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Joined January 2015
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Rugby fan from the UK, know Australia well from my 2 years Working Holiday.
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Sorry but this is drivel. I live in the UK and what you have said is rubbish – football is king up here but rugby is a very big sport too, unless you live in places like Liverpool, Manchester etc which are all football mad. Rugby is known throughout, the internationals better attended than any other international sport (including football).
The class rah rah thing is a factor in schools in the south east, Edinburgh etc, but this is balanced out by places such as the west of England, where rugby is bigger than football, Ireland, where rugby has grown hugely since 200,& france, where it has a working class base. If anything the class thing with rugby is more prouned in Sydney than anywhere else.
6nation drudge fest aside, rugby has been brilliant so far in the Super Rugby season as it was in World Cup. The 6nations was also dire last season, up until the last game, when all the teams decided to cut loose and play rugby properly. Rugby needs some tweaks, such as stopping the clock at scrum resets, a few breakdown issues, but overall it is in rude health.
It is hard to see if you live in NSW and Qld but League just doesn’t register at all. The arrogance of League is also quite odd considering its position in the pecking order of global sports. The Rugby mantra “game they play in heaven” is tongue in cheek, but League’s the “greatest game” etc is said with compete seriousness. It is embarrassing.
How and why rugby lost me
Yes but the arrogance of the NRL boasting and bragging about popular it is when they get 6000 in a 60,000 stadium is ridiculous. If Arsenal in the Premier League (60,000 sell outs every game whether vs Chelsea or West Brom) got 6000 for games they would be laughed off the planet.
Whenever I have seen NRL always seems to be mostly empty seats, NRL brag on about how well the game is going, billion dollar tv contracts, great crowd figures etc, laughable equating that arrogance to swathes of empty seats.
When will the rugby codes finally merge?
This kind of thinking runs through the League fraternity in the UK -that there is some big conspiracy between the tweed suits at the rfu and the media, and League would be hugely popular if it wasn’t for this.
Wishful thinking. Clutching at straws.
When will the rugby codes finally merge?
league never stops talking about union. league stole union players for decades now cries when the shoe is on the other foot.
When will the rugby codes finally merge?
Sorry that is rubbish “dealing with league”. There isn’t anywhere the same level of animosity between the different sports in the UK as there is in Australia.
When will the rugby codes finally merge?
Must say I have always though it would make sense if both codes/sports at least from an administration perspective I just think there is too much bitterness for it to actually happen.
A shame really, but after League’s 100 year war on Welsh rugby pinching many of their best players, as an example, there is no love lost at all for League in Wales including me to be honest having witnessed it all through the 80s and 90s.
I appreciate League is massive in eastern Oz but anywhere else it just doesn’t register. In the UK the bitterness from League is ridiculous, I don’t see it the other way at all, if anything union respects league (maybe not the rfu). In the UK League isn’t even big in the north, it is only a small part of the north (not even the true north) a sort of regional curiosity passed from father to son like shinty , a shame as it didn’t always used to be like that.
Another thing I don’t understand is the massive tv contracts in Australia being evidence of League being so big. Yes fair play, but when I have seen NRL matches they always seem to be played in half empty stadiums. In the UK the Premier League is king, but they don’t always go on about how big they are compared to other sports, why? They don’t need to. & their stadiums are always full along with their tv rights/
I also can’t imagine the Premier League boasting of such success in terms of tv rights when the grounds are less than half full. The contrary arrogance/victimhood endless talking about crowd figures (the “greatest game”, “great crowds this weekend” “man of steel”) narrative League has is bizarre.
I would love it if both codes would merge in a way just to spot the constant griping – cricket is one sport but does ok with test, one days and 20/20 coexisting fine under 1 umbrella. Just can’t see it happening though, a shame really.
When will the rugby codes finally merge?
Burgess won’t run through Jamie Roberts. JR is used to battles like against big opposite centres and he owned SBW back in November.
Wales gameplan is to basically use Jamie Roberts and George North to bash over the gainline, I can see England doing the same with big Sam. If Sam is picked, the game will be worth watching just for centres battle! Glad to see Sam doing well, I hope he makes the WC.
England lock sees big future for Burgess
This is just so bizarre to read this stuff from Australia, just witnessed another fantastic 6 nations, the highest attended sports competition in the world (ok not many games, but still), it is another pointer to the unique position Australia is in with all these sports at each others throats all the time like an unending turf war.
League is struggling badly in Europe, it cannot get out of its core area and grow at all, this has been a factor for the last 100+ years and isn’t getting any better.
League disciples always come out with the usual – London biased press, vichy regime etc, but this doesn’t explain why, since professionalism, rugby has grown in a number of countries whilst league just hasn’t. The writer slates union as boring (which in parts it is, just like any sport), so I’ll say that the reason League struggles is because it seriously lacking, no contest for the ball, the players are the same (like 26 different sized wingers bashing into each other), and virtually all tries seem to be scored by a grubber kick. It hasn’t caught on.
If you ask me League has artificially tried to make the game for tv and “entertainment” above nothing else, a bit like only eating the topping off a cake and justifying it saying that it is the best bit, so do away with the sponge stuff, just eat the topping, but after a while you don’t appreciate the topping properly anymore, you need the sponge bit for the balance.
Soccer has dreadful games, all sports do, rugby certainly does, but amongst all this you get games which excel and root in the imagination.
Time to pull heads out of the sand and admit Australian rugby is dying