I think that comment alone sums up the answer to the question about the game itself.

As to if the game as a business has improved? Probably. There was the comment earlier about the 100,000 attendance at Bradford. That must have brought a smile to the accountants face that day, but how much would he be grinning if he'd been able to include advertising and sponsorship deals into that figure?

The game as a whole is on a slide. I still doubt that it's anything to do with SL/Sky/Lewis/ineptness of the RFL, but a wider range of things - Sundays are no longer a day with little alternative to a local game of RL for one thing - but the one that concerns me most is touched on earlier - that of the media appeal of football eclipsing our game. I don't think there's anything we can do about that now, we had our chance at the creation of SL, but unfortunately you can shout as loudly as you want but if the media choose to ignore you then there isn't anything you can do about it, other than to grumble into your ale.
As one of the contributors to the RL Fans book from a few years back, I contacted many of the RFL's clubs chairmen for opinions on why the media ignored us. No one had a conclusive answer, but the general opinion was 'We're not football'.


Finally, when I first started using this forum, the suggestion that scrums should be scrapped would have got you lynched. Thankfully, we seem to have moved on from there....

I'd agree the lack of national media exposure can harm the game - but I don't think that's really the crux of the matter, I'd say that all RL clubs are in catchment areas more than big enough to sustain them if they can get sufficient interest within those catchment areas and you don't need national newspapers and TV news channels to do it - local newspapers and advertising should be the first port of call - perhaps if the stadiums currently in use were more regularly anywhere close to their capacity, it might make the national media sit up and take a bit more notice.

Pre 1996, Rugby League was a game played by teams along the M62 that got very little attention from the national media and was only ever in the public spotlight when the BBC showed the Challenge Cup Final.

Thanks to ESL and SKY TV...

Rugby League is now a game played by teams along the M62 as well as a unsupported team in London and a French club. It gets very little attention from the national media and is only ever in the public spotlight when the BBC show the Challenge Cup Final.

Sadly i suspect that Ellery would be inside centre for the English RU team if he were in his prime today.

And players back then had an equally extensive skill set - albeit in different areas of the game.

They are certainly amazed by the athleticism, size etc. But those are the areas which we have chosen to concentrate on at the expense of others. You also forget to mention that older players, whilst marvelling at improvements in specific fields, also lament the loss of specialised skills that were essential in, say, contested scrums.

The fact that you think old rugby is bad tells me you have no appreciation or understanding of the nuances of the game that were important to fans back then and judge it purely by today's standards. Which is no judgement worth listening to.

I mean, if you could somehow prove fans enjoyed the game less back then you might have some kind of a point.



There is no point of comparison here. Rugby league in the sixties was a different sport, with different priorities that were appreciated as much as any that have taken precedence today.

Apart form the obsolete "art" of scrummaging, what were they? They weren't running, passing, tackling, catching, organisation, tactical awareness.

Why do you think it's at the expense (except the obselete irrelevant) of other skills? Rather than as well?



Now you're sounding like a unionite (if the contested scrums didn't do it) - "if you don't like it, it's because you don't understand it."
Look, watch the game from those days. Watch the modern game. The ability of those past players to run, pass, evade, tackle, catch, was far far less than what we see now.


If I had ever tried to make a point that people enjoyed the game less back then, then I might have tried to prove that. But I didn't, so I haven't.



Why have you moved to talking about "appreciation" ?

How much people then appreciated the sport was never in question. What you asked though, if those fans could be transported to the modern day to see our modern game, what would they think? I would assert that they would be nothing less than amazed at the skill and ability of our modern players.

I agree with you in terms of what your statement is saying but given the amount of RL shown on the BBC pre SL and the viewing figures for such on that basis SL is much less improtant in the mindset of the UK public.


