Phipps says that the reason that a unification game was tried in Australia is that RL crowds are down. In fact NRL crowds were the highest ever last year if you include both the regular season and the finals. See here.

[urlhttp://stats.rleague.com/rl/crowds/summary.html[/url

For RU neither super 15 nor club rugby publish regular attendance figures but the crowds in both competitions were certainly well down a year ago. Final figures are not yet available for either code for this year.

yep spot on.



excellent post

Only an idiot would think that the 2 codes didn't originate from the same game, Rugby Football. Where has the IRB denied the history of the two games being shared? Is it available in a published and accredited link, or is it an opinion?



As for Unification...stupid idea.



League has it's strengths at club level, Union at International.....as has been seen at Harlequins.....your average Union fan has no interest in League and the same goes for the other way around. Same at Leeds.



As a Union convert, I can honestly say that they are two totally different sports with different sets of skills required.



at the risk of being burnt at the stake.....this website is actually a pretty good read

[urlhttp://www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/originsofrugby.htm[/url

interesting indeed...

[urlhttp://www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/Schism.html[/url

The two codes stand on their own two feet. Hybrid would just create a third code.



Whats interesting is that kids play play a hybrid game. When my kids played in U7's (Union) it was 7's with 6 tags and a handover...........sound familiar. At U10's they still played 7's but introduced scrums but no lineouts.



I once read somewhere a quote about 'Union being great for even the unsporting big kids', to be honest my eldest is no great rugby player but he's 5' 8" only just 12 years old so he does OK in Union. Younger boy (see avatar) thinks he's Jonathan Thurston ala scrum cap and flashy boots, and too be honest he's pretty good.

IF IT WERE TRUE IT WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT POST... THE REALITY IS THAT THE GAME IS MUCH... MUCH OLDER (sorry didn't mean to shout) the game evolved from a series of rules played at different public schools across England... the common [imyth [/iis that our game was founded at Rugby school by William Webb Ellis 'pick up the ball and running with it'...





the reality is that all codes of football have the same root, and all games evolved over time... it just happens that 2 of the codes have taken a more recent diversion, and both claim the same name!

Errrmmm not quite.

From a marketing and business point of view, RU have it sewn up. As long as we use the word rugby (for a game that ISN'T anything like RU) then we will always be in RU's shadow. Rugby's fat, poor, uncouth, uneducated, Northern cousin; as fair as the public are concerned of course.



Therefore we need to distance and differentiate ourselves from RU, and that's not going to happen as long as people think that "rugby is rugby." The way to do it is to distance ourselves from the very word "rugby"

Maybe we could rename the sport 'Superleague' and bring in a funky new badge?











Or not

Silliness aside...



I wasnt on about renaming the sport, I was merely on about rebranding it. There's a difference.



The powers that be should refer to the sport as RFL. Like they do with the NFL, AFL, GAA, NBA etc...

A friend of mine is a Kiwi and his kids refer to League as NRL.

I don't agree.



And the examples you have named.. most people know them as American football, Aussie rules or Gaelic football anyway.



Our game is 'Rugby'. It's just not 'Rugby Union'



I don't think rebranding /renaming it makes a blind bit of difference personally.

That's OK. You're not exactly the brightest spark, though, are you?