Rugby league is dying predictions

copa

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Thread starter #1
Remember all the predictions about RL dying... they all came not long after RU went openly pro..

Here is a reminder of one of them..

wasn't he wrong!

http://www.mysporttoday.co.uk/ViewA...icleID=1496931&sitecode=leed&sportcode=rugbyl

Five years on... and stronger than ever


PETER SMITH INSIDE RUGBY LEAGUE

TIME to fulfil a promise. Five years ago yesterday, this newspaper's Inside Rugby League page reflected on comments made about the sport by journalist Frank Keating in his Guardian newspaper column.


Keating claimed: "To my mind, these last few months have seen rugby league doomed. It is only a matter of time – and not much of that either – before rugby league in Britain is forced to merge with a voracious union. I give it five years, and that is being generous."
This column promised then to return to the subject on the second Thursday in May, 2006. That time has arrived – and we're still here!
Keating could not have been much more wrong. Not only is rugby league alive and kicking, it's making genuine advances at both national and international level.

The substance of Keating's article was that league could not survive the loss of its best players to rugby union.
At the time, only Jason Robinson had made the switch. Since then, high profile code breakers have included Iestyn Harris, Henry Paul and Andy Farrell.

Harris and Paul both made the change, proved a point – and then came home. Injury-stricken Farrell has yet to lace a boot in anger in his new code, a year after he moved from Wigan to Saracens.

Exodus

Keating claimed money would not be the reason for the exodus. He said: "What players want is the thrill of the big time, the genuine international up-front occasion in packed-out stadiums; the experience of being watched by millions the year over."

Paul earned six union caps for England –- despite being a Kiwi, but that tells you plenty about the dearth of young, home-grown talent in the Guinness Premiership – and Harris starred for Wales in the 2003 World Cup. But still they prefer "insular, homely" – as Keating put it – rugby league.

Since Keating made his outspoken attack on league, the code has gone from strength to strength. Attendances in engage Super League are booming – up from an average of 7,223 in 2001 to 8,977 last season.

The Super League Grand Final is now established as one of the major events on the British sporting calendar and that Saturday night at Old Trafford in October has become a hot ticket – with sell outs for the past three seasons.

Rugby league is creating an event culture, with the past two Gillette Tri-Nations tournaments playing to full houses. Last year's Northern Rail Cup final was a sell-out and National League Grand Finals day also regularly plays to full houses.

Keating s:D:D:D:D:D:Ded at rugby league's "low-key, dismal, unwatched World Cup on the back of mundane club contests against the same blokes you played a fortnight ago and three weeks before that..."

The 2008 World Cup, already in its qualifying stages, will be staged Down Under – and low-key and dismal it certainly won't be.
As for mundane club contests – this reporter hasn't attended many mundane Super League contests over the past five years, certainly none of the 21,000-plus sells-outs for a series of epic Leeds-Bradford derbies could fall into that category.

The top try scorer in union's Guinness Premiership is Leicester's Tom Varndell, with 14. Wasps' Tom Voyce, with 10, is the only other player in double figures.

After 13 rounds of engage Super League, Hull's Kirk Yeaman tops the try charts with 19 and there are already six other players in double figures – with an average of 8.71 tries scored per match. That says quite a lot about the relative entertainment value of the two competitions.

In 2001, Les Catalans were just a pipe dream. Now the new French club is up and running – and attracting crowds in excess of many of those pulled in by the heartland clubs and teams in union's Premiership.

French union outfit USAP's attempts to undermine Les Catalans have run aground in the face of resistance from Perpignan's mayor and local business people, whose takings have been swollen by the twice-monthly influx of English fans.

Sitting at his keyboard five years ago, Keating would have choked on his cocoa at the prospect of Harlequins – the very essence of the union establishment – taking an upstart league club under their wing.

It's happened and it is working. As Inside RL on May 10, 2001 pointed out – the obvious way forward is not merger of the two codes, but of closer working relationships between the rival sports.

Viewing figures on both Sky and the BBC are buoyant and an increasing percentage of league's audience on the satellite channel is from outside the heartland areas.

As this column noted last week, the Rugby League Conference now includes 86 development sides from all over England, as well as Scotland and Wales.

The Rugby League European Federation has 15 nations under its wing and new domestic competitions are springing up all over the world.
Who could have imagined five years ago that the West Indies Rugby League would be preparing for a second season? Sadly, league still finds itself the victim of unwarranted attacks from union apologists who, having nothing positive to say about their own sport, have to have a go at ours.

