The second half games that were shown on the BBC were always cup games not league games and they stopped when we got rid of the county cups and the JPS / regal trophy

Trust me they also showed league matches ( I played in a couple) first half highlights followed by live second half results & league tables following. Yes there were a lot more competitions including midweek BBC floodlit trophy.

You are dead right because when it was on they had the football results on the bottom of the screen and at half time has well

With the cost of sport now especially football and rugby union to a degree you would think the BBC would be knocking our door down for a sport they could champion and show live on one of there channels with real value for money to the tax payer a Saturday afternoon slot for a super league or championship game to complete with football surely it would be worth a punt to them you would think

The BBC have given up on sport

I suspect that if the BBC started to really support & push our sport they would loose the union they still have? I am not sure but that is what I heard 30 odd years ago when League tried to get them to push our game as they had done with snooker & channel 4 were doing with American football.

on the BBC website this week it was claimed that English international rugby union players would now be earning £1 million pounds per season.
This been made up of £300K from the rfu, £400K plus in club salaries and the rest from sponsorship and endorsements.
This kind of expenditure can only me achieved if the clubs and rfu have a huge income from a major TV company. Who intern need to sell the matches to generate their income.
This will not be the bbc, so I would expect them to be looking for another sport to promote in place of international rugby union.
If redhall are on the ball they should be courting the beeb now, not at the end of the sky deal.

when would the bbc show games? which channel? forget bbc1 friday night, nothing will budge the soaps, bbc2? possibly, saturday and sunday only realistic option, then when events like wimbledon come round and its wall to wall tennis what happens to live games?

The BBC wont be paying a lot for union or any other sport as the charter dose not allow it, but union makes its money from international games TV rights world wide, BT sports TV pays a lot to cover union as well as SKY. What coverage on the BBC dose do is attract top end sponsors like Guinness, Rolex & the like, who are after the people who are prepared to pay over £60 a ticket to watch at Twickenham, something we can only dream of. Union will use every trick they can to keep the BBC including the threat of removing access if any other sport threatens. They have done it before. As I posted earlier free to air coverage at peak times nation wide is worth a lot in sponsorship deals.