I watched it for a short while; when they spent 5 minutes waxing lyrical because Sam Burgess tackled someone, complete with multiple replays, I switched it off.

There is no denying the popularity, excellent marketing and buckets of cash that slosh around RU, but it's a shockingly poor spectacle for the most part; rather than feel bitter about RU, I feel disappointed in RL - with the right people in charge, RL could be making significant headway into grabbing some of that attention.

RU isn't more popular and richer because it objectively has a better product; it clearly hasn't. 'The right people in charge' would help a little, but the reasons for league's weaknesses vis-a-vis union are well-rehed here, and they are largely geographical, social, and, yes, if you will, political.

Is that the same IRB/World Rugby whose 7s competition (which is at next years Olympics ironically) was blatantly copied by RL in its 9s format? World Rugby must be doing a good job if RL needs to nick its ideas eh? And you think £150m is 'pitiful'? What does that make the RLWC profit of £2m look like? And that was considered a success on here

Comparing Rugby League to Union is a futile exercise. We've been our own sport for 120 years, it's time to stop bitterly looking over at RU and instead looking at what they and other sports do well, and learning/taking things from that & figuring out what's holding our sport back. This chip of the shoulder attitude elements of our sport has towards Union is embarrassing.

RL has never really known how to promote or market the game. Brilliant product though.
RU has always known how to promote and market the game. Poor product though.
Soccer really doesn't have to promote its game because it is so simple yet people try to explain it's complicated when it isn't.
The real question is why isn't an excellent product so well known and despite efforts so far, it isn't?
There are obvious answers, but I would suggest that by looking at everything from different angles, coming up with a viable proposition and working with it, it could be done. It will cost, no doubt, but then the clubs would rather throw money away on 2nd rate players etc rather than take an income cut and combine to get a good marketing & development plan going.
However, if people are happy with the current situation then so be it. The games position is locked and progress, if any, will be at a pace to suit. Just watch others leave RL behind.

I would tend to agree; I think the clubs and the RFL have a shared responsibility to raise the profile of the game and as you say - that takes investment. We seemed to be on the right track a bit with the Extraordinary Rugby themed stuff a couple of years ago - finally focussing on the players and personalities within the game, which is what will sell it; but like most RFL initiatives, that appears to have fizzled out.

I'd suggest that a top-down restructure of the RFL would be the starting point - the sport should be lead by someone with the vision and talent to promote the game effectively and I wouldn't be against a top-slice of central funding to create a proper PR team to help them achieve that; if that helped clubs shift more ST's and/or sponsorship deals, the return on that lost income should be enough to appease even the whiniest of club chairmen.

It's all pie in the sky of course - we seem as a sport to be satisfied with our place as a colloquial northern pastime and I can see no real desire to make the drastic kind of changes that are needed to shift this particular paradigm; unless the billion dollar TV deal in Australia prompts some of the more forward thinking chairmen start asking some uncomfortable questions of Big Nige and co?

I was at the game on Saturday.....1st time at Twickenham. I was there as a guest of the RFU with the junior team that I coach. The stadium was excellent...great facilities, well organised...not quite as good as Wembley...but not far off. The game was terrible...total bore-fest. The 1st half was OK....I literally can't remember anything about the 2nd half....a truly awful sporting spectacle. And the atmosphere in the stadium was non-existent. I've been in better atmospheres at Wilderspool with 4,500 people watching.

As for Burgess...he will have seen more proper action in a full contact training session at Souths.

I have got a good chance of getting hold of England v Australia World Cup tickets....and if I do...I will sell them on and make a tidy sum.

Rugby Union.....its the emperors new clothes.

And always has been.

For me, it was a case of 'once seen, never again'.

And when they place it side-by-side with League, like Leeds did on Friday, it really does highlight how good one code is and how bad the other is.

It's one of the biggest media conspiracies, given how long they've grossly over-hyped that garbage.

So if one bad half and a bad atmosphere in one game makes the whole of the sport rubbish that means RL is poopie as I've seen some awful games with church-like atmospheres in Super League. Or, conveniently, does that not apply to RL?

