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Change the Name of Rugby League Thread

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Why is every single person seemingly so twattish regarding the two codes? Is it compulsory that being a league fan must engender hatred of union, and vice versa?

I enjoy watching both codes virtually equally - both have their highlights and both can be thoroughly turgid to watch when played badly: but what sports don't?
Could swear I read an old post from you recently where you were going on about why one code was so much better than the other...cbf to dig it up now though! Thinking about it, am pretty sure you were going on about League being better, the reason it stood out to me is because you seem to have been involved with quite a bit of Union lately.

It's possible that I completely imagined it, mind you, I've beend rinking a lot lately :ph34r:
 

Neil Pickup

Cricket Web Moderator
Could swear I read an old post from you recently where you were going on about why one code was so much better than the other...cbf to dig it up now though! Thinking about it, am pretty sure you were going on about League being better, the reason it stood out to me is because you seem to have been involved with quite a bit of Union lately.

It's possible that I completely imagined it, mind you, I've beend rinking a lot lately :ph34r:
There is an awful lot of horse**** within many of my past posts.

You probably could find it, but then again you can also find plenty championing socialism, demanding David Fulton play for England, and insisting that every private school gets shut down. My teenage opinions were impressive in their ability to see the world as black and white and their utter omission of any of the millions shades of grey inbetween.

It's a shame I didn't live in Otago, really.
 
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Langeveldt

Soutie
Hey Goughy (or any other Saffies) this is a bit OT, but I always wanted to know what happened to League in South Africa. I do recall back in the day prior to Rugby going professional and the Super League war in League. League was growing in South Africa they were starting to establish themselves as the number four side.

I do remember South Africa doing to the Super League and then once that folded, so did professional Rugby League in South Africa. Is League still played at professional level in SA. I looked at wiki and can't find anything on the game after 97 and SL.

EDIT:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_van_Vollenhoven_Cup#Tom_van_Vollenhoven_Cup

Tom van Vollenhoven Cup, is this professional tournment?
That competition looks like it's exclusively centered around the Vaal River/Midrand/East Rand area.. So an area about twice the size of Yorkshire which would suggest that it's a fairly localized pursuit like in England..

Needless to say, I used to live in Randburg , and I've never heard of anyone say anything about Rugby League, never seen it on TV, never seen any evidence for it existing in SA at all..

And long may that continue..

Excuse my total ignorance on a subject that I've been ranting and raving about, but what is the reason for the split in the first place? Or have their always been two seperate codes?
 
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Simon

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Pretty sure South Africa played at the 2000 Rugby League world cup. Also think we put 100 on them.
 

Simon

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Excuse my total ignorance on a subject that I've been ranting and raving about, but what is the reason for the split in the first place? Or have their always been two seperate codes?
My understanding is that League split from union in the early around the turn of the century (1900's) basically to start a professional game, something that the union officials didnt want to happen. Thats pretty much a very brief justification of how it evolved to rugby league.
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
My understanding is that League split from union in the early around the turn of the century (1900's) basically to start a professional game, something that the union officials didnt want to happen. Thats pretty much a very brief justification of how it evolved to rugby league.
And why was such a high profile sport such as Union, amateur as late as 1995? Should really read up on the history, seeing as I'm now majorly into the game
 

Simon

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And why was such a high profile sport such as Union, amateur as late as 1995? Should really read up on the history, seeing as I'm now majorly into the game
Good question. As someone who has very little interest in Union or the history if it would still like to know why as well.
 

Smudge

Hall of Fame Member
The upper-class roots of the sport in the UK. Rugby union (or "rugger") was seen (apparently, of course, as I've never been to England) by officials and leading lights in the sport in England as a rough-and-tumble pastime for the "professionals" such as lawyers, businessmen et al to play on the weekend as a distraction from their week in the office. As such, the administrators tended to be retired gin-swillers who didn't feel as though rugby players needed the cash, and it would be considered "vulgar" for players to accept payment.

Of course, in somewhere like New Zealand, rugby union had become the game for all New Zealanders (the name of a photography book by Peter Bush, as it happens) and for many players from lower socio-economic backgrounds, leaving to go on a six-week tour (or as was the case in the first half of the 20th century, a six-month tour), meant their family had to go without an income or the player's club would do some fundraising.

