Code switch is never easy: Deans

wannabprop - my point exactly - those northerners will do anything to irritate the southerners!

@clipper. My northern English (Rugby League supporter) friends actually just called it 'Rugby'. Probably explains the offence taken to Horvill's apparent indiscretion and this 'debate'. The fact that I'm actually reading this also indicates just how much I'm missing 'Rugby'!

TrakL, still fighting the good fight for the Rugby World Cup.

@Dan - "gestapo" - "Jews" - "concentration camps" - "imperialism" - "Russia" - are you sure you're not showing us a rough draft of a "dissertation" that otherwise only you would be likely to read? Stop giving with one hand - lauding my "articulacy" and "intelligence" - only to take away with the other - "get a life" etcetera. The fact that you can't be bothered to apologise for the latter suggests one must doubt the sincerity of the former. Good night and sleep tight - and maybe carry the the thought with you that this really is not about the "nature of language" - but more that some of us outside Australia care about the history and traditions of a sport that here and elsewhere - through a combination of ignorance and arrogance - continues either to be misunderstood, patronised or traduced. And Horwill is less culpable it seems than the Australian rugby league community bathing in the insularity of its own little world.

Wow, you've gone grammar-gestapo on me on a sports message board… I’m not writing my dissertation here trakl and it’s almost midnight. Also, if you’re going to trip people up for spelling and grammar, try getting your own right; what you wanted to say was “it’s bore”, not “its bore”. But anyway, I’ll sign off with this: I never said you needed anyone’s permission to respond to anything on here, I simply thought your reaction was over-the-top for such an utter non-event. Then you started carrying one about the “manifest” falsity of the statement, and I became bewildered at how someone so articulate could have such a poor understanding of the nature of language. With that, good-night and good-bye.

@brilliant contribution Sledgehammer! Keep up the good work! And remember to pack an apple for your tupperware box lunch!

@Dan - Yeah what an analogy! "Beckham's not played any football recently." Dull-witted. Twice over. And now we go to Russia... to prove Horwill's idiocy! Oh dear.

Its "bore" Dan - and I wish I could say I find your tone merely "irritating" - alas at every step you appear to have got the impression that non-Australian residents have first to seek your permission before responding to any old rubbish written and reported in the Roar. Your knowledge of rugby league - as evinced in your guileless questions as to the historic status of rugby league in this country with some "Liverpool nut friend" as your best alibi - suggests you need to re-visit the musty old books on rugby league that have lain mouldering on your bedside table. But then that might mean your "getting a life" yourself instead of insulting lives belonging to others whose points of view you find puzzling?

You were right Rob, the analogy was lost on him and he seems to be impervious to facts... he apparently believes that short-hand is a grammatically and legally debatable commodity that one can take ownership of. It's like no-one told him that languages are all in a state of constant development and that what is accepted in one part of the world may not be accepted in another. I wonder what would happen if he went to Russia - he'd probably freak out when he discovered that they actually have their own language there; he'd probably berate Russian visitors to England for having the audacity to speak their local tongue!

Thank you so much for your "pity" Rob9 - and sincerity too.

@Rob9 - yeah great analogy Dan! It will be lost on him!

This is seriously beginning to boor me now, but your imperious tone on the "origins of the game" really does irritate me... I'm fully aware of the games history - in your country, in France and in mine (and, incidentally, the history of both codes in Germany and Russia) - I just happen to think your reaction to Horwill's use of a - to him and the majority of the Southern Hemisphere - natural shorthand is utterly absurd in its vociferousness. You're carrying on like he'd made a jewish joke at Auschwitz for crying out loud! THAT's why I just told you to get a life, because I cannot honestly understand how you can be so insanely precious over something so unimportant.

@Dan - except that he didn't when speaking to the papers this very morning. He speaks of "rugby union" and "rugby league" - too complex for you to comprehend clearly but straightforward to the rest of us. And do please speak for yourself - or else you'll be speaking of Tomkins with all the background knowledge supporting Horwill's comments on the man - ie none. You don't have to care for any of this - but there are others who do. They may even reside outside Australia - believe it or not - but their views are perhaps informed by a wider knowledge than that evinced in your platitudinous screeds thus far.