I'm leaning towards Galliant on this one.

Oxford Exile goes to one game, which has the same meaning as a SL pre-season friendly, and tells everyone the atmos & game was crap. No .

I read it that he was using his experience at that game to illustrate a broader view that the product is poor; as opposed to suggesting that's his first and only experience of RU and he was making a judgement about the whole sport off the back of it. Given that he also said he coaches a jr RU team, I think my interpretation is probably closer to the truth.

But I'm sure he can speak for himself.

I played yawnion for 5 years at school & watched it for 20. It's poop.

This whole 69 page thread has reminded me of something a famous Welsh rugby player who played RL for a while (for the money) once said at my local RFC- 'I think Union and League fans have alot in common. They are both obsessed with Union.'

That's amusing coming from a union fan who spends a worrying amount of time stalking a rugby league forum.

I'm a fan of both codes so can comment on both. If by 'stalking' you mean 'looking at' then that makes you a stalker too.

Pull the other one

Alrite gallstones me owd mucker whatever happened to they can sell out every game? Were are the drunken louts lad the welsh had the heads screwed on right and cut prices,can't wait to watch nz run 100 pts a game up and await the daily mail backlash condemning the tournament as a farce,loads of made up nations full of multi nationals and rl get condemned for it oh the irony.....swing low sweet chariot lad

Why is RU a poor product?

I'm very much in agreement with 'The Emporers New Clothes' analogy. It seems almost trendy to jump on board the Rugby Union Jingoistic, Patriotic, Hooray for us, good old Johnny bandwagon but when you watch the product itself it's awful!

Somebody will eventually shout "the king is naked" and everyone will see what a poor sport Rugby Union is.

Turgid, stop start, over officiated, poorly skilled, sub standard athletes (in some positions) and lacking in any form of WOW moments!

Compared with Rugby League it's like watching U8s!

However, the establishment created Rugby Union and they continue to propagate it ahead of better fayre! They are aided and abetted by Rugby Leagues inability to market itself and world class ability to shoot it's own toes off.

As the old saying goes

'Rugby Union is an amateur game run by professionals while Rugby League is a professional game run by amateurs'

Do 'good' sports have to be non stop, highly skilled, under officiated to be attractive?

American football probably sits within the above criteria but seems very popular. Cycling is very one dimensional but popular, cricket very slow but internationally attractive.

Maybe as RL fans we are missing the point.

Or maybe I'm right!

Clearly the Rugger Buggers get something out of their sport. Why else would they turn up in tens of thousands for international games?

Attempting to claim League is objectively "better" than Union is just silly.

It's a different sport.

Union fans enjoy the scrums, enjoy the lineouts, rucks, mauls etc. We don't have them in league, so when we see them on tv, our ignorant minds think "it's just a bunch of players jumping on each other".

The skillsets aren't poorer than League either, in fact I'd say that you have to be a lot more specialised in your position/skill in Union than League. League, players have to be good at all skills to a degree, Union you generally have one job. In League, brute athleticism can get you along way, look at Tom Lineham at Hull, the lad has only just learnt to play a ball properly, can't pass, tackling technique is iffy, positionally naïve. But, he's big and fast, and has been snapped up by Wire for a fee.

The 10m rule gives our players the space to make the big hits, put on set moves, go on one man dazzling rules - that's why we love RL. Union, it's a different game, there's no 10m rule, there's no limited tackles, there's two extra men on the field.

It's a completely futile debate to discuss which is the 'best'. We should be looking at what they do off the field, how they develop & promote their game - and learning lessons from that.

So back to something like the topic in hand, will Sam make the WC squad? and if he doesn't will he return to league? I just can't see him hanging around for 4 more years to see if he can make the next WC squad.

I would be surprised. Why should he get the nod over experienced players who've been playing their chosen position all their lives?

And, if anything, the decision to play him in the centres at the weekend against France puts him up against plenty of good centres (including two from his own club!), when, if anything, he might stand more chance of getting in the squad at 6 or 8.

Will he come to league? Quite possibly, but it won't be SL if he does. Plenty in the NRL will be queuing up for his signature.