Who would have thought after all these years that the game of up'n under would be played by RU teams, and the game of fast free flowing rugby with ball to hand would now be RL. "One of my (many) issues with rugby league is the way that players basically need one set of skills and that's it. !Watch a State of Origin match !!!!!!!!! Complain about this comment (Comment number 28). In the southern hemisphere club Union is quite good to watch but in the NRL the players are so good at the basics alot of games are fairly dull despite the fact you do get the brilliance of the likes of Hayne, Inglis etc. I won't go for the whole 'oh union is so boring etc.' Everything about rugby league, from its viewing figures to the values that underpin its history, is superior to its cross-code sibling. The only problem in the old days was missing Top of the Pops and a potential Led Zeppelin, AC DC or Status Quo performance. MY father always used to tell of the risk of being banned for even speaking to a league rep. Rugby was growing very fast and even the evnts in France would not have change a thing.Don't forget the French international rugby team and clubs were banned from playing international matches and the Five Nations in 1932 to 1947. Reply to Gort2 :It was a game last season in the Championship between Nottingham and Exeter.This is an extract from their web-site:Nottingham Rugby will be guaranteed an extra 1,000 "supporters" on Sunday when they take on title-chasing Exeter Chiefs at Meadow Lane.The Family Stand at the scoreboard end will be packed with inflatable fans provided by Airheads, a local company that specialises in enhancing crowd scenes for films, TV, commercials and promotional work.The Green and Whites' crowds have been on the up and up this season following yet another successful campaign that has taken them to within - one step of a Twickenham Final and in the brink of a top four finish in National Division One.Airheads' director Lee Harris is delighted to help Nottingham Rugby in their push to keep building the crowds at Meadow Lane. who cares if you enjoy it. To the point of the League positions being interchangeable, I agree to a certain degree as I am a Union Centre and a League prop - although I dont think I could do it the other way round, but I have played with people who can and have.Just in case you weren't aware, League is getting stronger in Scotland, with the Scotland Amateur side recently winning the 2010 Home Nations - now several amateur members of the squad now looking to be picked for the Full professional squad who are looking to be the 4th side in the 4 Nations competition in Australia later this year. read more I never used to get cold playing league, or bored for that matter. Complain about this comment (Comment number 45), Mefan says:"...(depending on club Wembley tickets, as the rest have sold out, this Saturdays final will have a bigger attendance than any northern hemisphere Union game this year, and think it may only be beaten by the SA vs NZ Soccer City game globally)"That'll be an improvement on 2009 then:82,208 - Munster v Leinster, Croke Park, 2 May - Heineken Cup Semi-Final81,601 - Leicester v London Irish, Twickenham, 16 May - Guinness Premiership Final79,842 - Stade Francais v Clermont Auvergne, Stade de France, 4 Apr - Top 1479,205 - Perpignan v Clermont Auvergne, Stade de France, 6 Jun - Top 14 Final79,122 - Stade Francais v Perpignan, Stade de France, 31 Jan - Top 1476,972 - Stade Francais v Perpignan, Stade de France, 24 Oct - Top 1476,716 - Harlequins v London Wasps, Twickenham, 27 Dec - Guinness Premiership76,560 - Huddersfield Giants v Warrington Wolves, 29 Aug, Carnegie Challenge Cup Final69,850 - Stade Francais v Bayonne, Stade de France, 5 Dec - Top 14, Complain about this comment (Comment number 46). One of my (many) issues with rugby league is the way that players basically need one set of skills and that's it. There is far too much tinkering with the rules in Union as a result it creates the game that you see today - with a lot of kicking. I like the permanent contest for posession in all facets of the game.League still in a way seems like a highlight sport to me. Eg I'd rather watch a match on a Sunday afternoon than a Friday night and I'd rather do that in the Summer months than the Winter.RL scrums are a nonsense, but is this a bad thing.. In rugby league, meanwhile, each try nets just four points which can then be supplemented by two more for the converting kick. It's like Chess v Draughts . I found league more enjoyable than rugby due to the fact that you always received the ball and had no choice but defend. I don't know where you got that idea rugby players have no sex life because of rugby rucks, mauls and scrum. However these "tight skills" in particular are appallingly taught at