While I don't believe the NZRU or ARU made any grand overtures to the IRB during the 1970s and 1980s, several All Blacks proved to be interesting test cases when seeking royalties from the sales of their autobiographies. If I remember correctly, Mourie was banned for a period, as were Stu Wilson and Bernie Fraser, while the pugnacious Andy Haden took the IRB full on after they threatened a ban if he took royalties from Boots And All.

By the time the 1987 World Cup rolled around, "shamateurism" was rife. All Blacks would appear in TV advertisements (John Kirwan advertised Jockey underwear and bananas - quite a disturbing mix looking back at it), "boot money" was an unspoken regularity in English club rugby and plenty of Antipodean players (and the South Africans in isolation, like Naas Botha) would head to France and Italy for the off-season and would return with some rugby, and a heck of a lot of money, under the belt.

Even in the early-mid 1990s, the IRB cast a very unimpressed eye over the formation of the "All Blacks Club" by the NZRU - an attempt by the union to help recompense All Blacks for their time away from their jobs. It was only when Ross Turnbull (with backing from Kerry Packer as the main broadcaster) came a'knocking around the time of the 1995 World Cup and signed up the Springboks and all bar two of the All Blacks en masse that the IRB was dragged kicking and screaming into the professional era.

In fact, it could be argued that if Jeff Wilson and Josh Kronfeld hadn't made the stand they did (by refusing to go with the rest of their team mates to the newly-formed WRC), the Southern Hemisphere unions would have been dead in the water.

There's more about it here.
 

Burgey

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Campo was one of the shamateurs in the 80s and 90s. Used to make a killing in Italian rugby IIRC.
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Excuse my total ignorance on a subject that I've been ranting and raving about, but what is the reason for the split in the first place? Or have their always been two seperate codes?
The upper-class roots of the sport in the UK. Rugby union (or "rugger") was seen (apparently, of course, as I've never been to England) by officials and leading lights in the sport in England as a rough-and-tumble pastime for the "professionals" such as lawyers, businessmen et al to play on the weekend as a distraction from their week in the office. As such, the administrators tended to be retired gin-swillers who didn't feel as though rugby players needed the cash, and it would be considered "vulgar" for players to accept payment.
The public school roots of union in England were the catalyst for the original schism, mixed in with class-resentment, money & good old-fashioned hypocrisy. As Volts suggests rugby was seen as essentially a pastime for the professional classes; a manly pastime, but nothing that one would be so vulgar as to accept payment for. The amateur was king. However, in Yorkshire and Lancashire the manliness of the sport appealed to the tough working men from those (then) industrialised areas and the working-class dominated. Teams from the north also dominated their southern competitors and this, in itself, was a source of resentment amongst the old-school tie brigade.

Back in the late 19th century the "weekend" as we know it didn't exist, so to play in the game working-class folk would have to take time off from work &, with rugby being a full-contact sport, also ran the risk of further time off work to recover from injuries. The northern clubs proposed to pay their players "broken time" payments to compensate for loss of income from work (expenses, essentially). The idea was voted down by the southern-dominated RFU (despite players having been paid "expenses" previously, as with the 1888 tour to Oz; suggesting that at least part of the reason for the "no" vote was the northern upstarts' successes) so in 1895 22 clubs met at a hotel in Huddersfield to form what was then called the Northern Union, which allowed teams to pay players for time missed from their jobs.

The RFU took considerable umbrage at this, banning all players who played professional rugby from union for life and, indeed, extended this blanket ban to anyone who played rugby league, whether amateur or professional.

Such high-handedness is still the source of resentment amongst league fans, as I alluded to before. When league's Challenge Cup (their FA Cup) was hosted at Twickenham, that citadel of all that is southern, posh & elitist, whilst Wembley was rebuilt I know a lot of league fans considered it a betrayal, our own stedly included I think.
 

chaminda_00

Hall of Fame Member
The story I heard was that Campo pushed for professionism and everyone else followed. Prefer my story tbh.
 

Incey

Cricket Spectator
Just League, or something similar.

Although that could create confusion as 'League' is used across many sports.
 

NZTailender

I can't believe I ate the whole thing
Rename it after a rule in the game that also needs to be changed (or deleted completely).

Scrumball.

Scrummer.

idk.
 

andruid

Cricketer Of The Year
Headless chickens-face it all they do is run forwards blindly for 4 phases and then make a desperate kick for the goal line.
 

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