As for the arguement at hand, each has its own plus & minus points from each fans pov.
Aspects of SL that I dislike that make it worse than yesteryear(IMO of course):
Tackling round the neck incessently, the wrestling/fannying around at the play the ball
Not playing the ball with your foot properly
Forward passes
Offsides at scrums never enforced, packing down not enforced, 10m at the ptb not enforced
Attacking play is much more predictable, sometimes boring even if done at speed, low risk attacking strategies are the norm
Hardly any wingers have guile, it's mostly about power/athleticsim, barring a few players the halves are as dull as watching paint dry coparatively
Interchanges (too many & should be 4 permanent subs)
referees unpredictability & choosing when to apply the laws of the game which is so random that fans are incensed
You can't have a decent bit of biff without the officials getting all twitchy
On report
The disciplinary committee
There's no characters in the game, players cannot interact with the referee in a jokey way for fear of reprisal.
Did I mention that the officials are pants and the RFlL couldn't market water in the Sahara desert?

This might sound like a one sided arguement but it isn't, there's porobably loads of things I didn't like about the old days, however I feel I was more content watching rugby league back in the 70s/80s than I am now even with the fine tuned athletes we have today and the speed of how the game flows. But for me there's too much wrong with the game as I watch it week in week out that bugs the hell out of me ( & other fans alike) yet simple application of the rules would resolve some of the problems in a short space of time.
I've watched a lot of old time stuff and yes the 50s/60s/70s is far more entertaining and varied.

I'm with Richie. Some of the defence in the 'good old days' was laughable. If you watch games from the 70s, the tackling and running with the ball are laughably soft in comparison to today. That's why old-fashioned ball handlers could play the way they did - the defence would stand off them (sadly a bit like england tend to do with Aussie halfbacks). If you look at NRL Grand Finals from the late 80s/early 90s the defensive lines are worse than they are in SL today, and the intensity isn't there.

To reverse, mugwump's argument, if you put Cunningham into RL in the 80s or earlier he would have been seen as the most destructive prop ever. He would never have needed to be a hooker. Bring a hooker from the contested scrum era into today's game and where, exactly, would they play? The answer is amateur RL at best. The one skill they had - hooking - has gone, never to return.

Bottom line is people tend to remember the good old days fondly - and I have no problem with that, I do it myself. But it does tend to add a rose tint when comparing to the modern game. Any player even from less than 20 years ago would have to be trained to modern levels to avoid looking anything like a complete numpty.

Good post.
I can't help thinking some fans of the game today wont be happy until the players are wearing large shoulder pads ,crash helmets,the ball is much smaller, and the players can throw it 60yd forward with one hand,oh and the posts only have one stantion in the middle holding them up

...now hat's just silly. Such a sport would never catch on

Thing is Iv'e no wish to watch that sport.
If SLE ltd wants to go that way then fine by me.
The mother code is moving 'very' slowly towards what rl use to be like a number of yrs ago and 'i'll be honest if i had a say in how the championships were run i'd be reversing a number of the on field rule changes that have occured over the last 15yrs or so in an attempt to meet them at some point in the future rather than go down the route SLe ltd is going down

Mugs... I gave you a serious answer to your serious question as to whether the game was financially/commercially in rude health when we got a one-off 100,000+ attendance for a show-piece event. It can't have been [ithat[/i serious a question if you had no more comments to my thoughts on the matter, or were some of my questions too hard?

Sure, and rugby league can be broken down solely to indivisible units such as "running", "passing" and "tackling". Are you the kind of coach who offers pearls of wisdom from the sidelines such as [i"get it out wide!"?[/i

Are you so dense as to think people fifty years ago didn't think [iseriously[/i about the game? There weren't outstanding coaches with brilliant tactical minds? There weren't players who didn't spend all their time thinking about how they could gain a competitive advantage over the other guy?

And "obsolete" skills aren't so by any objective measure. This isn't science.

Don't flatter yourself, mate. The serious answer is - I'd completely forgotten. These days my time in here is strictly limited.

But I will have a bash now.



I've no idea whether the game was "commercially successful" back then. I'm not sure fans even thought in those terms or viewed the game within the same kind of social context.

