As Vainikolo joins the defection to Rugby Union, are Super League's days numbered?

At the end of the day money talks and the players walk. The game today is secondary to the cash.

do u watch rugby league?? or keep up to date with whats happening, cos it would appear that u r out of touch mate. hull and warrington arent challenging for anything and sean long hasnt done anything like the business for the best part of a year now. andy farrell left league a crock, same applies to the volcano. hardly a stream of great talent leaving league is it??? by all means big up ur sport mate, but do it from a factual basis and not on some notion u get from the dailt star sports team....please. rugby union will one day be as fast , dynamic and open as rugby league , as soon as it gets rid of the rucks, mauls, line-outs and relentless kicking to touch. oh and drops a couple of players too.

have you watched super league recently or ever? sean long - nippy half back?!? this whole article has been cobbled together from names you've just read in the paper hasn't it? also, where's the fast flowing rugby union you're talking about - not in the english game thats for sure - its in the super 14s (even that not so much these days). union are picking up unproven talent and aging pros - they can extend their career and make a more secure financial future for themselves.

Two or three players moving to Union is not a reason for Rugby League to 'panic' far from it. Lesley is shot, I see him week in week out limping. All I can say is what fools Gloucester are by signing a player who is past his best. Have they never heard of a medical? Players in rugby union may be getting fitter which I would expect if they are fully professional, but why are players moving from league to union saying one of the reasons is because it is less physically demanding. Oh by the way Super League achieved record crowds last year, so here's the evidence that Rugby League is booming. Let Union stick to what it does well by understanding that the way to improve their game is to use the expertise of League, Phil Larder, Mike Ford, Shaun Edwards shall I go on. Infact if you were to ask why players and coaches moved from League to Union the answer would be for the money and not for the game. If Rugby Union is moving forward why are England doing so badly in SA? Hmmmm...

"Mass defection"?? The RL players who have gone to RU recently were looking at forced retirement from RL - why wouldn't they take up RU's money of they were silly enough to give it to them. The mere fact that Andy Farrell, who's RL career was physically at end, can play for England RU says everything about where the codes are. Good grief - one of the most ill-thought out opinion pieces (and that is all your article is) that I have ever read. Dribble.

Steve, very interesting reading. But I would like to disagree with your opinion....I mean article ;-). You talk about a mass defection to Union. I would say if anything it has been a trickle. The players that have moved across bar Ashton are at the end of their league life and want a game that is a bit easier on the body. Have you taken into account the players that have moved from Union over to League? I think you will find that trickle runs both ways and always will do. Example: Brad Thorn (All Blacks) & Matt Rogers (Wallabies), just to name a few recent international players. I could go on but I am sure other people will post a more detailed list.

You also mention that Super League is struggling to expand outside the North of England. You must have missed the team in London and the South of France. You must have also missed the League comps that have started up all over the world. 10 years ago this would have been unheard of.

On a different note why don’t you write an article on the state of Rugby Union in the pacific? You will actually find that League has made huge inroads into places like Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa & Cook Islands. Even Better why don’t you write an article about the growth of League in the past 10 years around the World? You would find that it is now actively played in over 30 countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_international_rug by_league_teams not bad growth over the last 10 years don’t you think? Not bad for a code played in the north of England & Eastern Australia.

What I will say is that Union does have a superior international compititon. No one can argue with that. You would have to agree that League has a superior Club competitions Super League & NRL. The comps have fully professional teams in France and New Zealand with Wales on the Radar in the near future. League continues to go from strength to strength. Union on the other hand seems to be dropping the ball at the grass roots level as it is a wasting a lot of money on League converts. You just have to look at Union in Australia to see how far Union has gone backwards. It is losing ground to League at an alarming rate in both the grass roots and Professional levels. I just hope for the sake of the Wallabies that the ARU do something soon before it’s to late.

I don't expect Rugby League not to survive in Britain. People like you have been saying this since Noah was a boy.An expert, the Ex CEO and now the new Australian Rugby Union CEO Mr O'Neill predicted during his last tenure as CEO that Rugby League would be dead in Australia in a few years. Rugby League is now running 2nd of the 4 Football Codes in the popularity stakes and guess which code comes last. Yes even soccer which generally has appeal only to ex pats. has lost that tag!!!!.

"Major League Soccer". Good day, Henry

So, Rugby League may not survive eh? This the same Rugby League that is showing continuous growth in attendances, TV ratings, participation numbers, geographical spread - in fact in just about any aspect you care to mention. Big Les was a fantastic asset to the game, but all of us, like Andy Farrell, get to an age when we have to consider making what is a short career last a few years longer. He's gone to do a job where he'll be working those legs a lot less and stretching his bank balance a lot more. Good luck to him. People have been writing this sort of uninformed and mendacious trash for over a century and they should face the facts; Rugby League is no longer a tiny Northern aberration and it will never, as they so fndly imagine, "return to the fold", flat cap in hand and tugging a respectful forelock. Get over it, guys! Your own code has problems enough of its own.

