Talk:Rugby league in England

Interest in sport in Britain
Continuing on from the discussion on the popularity of sports in Australia, here's a bit on the same in England. A MORI poll in December 2003 asked "Which of these sports would you say you are interested in?". The sports in order were: football (soccer), rugby union, swimming, snooker, tennis, athletics, motor racing, cricket, gym, golf, rugby league and boxing. The MORI article that these statistics come from is about how England's victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup effected Union's popularity, so the results are influenced by current events. There are more statistics in another MORI article from 2003. This is the best I've been able to do in my short search. --ThirdEdition 03:20, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Feel free to fix these articles if you find things that appear to be wrong. Then, as you've done here, if you feel its neccessary, explain why you made the changes. We're not the wikipedia overlords, we're pretty good about letting people make changes to all these articles ;) After all, the more correct they are, they more man kind will benefit from them. And i dont know about anyone else, but thats why i create and edit articles. POds 03:49, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Wow :) I love your work! I was looking for several hours on british government websites for some useful statistics but could not find shit! Thanx heaps ThirdEdition! POds 03:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Photo
I respect the fact that the picture used on the rugby league in england thread demonstrates two clubs form outside the UK heartlands but surely it would be better to get a shot from a game without the empty stands?

"Merseyside", Cheshire and "Cumbria"?!
I'm not going to get into the debate of "historical" or "Real" or "Traditional" versus "administrative" counties but as far as I'm concerned Warrington and Widnes are in Lancashire as is St Helens (why do you think they all played in the Lancs cup) and as for "Cumbria", well I'd prefer Cumberland (Think sausages!) However, seeing as "county councils" have come and gone over the past three decades, wouldn't it be better to put "Yorkshire and the north-west" ?

I'm not particularly impressed with your "derbies" section either, I mean "Cheshire" derby? "Calder" derby? "Humberside" urghhh! derby? Ad nauseum.


 * The Lancs cup did not take teams just from Lancashire, Cumbrian teams also entered. Widnes is in the traditional count of Lancashire but you are wrong about Warrington, it is split down the middle between Lancs and Cheshire. Cumbria also predates 'Cumberland' by centuries. County councils still exist. People use the terms Cheshire / Calder / Humberside derbies albeit not very often, if you can find a better term then add it but please don't delete terms which are in use.GordyB 21:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Good Article
Things you may wish to improve:


 * The computer games needs to be either linked to a main article, or have info about the game
 * As with Rugby League nine

Over all article is structured well, above could be improved as could a couple of other parts of the article. I will put it on hold for you. So you can make the improvements.  ¢нαzα93  08:19, 17 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Personally, I don't think this currently is GA material, although I am not a GA reviewer, I do do rugby league peer review. I have put it up for peer review and will give a thourogh review of the article. (See the link on the WikiProject RUgby league template to see the review).  SpecialWindler   talk  11:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I've added the link here for my convenience WikiProject_Rugby_league/Peer_review/Rugby_league_in_England.GordyB 14:46, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

GA Review

 * GA review (see here for criteria)


 * 1) It is reasonably well written.
 * a (prose): b (MoS):
 * 1) It is factually accurate and verifiable.
 * a (references): b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR):
 * 1) It is broad in its coverage.
 * a (major aspects): b (focused):
 * 1) It follows the neutral point of view policy.
 * a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
 * 1) It is stable.
 * 2) It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
 * a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
 * 1) Overall:
 * a Pass/Fail:
 * a Pass/Fail:

I think that it is very well written and all problems fixed PASS

Rugby league and race
I have a problem with this section as it seems to be trying to prove a point rather than be informative, the bringing up of football is totally irrelevant. The fact that British rugby league had a black international before English football (Scotland had one way before rugby league even existed) doesn't mean anything except that George Bennett was good enough and existed, the section makes as if football deliberately didn't pick players because they were black and rugby took a stance whereas it was more likely down to the fact that Rugby league was a minority sport which allowed an extremely tiny minority to excel in it relatively early compared to a more main stream sport with more player competition. In essence it took as "long" as Viv Anderson because he was the first black player to be good enough and ever since then as the black population has grown so has our representation in football. However I am not saying football isn't or hasn't been racist, I'm just saying it has no place on this page as it just smacks of one-upmanship and therefore if it is truly about celebrating rugby leagues racial achievements then the section should be modified or deleted. GunnertheGooner (talk) 16:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Rugby league as a sport existed solely because of what we would call "inclusion" today. This has always been a very strong tradition within the game and not just with regard to race or social class either. The RFL won an award this year from Stonewall for being in the top 100 UK employers with regards tolerance of homosexuality. Other sports don't have quite the same record, for instance, Billy Boston was told in no uncertain terms that mixed race individuals don't get picked to play rugby union for Wales so he switched to the more broad minded rugby league.
 * It's not a case of it being a minority sport and a minority excelling as the rugby league heartland doesn't have a big black population relative to places like London. It's more a case of the game being taken to places of social deprivation which happen to have a fairly large ethnic minority population. The few Londoners that are playing professional RL tend to be black or from other minority backgrounds because the RFL goes into areas such as Brixton in a way that other sports generally don't.GordyB (talk) 21:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think you get the point, it's not whether rugby league actively seeks to include, it's the fact that the article (the whole article) is a penis measuring comparison against other sports especially football. "Look at how we've done this, and look at how long it took football", that's how it reads to me, an encyclopedic article should not plummet these depths to prove a point.
 * The fact that Rugby league may go into an area like Brixton (although I doubt it's presence comes close to Football or even Basketball) shows that it has to, Football is popular in London by default and kids from Brixton (and like socially deprived areas one of which I grew up in) are drawn to the game without the sport needing to put in the effort like Rugby League (even though it does). The facts are that your argument emphasises the point about Rugby League's minority status as it has to go and sell its sport to people whereas popular ones don't. Oh and what about Asians?
 * Don't see this as an attack on the sport my family are from South Leeds and my cousin used to play for Hunslet, I even played Rugby League at my secondary school as our PE teacher (A rugby nut that despised football) was friends with a coach from London Broncos, all I am saying is that anything referencing football should be removed as it is not relevant, celebrate Rugby League's history of inclusion by all means but don't do it by denigrating other sportsGunnertheGooner (talk) 16:50, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * The section would benefit from details on each of the footballers mentioned being added so that the RL/other approach is diluted. I'm not keen on the style of the section but some comparison with other sports in England is probably required to give a context.
 * What do you mean by you comment about Asians?  LunarLander  //  talk  // 19:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

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British vs Home Nations
I'm putting this discussion here as the Rugby league in England page is the most developed, but it affect the pages of Rugby league in Wales, Rugby league in Scotland, Rugby league in Ireland, and particularly Rugby league in the British Isles.

The Rugby league in the British Isles pages has essentially been a redirect page to those of the home nations but due to the history of Rugby League acting as a whole in Great Britain for most of it's history and the league system being British I feel it should be expanded.

I have started this but looking at the "History" section on the home nations pages I've noticed a more British feel to the tone and a lot of similar information (especially between England and Wales). I think that these pages should focus more on the history within the respective home nations and have a overview of British history of Rugby League on the Rugby league in the British Isles page. In addition, a lot of the information isn't referenced so may need removal.

Also seen as Ireland has no administration over the Great Britain national rugby league team, the Rugby league in the British Isles page may need renaming to "Rugby league in Great Britain".

Thoughts? Mn1548 (talk) 16:33, 6 July 2020 (UTC)