"Commercial success" seems like more of an argument than anything else. If we were more successful commercially would we be any better off? On the face of it I'd say yes - but then I must also concede that money itself [icreates problems[/i. I mean, the game was awash with money when Murdoch initially pumped millions into it. Yes, we ended up turning fully pro which - if nothing else - prevented one or two teams dominating the sport by being such whilst the rest stayed semi. But I think all league fans will concede that that money was not best used. Much of it leaked away from the sport - through big contracts, big wages for CEOs etc.

It would be great to see more money flowing into the sport (unlikely, given the current economic climate which my guess is will become much worse before anything else) - but money dependency comes with its own dangers. Lose a major sponsor and you're teetering on the edge of oblivion etc. Make a bad investment (a whopping four-year player contract to someone who plays twenty games in four seasons) and you run the risk of underfunding your squad for half a decade.

Of course, teams have always been dependent on cash. Money is at least part of the reason we split from RU in the first place. But I think today the money game has assumed as great a significance as what takes place on the pitch. And I'm not sure that's necessarily a good thing.

Rugby league very much can be broken down to skills in "running" "Passing" and tackling"

I'm a fairly technical coach (particularly on carry technique, passing, offload skills, and the play the ball) and also fairly strong on lifestyle and how a player should approach training and games. Not that it's relevant to this discussion.




Bit dissapointing but not suprising you're reverting to personal insults now. Not sure why you would think I think "people fifty years ago didn't think [iseriously[/i about the game? There weren't outstanding coaches with brilliant tactical minds? There weren't players who didn't spend all their time thinking about how they could gain a competitive advantage over the other guy?" Why you would think I think that, I have no idea at all.



There is a significant element of science to all sport.

I'm yet to see you point to any current skill that the old days saw repeatedly better executed BTW.

Back in the 70s when I started watching the game the players were far less well drilled than they are nowadays. Their decision making, as judged by the probability of succeeding with what they were attempting to do, was atrocious compared to modern players. Their levels of fitness were far lower. But the lack of orthodoxy back then led to far greater unpredictability and very occasional brilliance. Much more so than today's game, at least in my book.

- no self flattery involved, I figured you'd forgot but figured you'd respond to a slap rather than a polite "ahem".



You were the one who pointed to the 100k Odsal crowd to try and point to perhaps a better supported and more well received sport as far as the clubs' catchment areas were concerned.

And you (and others) were right to, of course - IMO anyway. One thing that must be noted is that since the 50s a lot of clubs had to drastically reduce their ground capacities because of quite correct safety requirements and considerations (check the offical maximum attendance figures for any of the old RL stadiums that have been replaced in the past 15 years, by the time they were pulled down, they simply could not have accomodated the volume of people they once did), ally this to an otherwise complete lack of investment of expanding or improving/modernising their facilities and it must be considered as having a big potential on turning people away from the sport and/or failing to attract new people to it.

Wilderspool, as much as I loved the place, was an abhorrent hole, and the same can be said for Knowsley Road, Central Park etc as far as I'm concerned. Rose tinted specs will always cloud the memories of the grand old ladies, but they did/do nothing to attract new attendees.



I don't disagree with you in any of that - right now it's plainly evident that RL is dependent not so much on getting people in through the turnstiles as they are on richer incomes from advertising and sponsorship deals, and the overall competition sponsorship / TV deal money.

I also think though that for clubs to exist, they have to have some commercial model (be it wealthy benefactor, Aussie style 'league club' membership, etc) to operate under, and it must be viable, or dare I say even profitable if the club has aspirations to improve (either in squad strength/depth, or facilities).

The thing where I disagree with others on this forum is that the lack of attractiveness RL seems to suffer from is not, necessarily, because the national press outlets are colluding to smother coverage of the game, I would say that if the game appeared to the casual observer to be better supported by a bigger volume of people, then they would have less of an excuse for a lack of column inches. I genuinely think if RL wants to improve it's income, and thus provide a more secure footing for further development, academies, and god-forbid supporting the local amateur teams, which I believe all pro/semi-pro clubs should be attempting to do (not necessarily with cash, but offerirng coaching/resources where practicable, etc), then the first thing they should be doing is attempting to increase the number of people turning up to support.