Not everything in the garden is rosy, but the sport is making real progress, particularly outside its heartland areas.
Keating and his like expected that when union went openly professional a decade ago, that it would mean an end to rugby league – on the basis that the only reason for playing the 13-a-side game was to get paid for it.

Anyone who thought that has obviously never set foot outside the Home Counties. In fact, professionalism in union has provided a huge boost for league as it means thousands of union players are now free to try their hand at the other code.

Clubs like Gloucester Warriors, St Ives Roosters, Somerset Vikings and the rest would never have existed had the old barriers remained.
League has been under attack for the past 111 years and has survived. Keating and his kind should get used to it, rugby league is here to stay.
 

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akazie

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#2
Geez I wish I got paid the write shyte in a newspaper and bash the footy codes I don't like.:D

It's good that people remember these things that were said, it gives them the perfect opportunity shove it up their arses when they have been proved wrong with their own writings.:thumbsu:
 

LebaneseForces

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#3
Brilliant Article!!! Rugby League is far from a dying sport... It's getting bigger and better by the year!!! No sport can go through what Rugby League has gone through for over 100 years and still survive! The Love and passion from the supporters is unmatched IMHO!! Brilliant Stuff, Long Live The Greatest Game!!
 

Adrian Shelton

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#5
A soon to come NRL cap rise here should be good too, Union if you want to pay to play, Leauge if you want to GET paid to play i say(and always will!!!)
 

copa

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robbieando said:
I would doubt that very much. Sure there is a high amount of love and passion, but other sports can more than match Rugby League in that area.
Throwing buckets of cold water over passion.


"rugby league is the greatest sport in the world!"

cue robbieando to tell me how my upbringing and the sports I was exposed to as a child has influenced my thinking... and that perhaps rugby league isn't really the greatest sport in the world in the eyes of other people..

:p
:p
 
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copa said:
cue robbieando to tell me how my upbringing and the sports I was exposed to as a child has influenced my thinking... and that perhaps rugby league isn't really the greatest sport in the world in the eyes of other people..
Pretty much spot on. For me the Sport with the most passion is Soccer and the upcoming World Cup will prove that.
 

cos789

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copa said:
cue robbieando to tell me how my upbringing and the sports I was exposed to as a child has influenced my thinking... and that perhaps rugby league isn't really the greatest sport in the world in the eyes of other people..
Yes it's amazing how such a huge propportion of people in NSW follow NRL and such a huge proportion of people in Victoria follow AFL .

Sorry if reality is so depressing :(
 

copa

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robbieando said:
Pretty much spot on. For me the Sport with the most passion is Soccer and the upcoming World Cup will prove that.
Passion manifests itself in different ways...

I played in front of up to 4000 people for my american high school football team.. away fans would travel for hours to get to the game in hired buses etc.

It was called live on radio and would be shown on TV on delay.

There was singing, marching bands... media interviews after the game..

Fans would even come to watch us train..

That was a passionate community.

ANd this was just for highschool games.

Not passionate enough though to play the sport as an adult. AFter highschool that was it. No more football for many players. People in the community didn't care enough to play socially, or establish community based clubs for those in their 20s/30s...

but they still were as passionate as hell... but couldn't be ar$ed playing.
 

Hoops

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#10
Though I don't beleive Rugby League is in anyway dying. I do beleive the NRL is not as healthy administrative wise as they would have us beleive.

Unlike the AFL, there is no in depth annual report, with real figures on how the NRL is travelling.
What are they trying to hide?
You only here that crowds and mechandise sales are up by x%. but costs are growing too, the NRL might of made its highest ever revenue of $100m, but what was the expenditure?
If everything was hunky dory, you would think they would be more transparent in their dealings.

Also only one team recorded a profit last year. although we havent been given any specifics on it, It says to me that the NRL and the clubs are in a bit of trouble financially
 

copa

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Hoops said:
I do beleive the NRL is not as healthy administative wise as they would have us beleive.
The wish fathering the thought

Don't worry your precious little mind. It'll all be under control.
 

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#12
RL has always been badly administered, self interest, short sightedness and the boys club have held the game back for years.
How can the game thrive with News in charge as their main priority is to the corporation and getting their cash back ($760 million apparantly was spent on SL). Take the recent TV contract, how the hell was league supposed to get a good deal, when the people selling the product are the ones buying it????
This sort of deal goes for just about anything the game sells such as the radio rights etc. What did we get for turning to a night grand final.
Until News is out of our game we will never be independant to get what we truly deserve.
 
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