@Dan - the insult about "getting a life" has taken you an awful long time to produce and thus lacks the flourish with which you were hoping its impact might make. It ill becomes you. Newspaper coverage for rugby league in England is and always has been utterly abysmal. If your "Liverpool nut friend" is reflecting the game's popularity through national newspaper coverage he is entirely correct. If, on the other hand, he is referring to a game that historically has been the second highest supported team sport on a weekly basis behind football - and miles ahead of rugby union at club level for about 105-110 years of the game's history since its formation - then he is speaking the kind of drivel which manifests itself in the Roar from the legions of "end is nigh" merchants vis-a-vis English (and indeed Australian) rugby league. Your attitude to the saintly Horwill differs from mine - Australia rugby union captain or not his remarks are nonsense and born of the kind of ignorance and arrogance manifested in your kindly imprecation that I should "get a life" merely for having the temerity to state that the whole world is not yet ready to accept Australian sporting terminology. Rugby league in England has "prevailed" too - and it has been up against so much more than Australian rugby league has had to put up with. Do you not understand that its very reason for existing arose out of the kind of intractable social "arrangements" that then continued to try and strangle it at every stage of its period of growth? You would do better to read about the game's birth - for one thing Australian rugby league owes its existence to it - and try to absorb all the ways that the establishment and rugby union has tried to cripple it. You might then appear a little less sanguine when seeing Australia rugby union players hijack the word "rugby" from those who have been playing it all their lives for historic clubs. You might not care that French rugby league was banned from using "Rugby" in its name - I don't care if you do or don't actually - but I do. I'm glad that they fought for the right to have "Rugby" when others wanted to crush the game altogether. I don't care that you don't care for any of this. I'm just puzzled as to why you care that I care? Why should I try to disguise my sincere feelings on the matter - simply to spare your blushes or the reverent Horwill's?

Great analogy dan. Something tells me it will still be lost on him though

Ahh well ive said about all i can on the topic without repeating myself. If this gets your goat as much as it seems to have, i really do pity you. You must live a very frustrating life with people constantly stepping on your toes.

To be honest trakl, I think if anyone were to ask Tomkins that question he would likely answer "who gives a toss", because it's pretty clear to me that no one else apart from you actually thinks this is an issue or believes that we all have to be so insanely PC that sports people need to read briefs on every cultural niche they will be within 100kms of just so they don't slip up and use a word in a context that someone in the host population may become confused over. It's like how I don't beat the living sh#t out of my American friends for buying a g-string when I tell them they should pick up thongs for the beach; I recognise that their misunderstanding is a result of separate - but equally valid - evolutions of the meaning of the word. So you see, it's not "manifestly false" that Tomkins hasn't played "rugby recently", because to the people of Australia, NZ and South Africa that statement would have been perfectly understood. The fact that YOU don't accept this short-hand doesn't actually make it "manifestly false"... Did you honestly think it did? I mean, sh#t, you're an articulate and clearly educated guy, how can you be so petty and irrational?

That's because rugby is the running game. Mason was able to get the ball in his hands and be creative, not just smash into brick wales for 80 minutes. Bet he loved it too!

I've just worked it out. Trackl is a guy who hates league and is trying to give it a bad name by coming on sites such as this and acting like a complete prat. Probably taken it a tad too far this time though don't you think. Nice wind up though!

@ Dan - no Dan the analogy was yours to begin with - not mine. An NRL or AFL player saying of Beckham he hasn't played any football "recently" would be wrong twice - the "football" bit and the "recently" bit. Do you not understand that for those outside your blessed realms the notion that Tomkins has been doing anything other than playing "rugby" - you know, for Wigan Rugby League Club affiliated to the Rugby Football League - is manifestly false. Tomkins himself would be bewildered at such a misguided remark. Ask him - or find one of your friends in the press to ask him as to whether he's played any "rugby" recently - what do you think he'll say? In fact, in reports this morning he speaks of "rugby union" and "rugby league" - perfectly clear in Australia and in England and in France and in... Even, I would imagine, clear to Horwill himself...