school and a young level. I don't mind the shambolic scrums because their game is a passing and handling feast. Several things hereRL is a much better game to watch now as the players (as in most sports ) are better conditioned than in the past. from the crowd and whoever wins the scrum gets a set of 6 and a run at glory. Complain about this comment (Comment number 7). The tackles are the other major difference in rugby league vs rugby union. The rugby players can also scrum, ruck, maul, lineouts, clean out and follow and contest the ball. To be avoided at all costs. Brett Hodgson, about 11stone wet through won the 2009 Man of Steel. sometimes i feel players are a lot happier to just take a tackle knowing that they will retain the ball than take a risk at creating something. The Heineken Cup Final is now big enough it would sell out any ground in a 6 Nations country - 80,000 at the Stade de France last season, and I am sure if it had been in Barcelona at the magnificent Camp Nou it would have been a 98,000 sell-out (Barcelona is closer to both Toulouse and Biarritz than Paris is!). Touch is very similar to league but the result was always one sided. I never used to get cold playing Rugby because you have to chase the ball and not standing around waiting for the ball to come to you or bored for that matter. For the latest updates across BBC blogs, visit the Blogs homepage. As an aside, if we want to improve RU participation and skills in Scotland, we should play in the summer - which is similar to the NSW winter anyway!And before any die-hards get too sniffy about RL, it's interesting to note (and meant not at all as derogatory) that the mini rugby played in Scotland - which I think is excellent by the way - is not so different from league: so we train our kids to play union by playing something like league! JohnBit off subject but I've been following the Hall of Fame choices. When a rugby union player is tackled, he must also release the ball but then it is legal for any player to pick it up, as long as they are on their feet and onside (meaning they come from their own team’s side of the tackle). Rugby Leagues advancement was also partly held back by the ridiculous position of the IRB to ban any player who dared give it a go. More positional kicking, the ability to dominate any of the set phases or the breakdown; these mean that the tactical variation is bigger in union than it is in league, where it's basically handling, speed and angles. league is probably a bit more free flowing but i prefer union. I'll play your game though, at the AFL grand final in Melborne they got 100,000 people in there while Bristol Sonics League team could barely get a couple of hundred! Banahan's height would make him a threat aerially were he to play on the wing but the man has the turning circle of an oil tanker. The tackles were ferocious and at one stage there were some fisticuffs and we were down to fourteen a side. There's more to Union than the big, fast blokes monotonously bashing through the little, slow blokes, and long may it remain so. I acknowledge this is less applicable to heineken cup and international union where the skill sets and mobility of the front 5 is usually impressive but it can be seen week in week out as high as the premiership. Front row play is an art and indeed a career long learning curve.I say we either standardise scrummaging laws across all age groups in union or we do away with the competetive scrum as in League where they are guaranteed posession from their own put in then the game moves swiftly on.Since professionalism, I feel that Union has become a stale turgid multi-phased, defence orientated game; Certainly not the spectacle of running rugby brought into our living rooms by the Irvine's, Campese's Renwicks etc of the pre-pro era. The pitch of the Rugby League measures between 112 and 122 meters long by 68 meters wide. !Perhaps RU journos should write about the lack of blackplayers in RU unitl fairly recently or why there have been so many RU rule changes(RU needs to look like RL as its rulers are ruled by money). A Rugby Union match is comprised of 30 active players, 15 on each team, with seven substitutes allowed during the course of a game. Complain about this comment (Comment number 50). The sight of Munster controlling the last five minutes of a game from scrum and ruck to hold out for a win or to get the drop-goal / penalty to win it should not be dismissed. Is the tactical element of rugby union with its lineouts and scrums and kicks for territory more appealing? After starting to be played at a number of schools and clubs, rugby football gained a governing body in 1870 in the shape of the Rugby Football Union. Rugby union uses an oval ball (a prolate spheroid). 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