Now that is dedication. It costs me about £70 in petrol for each trip. I stay at my sisters, so the only other cost is alcohol, which can be excessive. Due to family matters and 7 weeks of working weekends all I've seen this season is Cardiff, which virtually cleaned me out. I'm coming over this weekend and really looking forward to it.

I have been going back and forward to IoM monthly for the past two years, the Flybe flight is ludicrously expensive manly due to the tax. Really like the place though.

Yeah it's a great place to live, the TT is on this week so it's mayhem! The beer tent is good though!

What's car insurance like over there with there being no speed limit?

It's no different to the Uk to be honest, which is surprising!

anyway, back on the union v league debate, having played union for over 20 years and watched league foe over 30 years. i consider them to be totally different games, both with good and bad aspects to them. to dismiss union as pants tells me people have never played the game.

Union is naff though, I played 5 years of it at school, alongside a couple guys who are playing top flight RU now. I was pretty much a utility player, played everywhere except hooker and the half backs at some point.

That union, what is that union?

school rugby union is hardly the yard stick is it though? i played Army rugby & open age rugby as a forward, both very demanding, real scrums for a start! and pretty brutal stuff at times. rugby league is so different, much more impact hits and fitness levels are much higher however to write union off as naff is poor tbh. as a spectator sport i agree league rules hands down, to play however union as a forward is a different kettle of fish.

Union is too slow, stop start stop start kick pile on stop start kick stop pile on kick. That pretty much sums up 80 mins of a union game... Yawn!

Union is second rate for many reasons. The only reason union is where it is, is due to better publicity, and it's played by southerners who have links to London who Overtime have run the media. In opposition RL is a working class northern sport. There's no comparison.

to be honest most rugby league fans just have a knee jerk reaction when union is mentioned, they respond as they think they are 'supposed' to respond

its like if you grow up a Rangers fan you are taught as a kid how to respond at the mention of Celtic

far too few people think for themselves, if you actually ask blokes like Mike Nicholas, John Bevan, Jonathan Davies, Allan Bateman etc, who have been there and done it at the top of both sports, they won't come out with these stupid responses about union, but you will hear it from rugby league plebs on the terraces

Some interesting comments and comparison from none other than Stuart Barnes!
[url=http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-league/state-of-origin/origin-ii-pace-and-skill-but-still-an-air-of-boredom-20110617-1g7t8.htmlStuart Barnes piece in the Sydney Morning Herald[/url
I can see where he's coming from when he talks about the very best Union, but as he also admits, "the best union is admittedly a rarity".

I am coaching both RU and RL at the moment and I can categorically state that the core skill levels in RU are massively behind those shown by juniors and youths in RL.

Interesting article that, I take his point about Union being a far more intelligent game but League still wins hands down for me.

He seems to begrudgingly admire the skill level of the players, but even the most ardent Union fan couldn't fail to be impressed by Origin. He should have taken his mate Stephen Jones from The Times along to see what he thought.

I don't mind RU when it is played well but most of the time it is slow, too much kicking and not expansive enough or in other words it is usually crap.

Absolutely right. You can't use RU played in schools as a yardstick for how the game is played. There are differing scrummaging restrictions for various age groups, and it's the same with the lineout. The biggest problem in both games is the scrum, in RL it's laughable, I've even seen referees tell sides not to push. In RU the scrum takes far too long to set these days and players can get severely penalised if the opposition Prop has a better technique. As a result teams hunt penalties rather than tries and the game becomes stifled.

It's a poor version of RL.

The likes of Stuart Barnes and his ilk cannot see the difference in class because he doesn't want to see it,typical union hack.

I think a lot of the issues league fans have with union is the traditional class divide, and league's underdog status and mentality that goes with it.

The reality is they're different sports. I don't play any sport, but I don't watch union for the same reason I don't watch, for example, cricket. The odd time I have seen it, it hasn't appealled to me. Simple as that. Nothing to do with league.

I like League.

I don't like Union just like I don't like swimming, showjumping, snooker or motor racing.

I don't think I'm going to worry about it.

I have played both when i was in the forces , however give me league over union anyday.

I played hooker in both codes I can vouch for the scrums being rather different. I have never in league had a stiff neck at full time which was caused by the battering from the opposition front row in the scrums.

it was quite an experience to play there in union, but however much it hurt my neck and shoulders the game isnt physically demanding like in league when your blowing smoke out your backside on your own line and the defenders are in your face like a pack of mad feckers and you crawl in to dummy half looking a for a willing forward to pass it on to and you hear those awful words .."take a scoot..!!"

in union the ball would simply be booted up field and into touch upon which you would offer your applause to the kicker and all go on a nice walk up field

This might be heresy but the best Union games can be better than League as when the ball is kept alive and based around a running game it has a flow to it that RL can't match. Unfortunately because skill levels in RU are so low, fitness levels patchy and the inevitable fact that forwards can easily kill the ball it proves to be a real rarity.

I tried to watch the Heineken Cup Final, and actually fell asleep after 20 minutes. I could watch a game of Union all day long back in the 90's, rushing home from school to watch the '95 world cup.

Now since I've discovered RL, I've finally realised how dull Rugby Union really is.

As for the article, I wouldn't waste my team reading anything by Stuart Barnes regarding RL, because I already know what the content will be. He's of a similar ilk to Stephen Jones.

Just to say, one of the best union players grew up playing league. Enough said