Why isn't Rugby league much bigger in Ireland? (or Wales and Scotland)

[Groundhog]

Yeah I had a look earlier and everything he posted was critical and RL related.
RIP he will be truly missed. A true martyr to bellends the world over.

 

[RoosTah]

I have a same question but reversed. Why isn't Rugby Union much bigger in Australia?

A simple answer to that question would be a look at the Brumbies v Sharks game on saturday...

 

[SimonG]

I have a same question but reversed. Why isn't Rugby Union much bigger in Australia?

Sanzar and other Aussies will be able to tell you more, but I once heard this said (cannot rememeber who said it)...Aussies would ban scrums if they could....in other words make Union more like league. The slower, set piece nature of Union is not to their liking as much as the fast free flowing game that is league.

I like aspects of both codes...a hybrid of both would be my ideal game. More free flowing running like League, but with Union rules in the tackle. Line out id like gone while the scrum I could leave out (not fussed either way). Union is better with the diagonal attacking/defending lines so theres more room to run...whereas League seems like two straight lines so it gets very congested and so there's less passes.

Open up a can of worms here, my own personal belief is the two codes should merge again and combine the best elements of both.

 

[welshglory]

The biggest thing i can't stand about union is that most top level matches are decided by referees. It's pretty basic at levels under pro level, but it's too complicated a game to ref with all the analysis that teams do these days, they will find any way to exploit the laws. There's nothing they (refs) can do it about it either, they do a bloody good job for the most part because it's almost impossible to please everybody because of the number of laws there are.
Like how the hell can you expect the ref to look at intent? How the hell is he supposed to be able to tell that? Do you want him to profile players? or racially stereotype? Or take into account past (not in game) actions which is ridiculous.
It's not even in the law book ffs you dumb emotional thick heads, think for a second will you.
This is why need to make things simpler, not league simple though. We need to clean them up and refine them...somehow.

I really hope that if some big incident happens in the future they all decide to strike. I really do, i would fully support them and encourage them. Then it would shut up most of the thick heads possibly. These guys are doing it for the love of the game.

I really feel for refs i do, without them we wouldn't have a game and yet they have an impossible job. Plus the game is professional so they are scrutinised from every direction possible.

The rucks are a shambles and it will in games change depending on refs, team intent, styles.
Scrums need to be cleaned up somehow. No idea. The current laws have done absolutely nothing imo. It's actually made it worse for the attacking teams since the opposing team will just shove you off the ball lol!!! It's a joke. It's always been fine under pro level though...hmmm funny that. You need to make it impossible for teams and refs to have their own interpretation. We need to really look at the biomechanics of it. Something needs to radically change but i still want it to be a contest and a way to restart the game. Not the joke that is the scrum in rugby league.

Lineouts though are perfect now, i have no idea why anyone would want to see that go. It gives us great variation in athletes as well.

I don't care for league, when i watch it i'm just not interested about it.
League just looks like 13 man bashing it into each other and then kicking it after 5 of those to me with a some guys running in waves behind other guys.

I like the multi faceted play from union, the war/gladiatorial like feel to it. I love the tactical and strategic element of it. It feels more free flowing to me, i don't know but for me league feels really tight and regimented.
It's different to any other team sport because of all these things and this is why i love it. I love the camaraderie, i love that anybody can play it, i love how tight nit the rugby community is around the world, the drinking culture... for the most part. However i hate the snobbish attitude that some hold, the amateur head in the sand attitude, the old boy mentality. Important to note that these are very prevalent in places where the game is played with the lower class as well in NZ, Wales, Ireland so it's not a class thing. It's a dick-head and rugby union thing. It's a sort of we're better than everybody else attitude and we're more pure. It absolutely sickens me.

 

[SimonG]

Some really good points there...totally agree that the ref has far too big a say in Union, especially giving pens. One way to decrease that would be to reduce pens to 2 points (or even increase tries to 8). For most casual fans such as myself, we don't have a scooby do what the pen was given for most of the time...seems completely at the whim of the ref (especially when the pundits in commentary constantly question them).

Interesting comment on the snobbish old boy network in the game....that was my perception but not being among them i haven't witnessed it first hand. Have seen this attitude towards other sports though (league especially).

 

[RoosTah]

I don't care for league, when i watch it i'm just not interested about it.
League just looks like 13 man bashing it into each other and then kicking it after 5 of those to me with a some guys running in waves behind other guys.

When you don't understand something it's easy to dismiss it with one-off lines like that. League fans here do it all the time, describing Union as just 'kick, kick, kick penalty'. Both are uninformed simplifications.

There's a lot more depth to League than a lot Union guys give it credit. It's not quite as diverse in the styles of play, but then American Football is more diverse in its offerings than pretty well anything in terms of tactics and style, so it's a question of what you're after. For instance, I also love the diverse styles of play on offer in Union, but sometimes wish it wasn't so diverse that games like the Brumbies-Sharks game on Saturday were possible...

I like the multi faceted play from union, the war/gladiatorial like feel to it. I love the tactical and strategic element of it. It feels more free flowing to me, i don't know but for me league feels really tight and regimented.

This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, but strategy and tactics are really quite different things, and there's plenty of both in League. Strategy is more global; from a sporting perspective it includes your marketing strategy, training, dietary approach, pyshcological attitude and communications. Tactics meanwhile are much more specific and deal very much with how you approach targeting the physical weaknesses of your opponent in a specific match.

