Lets face it, the older, richer southern brother of ours has struck another blow into the heart of all we are trying to develop by signing up another highly rate young back in Kyle Eastmond.

With the 6 nations, the international excellence and world media interest generated by Union supported by a larger salary cap is it any wonder that some of talent are looking elsewhere? In all honesty no, not at all.

Kyle Eastmond isn't to be blamed for putting pen to paper with Bath, it's the lack of prospects that surround him in League. Poor second rate international game which really only consists of 3 teams. Finally the cash incentive can't be overlooked, why not push yourself for a greater income? Whe're all human and money is a persistant fact that simply can't be ignored no matter if your heart belongs to League.

On closer inspection it isn't just the 'hammering blows' from Union which are causing us to bleed, but its the lack of defence we have to support and develop our own code.

Truth be told, and I think there is a genuine cult believe with rugby fans that league is the better code, faster, action packed with more entertainment throughout. So why is the better product losing players to the other code?

Salary cap-Lets not make any bones about it, we are suffering as players want more cash, bang on about loyalty all you like, but it doesn't pay the bills and help a great deal when you retire from all you know at 33. Yes the cap has brought a more even playing field, but it needs to be raised to allow us to keep our star players, otherwise this will happen again and again. (SBW, Ashton Hape, Eastmond to name a few).
Wouldn't it be better not just to keep hold our are stars but attract from ther sports/codes/places?

A better international game. Is promotion doing its job? Clearly something is wrong considering the gates for Scots V Ireland in league compared to the same fixture in Union.
Does the rugby league develop a system similar to that of Union to increase a failing international scene?

Something needs to change.

tl;dr

Even BBC Manchester are doing a Rugby Union commentary this Sunday Afternoon!

This is how the RU media will likely portray this. I agree something must be done but I would have to question whether this means Super League, NRL and the amateur game will die because of this.

Also as for lack of challenges how many times have Kyle (and Mr Ashton for that matter):

Won the SL grand final
Won the CC
Played in the NRL
Won an ashes series
Won the worl cup
Captained their club/country

I do wish there was a way to stop players that have gone to Union from returning to League - i have a feeling that would make some of them think twice about making the switch because sadly even if Eastmond didnt make the grade at Union there would be a host of SL clubs willing to welcome him back with open arms if that was the case.

If players leave for Union then lets lock the door behind them!

For many years that did happen when Union players left for League. Even at low levels players were even banned from RU clubhouses when they had turned pro, or even played RL at amateur level. Many years ago I played for Warrington RUFC, we had a lad playing at stand-off in the first team who played under the name Gerald Marshall. Do any of you over 50's remember Ged Marsh who played at Blackpool? We also had Dave Delooze who signed for Wigan and then couldn't get back into RU just to play a game with his mates.
Most players who go to RU come back. Union has courted Eastmond for the past 2 years, but who's to say whether or not he will succeed. Those who don't seem to come back as poorer players.

Firstly Union is not a "Southern" game, but a lot of your points are spot on.

Of course the CC is destroying the game, just as some of us predicted years ago. We are now starting to see the effects gain in momentum.

Take the WC final last Sunday. We had a team that was very well coached, very well drilled, put a massive amount of effort in.....but ultimately we didn't have the "star" players to really pose a threat to the St G defence. Why? - we simply couldn't accomodate such players under the CC.

Union is the larger game. Like it or not, it is the one game that most people "know" about in the UK and the world. It is played at most schools throughout the country, and when people talk about "Rugby" they are, more likely than not talking about Union. So Union has an in built advantage from the start.

How do the powers that be try and counter this advantage? - by further crippling the ability of clubs to attract star players and make the game more exciting via an artificial CC that has been morphed into the disaster that it is now.

Boston, Davies, Offiah, Hanley, Robinson,

What have all these got in common? - under the current system you would have never seen the first 3 in RL, and the last 2 would have gone in their early 20's.

Think about that for a minute. All the entertainment that they gave, all the tries they scored, all the memories they provided would NEVER have happened if we were in the same position that we are now.

The future is NOT bright for RL.

It will not be long before all the raw talent is in RU. What's left in RL will be the lesser talented players who can't make it in RU. They will be well coached, put massive effort in and perform to the best of their ability on the pitch.

However, in order to see the very best talent, you will have to go to a game of RU.

Who would have thought I would have been saying this 20 years ago?


Still at least Castleford won't have to merge with Wakefield eh?

No No NO!

Get that chip off your shoulder, stop blaming others and look at the things that RL is doing to itself.

The media only reflects what it's target audience is expecting/wants.

How many 'stars' - or even 'rising stars' - of RL have gone to RU in the last year?

Do we need more than one hand to count?

Blaming the salary cap for the likes of Ashton and Eastmond going to Union is a smokescreen in my opinion.

The fact is many clubs within the sport (and I include Wigan in this) do not have the revenue streams nor mega rich backers to be able to sustain an increase in wages.

What Rugby League needs to do is secure investment be it from multi national companies and the like - will it ever happen ? probably not because like it or lump it the sport only has any profile in 3 or 4 countries of any not accross the world.