My God, that really is something you'd expect to read in the Daily Mail! If this is seen as a cutting edge commentary, and Bott seems to think this is a recent thing, then he is a long way off the mark. Other have pointed out already that the examples he uses are largely years old, and some several at that! Talk about being behind the times. He conveniently forgets that RL is the fastest growing sport in London and that at Univeristy level is vibrant and far off being at record levels of participation. Its a very good standard to boot. He also ignores the stunning success of the Rugby League Conference played over the summer which encompasses teams from most, if not quite all, counties in England. He acknowledges the amateur game goes fomr strength to strength and this is true, particularly at junior level where participation rates are at an all time high, but he then shows his ignornace by putting it down the BARLA....who havent existed, as such, for several years! Oh dear... A trickle of ageing pl

Im left wondering how long it'll take for people to realise that Volcano is on his last legs and that he has a turning circle of an oil tanker nowadays? Given the inclination for the kicking game in RU, I'd suspect it'll take 2 minutes to realise that Volcano is a busted flush when you kick behind him and turn him around - who has researched this deal, much less paid out the big bucks for a crock who cant run around? Surely thats a much better target for an investigative piece Mr Bott? No, I doubt it too.....

Is this best RU idiot writers can come up with!very sad, stop pulling yourself dickhead!!!!!

Vainikolo is a shot duck, RL got his best years and now he can have a big final pay day. Good luck in your retirement Les.

I don't think I have heard as much crap spouted in one article in all my life! Droves? Harris, Robinson, Paul, Walker, Pryce, Vaikona, Farrell and now Vainiloko all defect in 7 years. Thats just over one per year!! Harris and Paul are back in League, Vainikolo, farrell and Vaikona were at the the end of their league careers and knackered when they moved over, Pryce was nowhere near as good as his brother. The only two of any significance were walker and robinson!! If Union wants to spend its money on making League players defect, rather than producing its own talent (and to be fair the current english youth are garbage) then thats there downfall! To say League has not taken off in universities is unbelievably badly researched. Im guessing the teams from Loughborough and St Mary's (twickenham) who have been student champions might disagree with you, or the guys who got scholarships to Oxford through rugby league, or superleague stars like Brian Carney and Andy Raleigh who came through the studen

If you call ageing professionals at the end of there careers riddled with injuries a mass exodus to the 15 a side game then you are fooling only yourself, well and the 15 a side fans. Andy Farrell retired to RU, with two crocked knees and a recurring shoulder injury, like wise Big Les is a shadow of teh player that exploded onto the Super League scene, with numerous knee operations under his belt in teh past couple of seasons RU are getting a big man whose pace has diminished due to the recurring knee injuries. Karl Pryce although younger was never cut out for RL, too big, too slow, too unfit and terrible defensively. The only player to defect that might signal any sort of a worry for RL fans is the young promising Chris Ashton, but they'll be another along to replace him, such is the wealth and depth of RL talent, we don;t need to rely on other sports to prop up our sport>

rugby league is still better and is faster,its only the infleuance of ex league players such as robinson/edwards/and coaches that have made union a more expansive game,union is still learning from league.jb

'Gone are the days when Rugby Union was a boring game played by slow, lumbering players and punctuated with those awful, time-consuming rucks, mauls and scrums.' You sure? It's still nowhere near league in terms of skill, speed or power, as evidenced by older League players such as Farrell, Tuqiri and Robinson moving to union at the end of their careers and dominating the game. The author obviously hasn't watched much Super League this season, if at all, because Warrington and Hull are both near the bottom of the table. Also, London is the district with the largest number of junior players, so this article is factually incorrect as well as blatantly wrong. To be honest, articles like this are ridiculous - Super League is growing, with increased crowds and higher playing numbers year after year as well as an increased standard of competition. At the same time, Union remains a game with more emphasis on goal kicking than actually playing rugby - it's hard to argue any different when you take into account t

Every few years we have this kind of poorly written and ill thought out tripe trotted out. Meanwhile, numbers playing and watching RL continue to grow and most semi-sane RU writers bemoan the dross on show and wonder how the game can be improved. I wonder...?

How much have you been paid to right this drivel, oh look union have signed a league player, let's predict league's demise again.... Yawn, League is growing and is organically growing new semi-pro clubs in London, France and South Wales, while Union is doing what in League terittory, NOTHING...

Are you the same Steve Bott who used to write for the Bolton Evening News - why this trolling exercise ?

So Steve Bott reckons that union players skills are getting better,well Steve they had to get better because they could'nt get any worse I remember the England union squad having a training session with the Leeds Rhinos last year and the league lads being astonished at how poor the the union guys grasp of the basics were.Can't tackle and can't pass and as a spectacle will always play second fiddle to league.