Its a similar story for union in the celtic league, attendances are pretty rubbish for having 3 countires in one league. I mean 3000 for a game against the current champions how woeful.

Where im from theres not really a class divide mainly because no one around here actually plays rugby league. Though there is still a very bitter attitude towards league from people who do play rugby.

It is elitist generally but here in the North there are lots of clubs made up with kid from public schools, I played with Leigh, Newton and Orrell and only played with 3-4 lads from private schools in all that time.

There are plenty of reasons why league has failed to develop internationally, one is elitism. The hostile reception that Celtic recieved when joining SL sums up 100 years of RL's geographic develoment.

they do it all the time the union mob

les cats copped a lot of grief from USAP.

and thats not forgetting getting RL banned before that,

union has trouble competing on the field so resorts to cheating

Manchester Utd get a crowd over 70k everytime they play - Manchester has a population of approx 1m - for Sydney RL to get only 74k for 4 games from a population of 4m? for Sydney's top sport is pathetic tbh

Union is a game to be played not watched - it internationals are major corporate and social events watched by people who are often there for the occasion rather than interest in the game as such - cricket is much the same - corporate spend at these two events dwarfs even soccer in spend per head.

Union has a vibrant international scene because of 6 nations in Europe and 3 in the southern hemisphere - RL has basically 4 nations of which two are totally dominant.

League will never compete internationally with union it needs work on its strengths which is the club game.

and you actually think that the majority of those fans come from anywhere near Manchester??? Some dont even come from within the UK!!!! Its an area greater than a 4m population that feeds the Man Utd crowd.....

Which teams would they be?...

compare for example the crowds the wigan warriors get to their population to that of the leeds rhinos and the population of their city.

the rhinos are winning SL and still cant get better crowds than a Division 3 club

Why even make that point when it has nothing to do with the topic?

The point I was making was that the RU guy seemed pretty pleased that 33k had gone to see a game of union in an 83k capacity stadium when 74k turned up to sydney games over the same weekend.

Also look at the city of Leeds. A few weeks ago 17k turned up at Headingley and around 20k at ER. We live in a city of 800k. Man Utd are known the world around and are the best team in the best known sporting league in the world. It's a silly comparison IMO.

Wrong.

Not only has rugby league competed with union internationally, it is extremely easy to argue that (for example) rugby league's international scene during the 1950s was equivalent to union in the same period.

Rugby league teams from Australia, Wales, England, France and New Zealand were all very capable in that period.

With proper support, there is no reason why that can't occur again.

You can't compare aplles and oranges though, if there were 3 Union teams in Sydney they may all be drawing 20,000+, or may not, who knows.

Are you suggesting that if there was one RL team in Sydney it would draw crowds of 70K+?

I hate RU as much as the next RL fan and am smuggly watching as it struggles along in oz but Sydney crowds are pathetic generally with most clubs only having approx 10,000 paying fans. Compared to the other major code, AFL, its very poor.

I would agree the difference is RL is a minority sport in the UK - soccer is the dominant game - in Australia RL is the equivelent of soccer here so you would expect in a city the size of Sydney to attract sizeable crowds - maybe I am being nieve but the championship sides in London would attract crowds of that size never mind the Arsenal's of this world.

The Rhinos attendances would put them half way up the championship ladder for average attendances - they will never surpass Leeds Utd that is the pull of soccer here.