Obviously, there's no magic bullet to achieve that - but the facilities available are one big part of it, the other big part is the advertising (or lack of) undertaken in the local area. I can only speak from my personal experience in this matter but at one time, Warrington used to put game advertisement posters on the walls of Wilderspool and that was pretty much it as far as I ever saw, this has improved in recent years but I'd still like to see more, I can't imagine it would be prohibitively expensive to print out more A4 posters advertising games and stick them up in shopping centres and pubs, or other areas that a large number of people frequent, but maybe I'm wrong on how much that kind of simple marketing would cost to operate and would be happy to be corrected.

So, it goes a bit deeper than that. Thank you.



I think it because your reasoning is pretty contradictory. You claim Rugby League is far more skilled today. I point out that it is undoubtedly stronger in facets of the game we have chosen to concentrate on - size, strength, fitness etc. but since greater emphasis was placed on specialisation in the fifties and sixties it's a silly comparison. You then claim this isn't so because those skills are obsolete. Which is absurd because players from the sixties (brought forward in some kind of weird time machine) could reasonably argue today's RL is deficient in facets of the game that were important back then. Not that we need some supernatural device to settle this debate as we regularly hear older players today congratulating modern players on their skills, strength etc. whilst ALSO making the point that League was a different sport and comparisons are difficult to make.

But for reasons that escape me you are not convinced. You intuitively KNOW that players today are far more skilled in all facets of the game. And if at any point your argument seems under threat you conveniently whip out the "obsolescence" argument - which at best accepts as a premise that which is very definitely still to be proved.



Kicking out of the hand? Drop goals? By all means try to argue the distance kicking I've seen at Knowsley Road in the last four or five years of Sean Long is better than anything that's gone before it.

In any case this is incidental as you have still not successfully argued why I shouldn't include skills that we no longer concentrate on. Talk about stacking the deck in your own favour.

Yes. Not sure why you didn't get it first time around.


But you are make an erroneous assumption that other "skill" elements of the sport have been neglected, but still not given any reasoning for that belief.


Was it? Didn't players work hard on size, strength fitness etc back then? Could it just be that as we have got better at training strength stamina and speed, we have also got better at training skill?


Yet you claim that today's players are entirely lacking in specialist skills.
Despite all the skills Keiron Cunningham had, the only element you refer to of his game is his physical ability.


No intuition at all. Simply observation.



That's it? One single player at one single team? And you want to compare him to all of history? That's your case?
How does the kicking out of hand at Warrington games compare to yesteryear?



Your previous reference to hooking in the scrum was not a skill that we no longer concentrate on, it was a skill that is entirely obselete and irrelevant.
It's like lambasting modern taxi drivers for a lack of skill because they can't handle a team of horses pulling a carriage.

I've taken another look back over your posts in this thread. You do seem convinced that the modern player is only about athletic ability rather than skill. It's as if you have been so blinded by the incredible athleticism that you can't see the skill. Look beyond the athleticsm and you will see the skill is there in far greater scope and level than ever before.

It was a genuine question the answer to which I don't know. Attendances back then were pretty big. But did this make us - by today's standards - commercially successful? The game might well have been on the verge of bankruptcy. Perhaps older members can shed some light on this question?



That's going to be very difficult. The economy is on its knees and I doubt we will see any long-term improvement for many years. One of the big problems is the cost of fuel. As it becomes increasingly scarce (and thus increasingly more expensive) we will see the effective radii of people's ability to travel shrink more and more. Where once you could afford to travel from Merseyside/Cheshire to Hull without worrying about costs now (for people on or around average wage with family or other commitments) it's shrunk to Castleford. When petrol hits £2 it might be down to Huddersfield - and so on.

It'll be hard enough for clubs to cover the shortfall in away fans without the inevitable attrition rate of home spectators in economically depressed zones who with each Tory tax and supermarket price hike draw nearer and nearer to the point where matchday/season tickets are no longer possible under the home budget.

