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I watched rugby union on the weekend! It’s not my first time, but I’m not a huge fan – it’s not a knock on the product, it just isn’t my cup of tea.
I find some of the rules hard to follow. It’s doesn’t quite have the catch-as-catch-can feeling as Australian rules (are there rules in that?), but I get confused in the breakdowns, the rucks and mauls, lineouts et al.
Many people love it. I don’t.
However, it did get me thinking about the development of rugby league, from its Northern England 1890s roots as a rugby competition which allowed payments to injured players, to the completely different sport it is today.
Could I have shown up to Birchgrove Oval on April 20 1908, watched Western Suburbs play Balmain and understand what was happening? Would I enjoy the game? Would the rules confuse me in the way rugby rules confuse me today?
[latest_videos_strip category=”rugby-league” name=”League”]
At which point in its evolution did rugby league cease to be a rebel competition to rugby union and become my favourite sport of all, a separate and distinct spectacle of its own?
Was it in 1906, when the Northern Rugby Football Union introduced the play-the-ball rule and the teams were reduced to 13 men? Was it in 1931, when it became mandatory for scrums to pack in a 3-2-1 formation? Perhaps in 1967, when limited tackles was introduced (under the four tackle rule, expanded to six tackles in 1971)? Maybe it was the gradual change from the inside and outside centre combinations to today’s left and right centre?
There is enough common ground between them to allow for players to move between the two, often with ease. Some of the greatest players in rugby league played both – Arthur Summons, Wally Lewis, Rick Stewart and Wendell Sailor, to name a select few.
And while at their most basic level the aims of the games are the same – to score points on exactly the same type of field – why is it I can understand rugby league with great ease, but rugby union is like a foreign language to me?
This then made me wonder about rugby league and rugby union in another hundred years.
With the independent rule changes within each code continuing their divergent evolution, is is possible that one day in the future, dual internationals will become as unlikely between league and union as between league and soccer? What will rugby league look like as a game in 2118? Would someone from the future come back to today and fail to recognise the game? Would they think it too soft? Too barbaric?
Maybe this is why I don’t enjoy rugby union as much. It makes me ponder the big questions rather than just enjoying it.
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