Quote ="sally cinnamon"I remember about 10 years or so ago, there were plenty of doom mongers in RL who predicted that there would be a hybrid game within ten years and RL would die out. It was fashionable back then to say "league is dead/on its deathbed" and people were worried that because Sky owned the game Sky would force the codes to merge. You had the first talks of 'joint ventures' between Leeds Rhinos/Tykes and Wigan/Orrell or Warrington/Sale back around that point.
League went through IMO its lowest ebb in my memory, in the period of around 1996-99, you had the Super League war in Australia and the game splitting into two rival leagues, and the retirement of a lot of greats of the game, in England at least we were pretty short of talent in the late 1990s, compared to just a few years earlier. Then the Aussie game got hit by the loss of Sailor, Rogers and Tuqiri and we lost Robinson and Harris.
I never seriously thought there would be a hybrid game but it was talked about quite a lot back then, but two things happened to kill it off for good, one England became very good at RU and won the World Cup, which strengthened RU considerably up here and made them less interested in the idea of a merger. Then the Aussie game went into a boom of churning out talent to replace the old greats, when guys like Inglis, Slater, Folau started to emerge in the back line they were even better players than the greats of a decade earlier, Mullins, Ettingshausen, Renouf etc. Andrew Johns started outplaying the level that Stuart and Langer had been at. Over here standards improved a lot in SL, clubs like Hull, Warrington, Huddersfield who had been jokes in the late 1990s became strong, Hull KR came back into SL, Catalans came into the competition and did better than people expected, and the standard of Aussie imports improved. I think the game now is in a much healthier state than it was a decade ago.'"
On a slightly separate note. It appear to be a good sign for the future of League in a union country ATM.
It could be argued that a club league/union game is entirely possible. Both codes bring in a relatively similar number of fans at club level (and in some cases League is dwarfing union crowds) So there is an incentive (at least, I would imagine, from the union people) to try and bolster support for a club game by uniting both codes.
However, that is all conjecture. What is fact, is that there has been a serious increase in support for League over the past 25 years and there are clubs in France and the rest of Europe (although France seems like the most likely hot bed). Also, there are fans in London (although I can't speak for their numbers) and, more importantly,a massive increase in players being produced in these places.
I think with a little bit of patience and some more effective marketing from the RFL over the next few years, there could be a dominant push by Rugby League for a larger share of coverage and also, naturally, more respect.
To say League is dying, I think, is a rash statement.
