I think there's a fundamental misjudgement behind this whole theory. Look at what happened in soccer at that time - the southern toffs continued to run the game (and still control the FA today) but allowed the northern clubs to play the game properly and pay their players.
For whatever reason the toffs who ran Rugby couldn't come to that accommodation and so forced the breakaway. They then turned a blind eye to the payment of players in the other mining areas of Wales and the South West and kept their players in their game.

Quote ="nkpom"I think there's a fundamental misjudgement behind this whole theory. Look at what happened in soccer at that time - the southern toffs continued to run the game (and still control the FA today) but allowed the northern clubs to play the game properly and pay their players. For whatever reason the toffs who ran Rugby couldn't come to that accommodation and so forced the breakaway. They then turned a blind eye to the payment of players in the other mining areas of Wales and the South West and kept their players in their game.'" Am I right in saying that Wales was one vote away from joining the breakaway? That would have been interesting indeed. This short programme by Clare Balding is great listening, just a shame it isn't a bit longer. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bwfyd

Quote ="nkpom"I think there's a fundamental misjudgement behind this whole theory. Look at what happened in soccer at that time - the southern toffs continued to run the game (and still control the FA today) but allowed the northern clubs to play the game properly and pay their players. For whatever reason the toffs who ran Rugby couldn't come to that accommodation and so forced the breakaway. They then turned a blind eye to the payment of players in the other mining areas of Wales and the South West and kept their players in their game.'" Am I right in saying that Wales was one vote away from joining the breakaway? That would have been interesting indeed. This short programme by Clare Balding is great listening, just a shame it isn't a bit longer. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01bwfyd

League has developed and changed oft out of necessity, I don't think we would have anything like what we have now if it had just been the one code.
The whole dynamic of the sport would be massively different, they'd have been far fewer teams with staunch 'community' following where RL has been a massive part for small towns across the North.

Soccer started off entirely as a northern and midlands league and took a while to add other southern clubs slowly, Woolwich Arsenal were ostracised for a while by the other southern clubs. They actually fast tracked clubs in West Yorkshire, Hull and the South to expand the league in the early days.

The Northern Union very nearly set up a professional Western League in Devon and Cornwall in the years just before WW1 but there weren't quite enough teams committed. The sad thing is that only a couple of years before there'd been 6 professional Welsh teams that had collapsed under pressure of travelling north, but would have thrived in a Western League. (Ebbw Vale very nearly survived long enough to join the Western League but wasn't enough). These were the years when Coventry had a team as well

They should have set up regional comps from the very beginning.