What relevance does it have to todays sport ?

I'm agreeing with you regarding Southern Hemisphere rugby

If mine are rose tinted then yours are Stevie Wonder's! I was brought up to be open minded thank goodness and the opinions expressed were about the two different games of rugby. It is unfortunate that you unable to rise above the class based history of the two sports to discuss the merits of modern day rugby of both codes.

Of course I am aware of the broken time payments history and the snobbery and the shamateurism and "boot money payments" that went on. I recall Ronnie Cowan telling me of when he first played for the Lions and he was shocked to find "taxi" money from Selkirk to the South of England in his boots after training.

The "tainting"was only one way of course in those days because League stood to gain from an open door policy and Union to lose.

However I also remember the League welcome that most Union signings received in their first season which was also only one way. Alun Rees Wales International stand off signing received a broken nose from a deliberate foul in his first game for Leeds. This welcome was typical through the years right up to the John Gallagher spear tackle. The recent BBC programe on Jonathan Davies showed a funny clip of him in the Widnes dressing room before his first RL game, I think, and his teammates were all around him stroking his nose and making comments as to how it would look after the game.

Times have moved on and the Luddites are in the minority. Union is now professional and has the money and on it's day offers good rugby skills and entertainment for followers of the handling game.

None, but you and Juan were the ones that started waxing lyrical about some fictional, historical halcyon days of free love between the two sports that simply didn't exist. I was simply calling foul on the re-writing of history.

A lot more dynamic. If you browse the BBC Sport site from London you don't even get RL in the main nav.

No re-writing history and no waxing lyrical. Just a testamony of my personal experience of the overlap of the two codes, from the 60's right up to the Millenium, in the North of England. That is how real history is recorded and not by some class bitter comments from someone who wasn't a witness at the time. However the point that best underlines our comments on the overlapping of the two codes is that someone with such a shoulder chip now tries and get a game with a local Union' third team ( no fourths I take it?). Despite your angst I am sure you will get a good Union welcome

Not waxing lyrical or re-writing history at all, just recounting my experiences which were at odds to the "history" that you prefer to read, I'm trying to add a spoonful of sugar to your bitter tea...

Totally agree.

As the "superior" game always has.

I played both games regularly in my youth. Ian McGeegan and Ken Dalby both being my school masters.

Feel qualified to comment regardless of others previous comments.

One game is easier to play and the other is easier to watch.

Fair comment and I also prefer League and as a teenager Ken Dalby taught me rugby too.

I find it rediculous that people talk about "the Southern Hemisphere" as if they all play the same game. Really? SA play the same game as NZ? They approach rugby completely differently. The Blue Bulls main attacking weapon in last years Super Rugby? Have a guess? The 5 metre lineout drive. SA rugby is a carbon copy of the way England played when Will Carling was captain. Massive intimidating forwards, a kicking fly half, a huge crash bang centre as captain and a couple of decent, pacy runners if needed. But it's all about the forwards.
Australia don't play a rucking game from choice, they have no scrummage and they haven't produced a decent front row forward in living memory. An average Lions team took them apart, only awful, one sided refereeing kept that tour from being a complete debacle for them.

Union will always be dominated by the simple fact that you are as likely to give a penalty away in posession as you are without posession (how many times do you give away a penalty in league when you have the ball - almost never). So even with the ball you can give away points in your own half. Where you play the game is critical and you can't go wide before you go forward - and kicking and forwards (the 10 men you talk about) dictate both those. The only significant difference between the way NZ play and the way England play is that NZ are far more ruthless and efficient when they turn the ball over or when they receieve a poor kick and chase. Until that moment they play the exact same game. The fact England dominated NZ in the forwards isn't because English rugby is all about forwards, it's because we were better than them in that critical part of the game.

Phil Larder once checked the "live" time, ie how long the ball was actually in play, for both games.

IIRC Union = 27 minutes League was over 60 minutes.

There's no question the time the ball is in play is one of the major factors why I love live rugby league, there simply is no better sport to watch from the terraces (however, if you add up the whole match day experience watching England lose to SA last season in the pouring rain at Twickenham was still a great day out with my boy, infinitely better than the last GF I attended - a drunken chav fest in the @r$e of Madchester). The flip side of having breaks in play as in Union, is that (IMO) it makes it easier to work on television. Union also has a lot of specialised technical areas that allow your TV panel of experts to make use of the time the ball is out of play (similar to cricket). To some it's just B.S. but the average armchair fan eats it up. I also think TV angles really help with Union. You have trouble seeing what is really going on from the terraces, but in league the main reason I loved Leeds A-Team games was the sound effects.

I would suspect that since Phil Larder made that calculation some things have changed a little but there is no doubt the ball is in play more and this builds the tension and atmosphere of a game live. You can't take your eyes off a good game of league.

I'd also suspect that the anecdote has gained and lost some real "in play" time over the years in its telling, you'd also need to question whether a ball held in a scrum or ruck/rolling maul has been classed as "in play" because no-one has the ball in hand, in theory there can be measurable passages of play in Union with no-one touching the ball, even two full backs kicking the ball the length of the field to each other are still "in play".

