Despite the recent upturn in fittness levels in RU at the top level, its still nowhere near RL. Complexities my booty, just smarts talking it up. They will be attracting good RL players not because its a better game, or neccesarily because of the higher profile, its all down to money as it was when players were coming to RL from RU. Its as simple as that. RFL take note and get your fricking finger out!!!

RU is nowhere near as fast as RL, the fitness levels and athleticism across the park are nowhere near RL.

The game itself in the home nations is not a great spectacle, in fact the english league during the winter is just awful to watch.

But to say there aren't complexities that are difficult to learn is utter rubbish.

It is hugely more complex than league, the breakdown is a nightmare at first, the defensive structure is massively different and the interpretation of the rules is difficult to say the least.

I am not a union fan, but i can see it for what it is, for a mid twenties top RL player going to a top RU team, the transition is VERY difficult for the first year or two.

Owen Farrell will become the next Johnny Wilkinson though - in that the only TV highlights we'll ever see of him will involve kicking for goal, but that won't matter as it's so damned important to them.

You can say that again! But when all’s said and done, just put a stopwatch on both games and time the parts of the matches when no actual running play is taking place. I wonder which game would have served up the most action?

RU is up there with Football, Darts, F1, Golf and Saturday night TV... Its baby food for the brain dead.

You don't need to watch it closely as you can pick up whats happening after you have reached from the sofa for your Pizza or tasteless Lager.....

If you say so chaps

You have to have played RU to appreciate it. I can understand frustrations re the scrummaging and breakdown laws, and the number of penalties, but the rules are such that players are coached tactics that will win the all important penalty. If side A is a far better scrummaging team than side B, then side A will constantly win penalties for the opposition weak scrum collapsing, breaking up and wheeling. I'm an official at a NE RU club and in our game yesterday we won a number of penalties and scored a try from our superior scrum. Last week we scored 7 tries, 5 were by forwards and were from close in. Not great to watch at times, but it did the business.

The point is that the great technical skills people talk of, cannot be seen when watching a game live. Its boring as hell, and gives you heaps of time to eat your prawn sarnies and sup yer Bolly. As you say, not great to watch, thankyou for agreeing

Plus, i think many people who post on here will have played at sometime...

It's different but its not rocket science. Hugely more complex? Nonsense. I am sure its a very convenient excuse if things don't quite go as smoothly as anticipated though for whatever reason.

Even people involved in RU get sick of the forwards prattling on about the complexities of the forward game and I am speaking from experience.

Or even coached it.

Ok lets give RU the benefit of the doubt that the forward play is technical. But so what? It is as boring as hell. I don't see the excitement of tactics that deliberately try to get penalties. Joel has decided to try RU and that is where he will probably stay. I doubt he would now admit that it is not as good to play or watch as RL.

I thought Graeme West's book was interesting to hear his view of playing RU as a forward. He said he got ed off playing RU because he never got the ball. He found it a revelation when he took up RL and was allowed to run with the ball and score tries!

I don't care how technical RU is. I just don't find it entertaining to watch. I have tried over many years to see the point but I just don't get it.

The complexities are in the rules, especially around the ruck and maul. Different referees use entirely different interpretations, that's where the problem arises. For example at Stockton we generally have Durham County referees. Yesterday we played 40 miles North and had a ref from Northumbria. His interpretation of the rules at the ruck and maul were completely different to what we are used to. He might as well have been from another planet.
Joel is bound to say he loves playing RU, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, same as those who come back, @I enjoyed RU, but I was missing RL.' You say what your current employer wants you to say.

Says it all..... Forget basic running and handling...

Odd that, as someone has said, that if its so complex as a game, they employ so many ex RL people at the highest level... Take a look at the backroom when Wilkinson won the world cup..

I played it for 5 years, I had not really watched a RL game until I was 19, nor played until a year later. 30+ years later I cannot watch more than a few seconds of yawnion (that's when there is actaully anything happening) without shaking my head in disbelief at the lack of basic abilities you take for granted in amateur RL.

I watch and appreciate Union but I came to the conclusion a long time ago Rugby League was the natural and obvious progression from Union. The fact a team can knock on, "win" the resulting scrum and gain 3 points from it is absolutely ludicrous.

You're absolutely right. There comes a point when a try is of secondary importance, because in some circumstances it's easier to win penalties.

need to reed this

Your spot on.
Ive been to 2 premier league RU games lately and shake my head at the lack of basic skill.
some comments i make to my daughter include " they cant pass, no wonder they keep kicking it" and " why dont they run it more , because nobody knows how to tackle"
and the stop start nature of the game prevents you getting excited for any length of time.
All RU fans should be made to go and watch a top superleague game, then see which code they watch in future

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Blame Wigan for that when we played and won the Twickenham sevens after being behind in the final and the yawnion men were in fine voice of Sweet Chariot .We sent a very strong side there and it made the Union bosses sit up and compare how fit we were to Union shortly after they appointed Phil Larder a lot more followed after that Sean Edwards ,Ellery Hanley ,Joe Lydon ,Billy Maginty ,Dennis Betts to name a few Faz is in the England RU coaching as now .

Blame Wigan? For having a good team? Should you not be blameing the RFL and every other RL club for not employing them. ...There is no way Wigan could have employed them all.

WINNERS, and they were allowed to escape because then as now the bulk has RL is happy to see itself as a victim, rather than producing winning players, for a winning sport, that should be winning all this silly money that goes to RU in this country.

Very true, Shaun Edwards applied for jobs with Warrington and London Broncos and neither were interested in him.

Blame Wigan loosley it was a wake up call to the RU to see that RL players were far fitter and more skillfull yes you can blame the RL for not employing them as coaches .Phil Larder was the Great Britain coach who the RL sacked and RU snapped him up as to the RL clubs themselves all they could see was Aussie coaches coming over here and was not bothered anout home bred coaches.

"Blame Wigan loosely"!!!??? For producing winners, give your head a shake.

I remember when Wigan made their first forays into playing cross-code matches. The main desire was to prove to RU people that we had the better athletes, better tactics etc. I still remember with disbelief how an RU guy I worked with made a £50 bet with someone that Bath would beat Wigan in BOTH of those cross-code matches. Astonishing. They really were living in La La Land and we so wanted to prove this to them.

But it's no wonder they sat up and took notice of us afterwards - Wigan in particular (much the way the Aussies initially only took Wigan seriously out of all the British clubs, because of our WCC victories - we lost Clarkey, Platt and Betts as a direct result).

But once RU fully entered the realms of professionalism, it was only a matter of time before they started looking to recruit our stars regardless of any cross-code matches. The agents began marketing our best lads to them straight away. In addition, you had Clive Woodward, who was then the England RU boss, always attending our games and bigging us up.

To say that Wigan are to blame for the current situation is a very simplistic interpretation of what actually happened, but it's not atypical of certain type of RL thinking - in other words, it would have been preferable if we'd not been very good and had therefore passed without notice. Well, not in my book.