When I said "this" I meant me

will be interesting to see what, if any, effect wales win against scotland will have on celtic.

This post and others (and Gatland's comments) seem to misunderstand the meaning of the word "professional" - they all focus on the imprtance of money but there's more to being a professional than being paid for doing the job (I'm sure we all know some work mates who take home the paycheck but are not at all professional in their work). There's no doubting that there's more cash in Union and that it gets far more media coverage but it is no more professional than Rugby League. Indeed, if Gatland's thoughts really reflect the situation in Wales I think you could argue that the WRU is clearly not very professional ie. doing a good, effective job. Pointless argument - let's get back OT

There's no reason why Wales couldn't become another New Zealand, Union being the dominant game but RL carving out a great niche for itself and being a strong vibrant sport

NZRL doesn't seem to lose players to NZRU as far as I know, and if anything there seems to be less hostility between the codes in NZ because Union doesn't feel threatened The fact that Gatland was even talking about the Crusaders shows the massive strides that have been taken, and probably the future is closer co-operation rather than player poaching

There will be kids out there in Wales who have no interest in RU and may only want to play RL, just as upto now many kids prefer to play soccer or other sports.

Provided they can earn a good living in League there will be no reason for them to cross over to union.

The biggest sport in South Wales is as ever Soccer, Cardiff average 18k and Swansea 15k. They represent a bigger threat to the success of the Crusaders than RU teams and any player poaching.

:CLAP::CLAP::CLAP::CLAP:

and the beauty of that sentence is that is can be easily changed for loves

RU is dying in Oz, S14can't get on FTA TV as no one wants it, they are reliant on signing RL players to prop up their ailing national team and even succesful clubs like the Force are seeing a big down turn in finances and memberships.

I'd like to see the RFL really hit Wales hard and put in some serious financing to get development officers, school porgrammes and marketing happening. Taking MM away was a big mistake and the poor Welsh national team at the mo don't help.

yeah those competitions are still going though in nz the crowds are fairly poor now.

all the money is in the Super 14. without it all the best players would either be in the nrl or in union overseas.

we do lose out on juniors though

kids are pressured to play union at school, even if they are from a RL background.

2 RL juniors who we missed out on - Jonah Lomu and Tana Umaga