be favourites as they would get 7 for each try.

You get 5 for a try not 7 they could miss every conversion.

But here's a thought if you could muster up a team of ex cross code union players playing league against a union side. I think they'd beat the union side when playing union, they'd know how to get the ball and then with superior fitness and skill levels destroy them with it.

They could do the same and all it would do is reduce the deficits in each game.

Saints didnt touch the ball in the union half due to ruck, maul and technical penalties, boring as sin that half was.

people go on about union being fitter but so are we.

There is just no point to something like this. In the league half, the league team will dominate, scoring points for fun, and in the union half, the union team will dominate and score points for fun.

What would be better would be Red Bull Air Race V Rugby League.

Have a RL match with a league team against the pilots. Second half they all have to fly planes through the posts in a figure of 8 pattern.

It makes as much sense anyway.

I was at the Sale Saints classic.

First and thankfully last visit to Knowlsley Road.

Sean Long missed a last minute coversion to win the game in front of the posts.

Pity Saints can't mess up like that against Wire.

I think there was a notable improvement compared to the Wigan Bath game.

Wigan scored 3 great tries in the Union match. The only three times they touched the ball!

Saints scored no points in the Knowsley Road farce.

I'd love to watch a Wire Leicester game. Rather than a nice friendly, with plenty of points, they should concentrate on the physical side of League and batter them in attack and defence.

Actually it is a pity there wasn't a game last year. Mauls were basically outlawed last season, so Union teams would potentially have struggled to break down League defences.

Actually Sale were so god damn awful I'd expect a League win in both halves.

benedictblog.dailymail.co.uk/ interesting article saying how union can learn from league. Union has long since borrowed, adapted and ised defensive strategies from league – in fact most top-flight union clubs have former league players or coaches in charge of this particular discipline – but settling down to watch Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final between Leeds and Saint Helens (I went to confession the following morning to cleanse my union soul), it was the attacking play that was scintillating. hits the nail on the head for me. ball in hand for longer, so you have more opportunity to attack. offload point is very relevant too

benedictblog.dailymail.co.uk/ interesting article saying how union can learn from league. Union has long since borrowed, adapted and ised defensive strategies from league – in fact most top-flight union clubs have former league players or coaches in charge of this particular discipline – but settling down to watch Saturday’s Challenge Cup semi-final between Leeds and Saint Helens (I went to confession the following morning to cleanse my union soul), it was the attacking play that was scintillating. hits the nail on the head for me. ball in hand for longer, so you have more opportunity to attack. offload point is very relevant too

i think we should leave them alone and let them play their game and we can play ours

the Saints Sale game was a hybrid scoring system, cant remember exactly how it worked but it was the same in both halfs. Sale won the toss and we had Union first, they just kept it simple and played it effectively as one big ruck in the middle. Saints couldnt compete and it was just a mass of players rolling down the field followed by a penalty conceded by Saints. 41-0 at HT.

In the 2nd half, Saints got pretty knackered (it was pre-SL season, and mid-RU season) we got it back to 41-39, basically by chucking it round a lot, not really playing in our usual patterns. Long missed a conversion to tie it up in the last second.

Had they played RL first, I am fairly sure that Saints would have scored more than 39/41.

Completely pointless event - although the crowd was around 12/13k for a preseason friendly.

The nature of the games means that union players always find it easier to pick up league than the other way round. RL is a more simple technical game which focuses on the purer elements of union (running and tackling), so the union players that are good at those purer elements, have always done well in league throughout history. Sometimes league fans like to claim that league is a much tougher sport and that the union backs can't handle the physical side of it, but this is absolute rubbish, top level union players can quickly adapt to league and they have been able to do years before union went professional.

Here are some names to prove the point: Jonathan Davies, Allan Bateman, Scott Gibbs, Jon Devereux, Alan Tait, John Bentley, Martin Offiah, Frano Botica, Inga Tuigimala, Craig Innes, or if you look in Australia, Matthew Ridge, Michael O'Connor, Ricky Stuart, Daryl Halligan. All of these guys were fine players in league and some of them were some of league's greats. I'm only thinking of players of my own era of watching league here, the older fans might remember John Bevan, Mike Nicholas at Warrington....these guys were union amateurs and were league greats. And of course now you have Gareth Thomas who at 36 is holding his own in SL (against a lot of doubts), if he had come over aged 26 he would have been a GB regular for years, he would have been far better than any winger we've had in the past decade apart from Carney at his peak.

Problem for league players is that because union is such a technical game, being a great league player means no guarantee of how well they will go in union. The ratio of success from union players who crossed to league is mostly they made it, with a few flops, but from league players who crossed to union it is that a handful really made it, some flopped, and a lot were ok but didn't make the same impact they did on league. Embarrasingly a lot of them picked up lots of international caps in union because the authorities wanted to justify the big money they'd spent on bringing these players over.

Robinson, Rogers, Sailor, Thorn and Tuqiri are the only league players I can think of who really made it in union, and to a lesser extent Andrew Walker, Chris Ashton and Berrick Barnes have done well there as well. There are a lot of league greats who have been ok but not outstanding in union - Henry Paul, Sonny Bill Williams, Harris, Farrell, Gasnier, Tahu, Gower, Vainikolo, Schifcofske. A lot of the guys who went over with big expectations, ended up returning to league soon after, Blacklock, Raynor, Chev Walker, Carney, Lee Smith.

they do half and half an keep the point system of the first half so if was union first in second half when it is league u still get 5 points for a try or at least thats what they did at saints vs sale a few years ago