IF IT WERE TRUE IT WOULD BE AN EXCELLENT POST... THE REALITY IS THAT THE GAME IS MUCH... MUCH OLDER (sorry didn't mean to shout) the game evolved from a series of rules played at different public schools across England... the common [imyth [/iis that our game was founded at Rugby school by William Webb Ellis 'pick up the ball and running with it'...





the reality is that all codes of football have the same root, and all games evolved over time... it just happens that 2 of the codes have taken a more recent diversion, and both claim the same name!

Errrmmm not quite.

From a marketing and business point of view, RU have it sewn up. As long as we use the word rugby (for a game that ISN'T anything like RU) then we will always be in RU's shadow. Rugby's fat, poor, uncouth, uneducated, Northern cousin; as fair as the public are concerned of course.



Therefore we need to distance and differentiate ourselves from RU, and that's not going to happen as long as people think that "rugby is rugby." The way to do it is to distance ourselves from the very word "rugby"

Maybe we could rename the sport 'Superleague' and bring in a funky new badge?











Or not

Silliness aside...



I wasnt on about renaming the sport, I was merely on about rebranding it. There's a difference.



The powers that be should refer to the sport as RFL. Like they do with the NFL, AFL, GAA, NBA etc...

A friend of mine is a Kiwi and his kids refer to League as NRL.

I don't agree.



And the examples you have named.. most people know them as American football, Aussie rules or Gaelic football anyway.



Our game is 'Rugby'. It's just not 'Rugby Union'



I don't think rebranding /renaming it makes a blind bit of difference personally.

That's OK. You're not exactly the brightest spark, though, are you?

Clearly a lot brighter than some.

I thought back in the day that it was inevitable when the rahrahs chose the professional route we would end up with some sort of hybrid game. This was mainly due to the fact that union was such a boring spectacle that I didn't think they would attract enough spectators to make the game financially viable. However, their crowds are standing up fairly well but where there is a choice of watching either League or Union, as in our M62 corridor, then League wins hands down.



Personally I would like to see some sort of unification as I think our game has partly lost to its detriment the more technical aspects of the game such as contested scrums/play the balls, specialised hookers props etc and union is too reliant on gaining penalties rather than scoring trys.

No thanks. RL is the best product on any pitch, why would we want to make it inferior. There is more to sport than filling shiny stadiums and corporate boxes. I would rather watch local amatuer than some ised mix of union and league.

Union is abandonded as a sport and all the best players start playing League.



The slow little fat blokes with no necks and 6 foot 8 blokes all go back to not playing any sport at all.