In addition I believe that League as a sport, although admired by many including sportsmen will never get away from its stereotype until a radical rethink of the way the game is marketed takes place - which needs to start with the way the game is presented on TV to the viewing punter and follow thru with fewer "gimmicks" i.e. millennium magic.

The fans themselves have a share of the blame - we admire the fact that Union can sell out Twickers for international games yet fail to fill small stadia for ours and then complain that the rl international profiles fail to register with the media - I wonder why ?

Don't let facts get in the way of the white flag being waved please.

Unheard of, though there again it's worth considering that Wigan, Salford and Warrington aren't playing that day and us mere mortals are playing the amateur sides in the Challenge Cup rather than Northern Rail or Championship fixtures.

Sale are already sniffing around for a very talented young winger we have.

You only need two hands to count our stars in total.

Thornley went to Sale before he ever got to be a 1st team player here and Eastmond is a young player as was Ashton. That tells you how RU are targeting their recruitment. People raved about Owen Farrell as a likely Wigan star and he will now probably never play the game. I am sure we see occasional reports on here of Sale sniffing round the most promising young players outside of the first team.

It's pretty easy to shrug ones shoulders at losing inexperienced players or players from the academy as it doesn't look like it is taking our star players. Even Ashton wasn't seem as a top player when he went and Eastmond has a way to go before being the finished article himself. The trouble is RU is targeting the players who most likely will become top players in the future.

We also have no idea how many young players never even come into RL now but go straigh to RU.

If people can't see this and don't try and do something about it the game will die on its feat as a top class sport.

If Wigan had an unlimited SC and cash would anyone have been wanting to keep Ashton when he signed for RU??

Tell them to do one.

The salary cap is a smokescreen, really - what our game has is an image problem. As long as we're still seen as an "Eddie Waring" sport, we won't attract the big sponsors like Guinness, Heineken, and RBS. There's also the problem that RU fans, in general, are better off financially than RU fans, which not only attracts bigger advertisers and sponsors, but allows higher gate prices to be set.


There are no easy answers, but one of them is that expansion out of the M62 corridor, especially in London, is crucial to changing our image. Quins are (finally) doing a superb job on the playing side with their youth development (their reserves beat Leeds with an almost entirely locally produced squad), and I just hope that success will eventually translate into bigger crowds.

Exhibit A being the BBC site with reference to the Kyle Eastmond signing assuming that 'Saints' meant Northampton RU and not St Helens RL!

We used to get crowds to rival RU internationals when we had the ambition to play games at Wembley and bigger stadia such as OLd Trafford and Elland Road. There is a distinct lack of ambition for the International game from those running the sport.

If you play internationals in small ground up north then our international game will be perceived as small beer.

I think the switch to summer and the consequent loss of proper tours from Aussie and NZ sides is a big factor in this. The Aussies would be here for weeks playing club sides in between three test matches. That gives you a lot of time to drum up interest and get the media involved. It seemed as logical to me back them to go down to Wembley to support GB as it would be to support Wigan in a CC final. I think many fans thought the same kind of thing. It's what you did when a tour was on and tours were really big deals.

These days the sport itself seems to treat Internationals as an inconvenience so you can hardly blame the fans for not turning up when the RFL prefer to spend resources on promoting Millenium Magic and calling it a success when it gets less of a crowd than a normal league round.

I suppose the worrying thing over the coming years is we'll never know. RL lads are getting scouted whilst on RL clubs scholarship schemes, so we may never know what we're missing.

Andy Farrell, on the face of it, wasn't a great signing for RU as a playuer but now they've got his coaching ability and his son. 2 things we never had but I think we could miss them.

This will never change..... Union will continue to get bigger.

We will stay where we are on the whole with a few new stadiums and some better crowds thrown in. Every 10 years we will beat the aussies and then sell-out the DW stadium the year after and then get tonked. But I love RL so it pains me to say.

I honestly wish there was a way the two codes could merge, in many, many parts of the world, this merged code could rival football. A cross code league in this country would be huge as there is large clubs in both codes but too many small ones.

Lets be honest a league of

Wigan
Leeds
St Helens
Warrington
Hull
Bradford
Hull KR
Harlequins
Leicester Tigers
Gloucester Rugby
Northampton Saints
London Wasps
London Irish
Saracens

That looks a much better league than what either has at the moment. It is spread much better geographically and I believe it would be huge. It will never happen though and its probably for the best as RL as a game would probably be ruined. Its a harsh truth though, if RL is ever going to become a big sport, this would have to be the route, I can't see it any other way.

Yes, me. He's a better winger than Goulding.

Might look a better league, but it'd be a bloody horrible sport to watch. And without wishing to sound paranoid, you can take St Helens, Warrington, Bradford and probably even the Hull clubs out of that. And the Harlequins and Leeds clubs would be from the RU incarnation rather than league.

I'm not convinced of that. he's faster, yeah, but that's about all. I think he'd have been another Kevin Penny or Shaun Ainscough if he'd stayed in League.