Prices are very, very high. I understand precisely why they are high - but League doesn't have an enormously affluent demographic it can draw upon like football. People are really struggling and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. With the best will in the world I can't see current gate figures lasting for much longer.

Point in question. Rich bloke (sent down for money laundering) blindly patriotic for his beloved home town soccer team going absolutely no where fast,builds 25k stadium in a fit of overly zealous optimism.The team Darlington now languishing in the relegation zone of the conference league averaging 1.5 - 2k attendances,so yes the story of Darlington is a lesson in pretty bad management

How hard can this be? I'm talking specifically about skills that are bound to rules of the game which have changed and consequent specialised skills. Listen to someone like Alex Murphy talking about the techniques he used in combination with Vince Karalius around the scrum base. Few of those skills would be of use today as they were necessitated by contested scrums. Consider tackling techniques such as the Cumberland Throw. You cannot deny it is a skill and one that is very difficult to execute properly.



Coaches worked within the rule structures of the day to deliver players best suited to gain a competitive advantage. Just as is the case today. Some coaches concentrated more on specialist skills. Others concentrated more on fitness. At Saints there is all manner of history relating to coaches who did one or the other at different periods.

It's not surprising that we have got better at strength, stamina and speed given that a) we're fully pro and b) we prize such attributes highly.

It's arrogant beyond belief to claim that we are now better at training given that your evidence is improvement to attributes we prize and thus concentrate on. A championship-winning coach back then could just as easily claim he is the best at delivering players that excel in the prized attributes of his day. He might also point out that his players go out and beat Australia - in Australia - whereas ours don't.

It's like saying Alexander the Great can't hold a candle to Wellington because the latter has cannons.



I said Keiron Cunningham is entirely lacking the specialist skills hookers back in the sixties were expected to possess in contested scrums. If you're stupid enough to think this means I consider him unable to pass the ball out of the dummy half I can't help you.

It is perfectly reasonable to emphasise Cunningham's physical attributes because without size, strength and speed he would be what?



Really? How much old rugby league do you watch?



Not one player at all. Prior to last season Saints' attitude to kicking (out of hand, goal kicking, 40/20 etc.) has, on the whole, varied between abysmal and average since the retirement of Tommy Martyn. Saints won two titles with some of the worst goal-kicking ever seen at the club. Hardly an advert for superior training.



Briers is a better kicker than Long. But Warrington have had plenty of good kicking halves over the years - including Murphy, whose kicking was a major factor in Warrington's success when he was player-coach.



I'm not lambasting anyone. It's you who can't cope with the possibility that older players might be just as skilful albeit in different aspects of the game. If someone points out this fact you hide behind the nonsense argument "THOSE skills are obsolete". Which contradicts your position by first agreeing that players were skilled in different aspects of the game but then attempts to squirm out of it by judging the past in today's context. Which is nonsensical because players from the past have equal right to judge today's RL by yesteryear's standards. Or are they obsolete, too?





A rugby league player, like any sportsman, is the product of the rules of the game. Change the rules and he changes.

Just because old-timers talk about there being more skill in their day doesn't make it true. What you see in any full game from yesteryear (say any time prior to the mid the 80s) is powder puff defences occasionally being pulled apart by nice skills, with a game played at walking pace and the occasional outrageous piece of violence thrown in for good measure.

The point is the game moves on, and so do the players. The only valid comparisons in terms of players are with their direct peers in time. Anything else is a bit silly.

The introduction of the kick on the last in 1983 got rid of a whole generation of fat props and hookers who had been the best in the business up to that point. A few adapted, many didn't. The coincident introduction of numerous Aussies and Kiwis blasted the game to a whole new standard.

Even before that, the 1982 Kangaroos had shown 'skills' way beyond anything seen in British RL before then. Yet those same 'Invincibles' would be easy meat today. They'd be carved to pieces as compared to today they were unfit and played the game at a slower pace against much softer defences.