League is an intensely gladitorial sport with a greater emphasis on collisions and power, but also on speed and ball skills. The entire ethos is built around maximising ball in play and rewarding the team that can do most with the ball, rather than focusing on the competition for the ball like in Union.

Sanzar and other Aussies will be able to tell you more, but I once heard this said (cannot rememeber who said it)...Aussies would ban scrums if they could....in other words make Union more like league. The slower, set piece nature of Union is not to their liking as much as the fast free flowing game that is league.

The preference for ball in hand rugby has become a sort of law of Australian Rugby League/Union, but in terms of explaining the divide I think it's more social...

Ultimately, I think the decision to stay amateur and largely focused (but not confined to) on the very WASPish private school system for its development hindered the game and contributed to it being viewed as a game that wasn't for or of 'the people', as it were. People liked aspects of it, but the decision to close the doors on the working man in 1908 was a poor one. In a country like Australia with an ingrained dislike of class structures and a suspicion of authorities in general, it effectively resulted in the vast majority of Australians turning on Rugby, and ultimately the game lost both its best talent and a large number of its supporters.

In truth, the game was never as elitist here as it was in England, but perceptions inform reality and that is effectively how the 20th century played out; union having niche support and losing its best talent to the professional Rugby League, which along with AFL was the 'everyman' sport of its regions.

 

[SimonG]

Very interesting Sanzar....how come NZ isn't the same as Australia with League bigger than Union as it is in Oz? Do kiwis not also have a similar dislike of class structure?? Rugby Union in South Africa I understand as the whites were the ruling class...France too as the ruling class (Vichy) outlawed league and Union took hold.

In the north of Ireland Rugby Union is almost exclusively Protestant Grammar schools...descendants of the British ruling class. There are rare exceptions (me) but I got playing it by pure chance as Willie Anderson (former Ireland player) happened to make a visit to one of our PE classes at the behest of our teacher. For whatever reason Rugby league never got off the ground here.

What's your view on the well trotted out line that Rugby league is one dimensional? Five tackles then kick, repeat. Is this ignorance or is it a broad generalisation of the game?

 

[RoosTah]

Very interesting Sanzar....how come NZ isn't the same as Australia with League bigger than Union as it is in Oz? Do kiwis not also have a similar dislike of class structure?? Rugby Union in South Africa I understand as the whites were the ruling class...France too as the ruling class (Vichy) outlawed league and Union took hold.

From what I know of NZ it's not that the class thing wasn't an issue, but rather that the game was already massively inclusive and played mostly by people who worked the land. It was already across the whole country by the time of the split, and League only seemed to get a foothold in Auckland but was otherwise rejected.

Other than that I'll leave it to the kiwis here to give their thoughts.

What's your view on the well trotted out line that Rugby league is one dimensional? Five tackles then kick, repeat. Is this ignorance or is it a broad generalisation of the game?

I think anyone with a genuine appreciation of League will tell you that's an ignorant simplification of the game not unlike league fans saying rugby is just a glorified penalty shoot out.

The level of variation in play, and the tactics employed provide a lot of depth within the essential structure of the game. As I said, the key difference is that Union is about the contest for the ball, whilst league is fundamentally focussed on how you use it.

 

[Saints1]

It's a ridiculous simplification to be honest.

 

[SimonG]

Happened to watch a Rugby Union vs Rugby league vid on YouTube (Stuart Barnes for Union and Mike Stephenson for league) and that's where I heard Barnes say league was one dimensional (he said it a few times which wound up Stephenson). Was thinking it sounded a bit ignorant.

This is it;

 

[RoosTah]

It's a fairly common and simplistic criticism from the more parochial Union types to be honest...

It's true that there is more styles of union than their are styles of league, but I'd argue that's because League has actively tried to eliminate the sort of snooze inducing football that 10 man rugby represents. You used to have territorial kicking duels in League like you do in Union, which meant you got a sort of 8 man League game at times. With the elimination of competitive scrums (the primary mechanism for getting the ball back if you won a kicking duel and found touch) the advantage of this sort of territorial kicking was eliminated. All I can say is thank god it has been, as anyone who saw the Sharks-Brumbies game on Saturday can tell you it is just awful to watch.

 

[SimonG]

You are a wallaby fan tho Sanzar.

I miss the old running Rugby tbh (circa '95 RWC). When player bulk/mass and defensive structures wasn't the priority and the emphasis was on running with the ball.

 

[Saints1]

Happened to watch a Rugby Union vs Rugby league vid on YouTube (Stuart Barnes for Union and Mike Stephenson for league) and that's where I heard Barnes say league was one dimensional (he said it a few times which wound up Stephenson). Was thinking it sounded a bit ignorant.

This is it;

The problem here is that with Barnes and Stevo being let loose in a TV studio, anything can happen............

 

[ratsapprentice]

...completely irrelevant, I know - but I love the way that whenever Stevo is asked a question he doesn't respond to the person who asked it... he turns to the camera and starts a monologue!

It get's me every time.

 

[Saints1]

It makes me feel massively uncomfortable. I always envisage him to be thinking on how to thwart that pesky International Rescue.