It all boils down to the technical aspects of Union and the fact that some League supporters don't bother or have no interest in learning them in which case they may as well be comparing RL to football.

it wasn't an "anecdote". It was published research in the official RFL Coaching Manual at the time and included soccer and Grid Iron times. The times were based on the ball being out of play ie off the playing field. I don't believe that generally it will have changed significantly

I have never taken this so called technical argument in the Union game its just a made up justification for slowing the game down.

imho its just an excuse to simply kill the ball and simply to deprive the opposition of possession.

So there won't be a link or anything to this info, or even a year of publication ?

Seems like a strange piece of research really, what was his point and how did it point to a better product, how did he take his measurements and how many games did he make them over, and was he methodical in his selection of games or did he just pick the worst of one and the best of the other - you can see how daft this sort of thing can be can't you and its starting on the assumption that "minutes in play" equates to a far superior product whereas the popularity of all three individual other sports that you mention is greater than the parochial interest in RL, how would you explain that - a lack of concern over publishing this amateur research perhaps ?

You can't ignore the fact that there is no competition for possession in league. You can't physically (apart from the extremely rare 1:1 ball steal) contest possession. In Union every ruck and maul, lineout - and to a lesser extent - scrum is a contest for possession. The purpose of the PTB in RL is to remove that contest and was designed to speed up the game and keep the ball in play more. That one difference - the contest for possession - fundamentally changes everything from the way you use the ball to the size, shape and skill set of every player on the pitch.

I cant help it if mediocrity has always appealed to the masses.

IMHO all 3 alternatives are inferior products.

I have given you the reference for the research if you don't accept it then that's fine. I never said it pointed to a better product, that's a subjective matter.

I`m just expressing a personal preference. If others want to watch 27 minutes of play compressed into 80 minutes then that's their problem.

Well you haven't really, you've picked a number from memory and told us that Phil Larder told you but you can't pinpoint it to a year, not very scientific is it ?

On the other hand you could look at research like this [urlhttp://www.theroar.com.au/2012/09/03/how-long-is-a-rugby-match-really/[/url based on the 2011 RWC in NZ, and before you start chirping that 36 minutes isn't very long for the ball to be in play have a scroll down to the foot of the page and read where the lost time was on average across all of the 2011 RWC games - you'll see that approx 23.5 minutes are lost at forming scrums and lineouts (up to the moment that the ball is released into the scrum/lineout).

Now its a given that RL scrums are far less sophisticated affairs consisting of two sets of lightweight players touching palms for three seconds, and lineouts just don't exist, but in RL there are delays in forming scrums so lets allow, say 5 mins for those which leaves 18.5 minutes of delays that don't exist in RL - and thats all, everything else on that list will also occur in a game of RL and if a similar in depth analysis was made that didn't involve Phil Larder and the back of a fag packet you'd probably get a figure that places the two codes much closer than the one that you suggested, scientifically closer.

And then it all boils down to whether or not you think 18 mins is a good way to spend time preparing for two tactical restart methods that just don't exist in RL, those who pay at the gate (in greater numbers) to watch the scrummaging spectacle would agree that it is an equitable way to spend that time.

Some similar research (scientific research) [urlhttp://www.rfu.com/takingpart/fitness/rugbydemands/ballinplay[/url

Thanks for the links pretty much seem to confirm things much as I see them

Those "Phil Larder" ball in play numbers have never been in doubt have they? Its been analysed many, many times. www.voxy.co.nz/sport/nrl-vs-supe ... /971/28136 I'm not sure I would describe the "crouch - set - touch - engage" pantomime, followed by a blatant feed, as sophisticated or a spectacle, Rugby Union scrums are little different to those in League in terms of restarting the game, other than taking much longer.

Those "Phil Larder" ball in play numbers have never been in doubt have they? Its been analysed many, many times. www.voxy.co.nz/sport/nrl-vs-supe ... /971/28136 I'm not sure I would describe the "crouch - set - touch - engage" pantomime, followed by a blatant feed, as sophisticated or a spectacle, Rugby Union scrums are little different to those in League in terms of restarting the game, other than taking much longer.

Thanks for the link.



Seems like my recall was pretty much on the ball.

Average single-game values. NRL round 26 2009 - Super 14 round 13 2009
Restarts of play 13 scrums - 20 scrums; 26 lineouts
Kicks at goal (penalties and conversions) 9 - 11
Penalties (not resulting in kicks at goal) 11 - 15
Time of ball in play 62 minutes - 28 minutes

The difference is its very very technical and therefore beyond our parochial minds



but then even the Union game recognises its all a bit of a farce

[urlhttp://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/news-comment/the-collapse-of-the-scrum-as-we-know-it-8792441.html[/url

You two seriously think a RU competitive scrum is the same as the uncompetitive RL scrums ?

I'll have a half gram of whatever you've been smoking.

You seem to be confusing competitive with combative. Didn't you read the link I provided.

I even watched an England RU match recently where the commentators were complaining of the 3 - 4 resets and the inevitable penalty at every set scrum.

I will happily settle for getting the ball back in play asap and watching real skill over technical brute force.

100% more live in-play per game is worth the sacrifice.

You will be saying the technical kicking aspect is far superior next.

Steve McNamara best be 'swotting' up on his Union attacking skills....