THE RL1908 BLOG

News, Reviews & Opinion - Sean Fagan - RL1908.com

One of the first opinion pieces I wrote for RL1908, way back in the Autumn of 2001, was about how rugby league fans could use watching rugby union as a window into our past.

Over recent years, I've increasingly felt uncomfortable with my claim that today's rugby union game exhibits many of the features that rugby league tossed away in the early 1900s.

I am now prepared to say what I wrote in that article was completely wrong!

Having now had the advantage of conducting much more research of the early days and having read the rules of 1800s rugby, I can see that rugby union has been on its own path since the split of 1895.

Yes, rugby union has adopted many rugby league rules over the past century, but some things that we all took for granted as original and distinctive features of the traditional (Webb Ellis & Rugby School) version of rugby are not that at all. Seems that we have had foisted upon us by our forebears what rugby union really was.

The biggest eye-opener for me came after I saw some of the recently found film of Northern Union rugby league (c.1900-03) available in the Mitchell and Kenyon Collection releases. Given it was so soon after the 1895 split, the films essentially show how rugby union was being played in Britain at the same time (albeit without line-outs).

In a new article in The Pioneers of Rugby League I explain how the signature "play-the-ball" adopted by rugby league in 1906 was not the revolutionary rule change we have all been led to believe.

I've now uncovered that the play-the-ball did not replace rucks and mauls, but scrums. And more startling, that the play-the-ball and "held" rules originated in 1800s rugby union!

Armed with my better understanding of the laws of both rugby codes of a century ago and earlier, aided with the film from the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, it is apparent that our accepted conceptions about League and Union are almost totally around the wrong way.

In summary, there are more aspects of old rugby in rugby league and even American football, than there is in rugby union.

The laws of rugby union in the late 1800s stopped play every time an attacker with the ball was tackled to the ground or was held - sound familiar? It should, it is the older brother of the play-the-ball and held laws of rugby league, and "downs" in American football.

Rugby union had these laws to minimise dangerous rucking and to outlaw mauling. No doubt it was also implemented by the RFU as it would have been quite unseemly for Victorian (era) gentlemen to be seen scrapping and messing about on their hands and knees on the ground trying to claim possession of a rugby ball.

When rugby league introduced the play-the-ball in 1906, rucks were rare, while mauls were only legal in the in-goal area. The play-the-ball replaced the set scrum that was called for after every tackle/held call.

The signature rucks and mauls that we associate as a tradition of rugby union did not come to be a distinctive feature of that code until after rugby league adopted the play-the-ball!

So when we watch rugby league today, in terms of the tackle/held and play-the-ball, we are actually looking at something closer to the way rugby was in the late 1800s than what we can see today in the rucks and mauls of rugby union.

If we take 1906, with the reduction to 13-aside and the play-the-ball in use, as the point at which the codes irrevocably took different paths, it is remarkable to see via the Mitchell and Kenyon films what traits of "old rugby" ended up on either side of the split. It is also revealing to see (or rather not see!) some features that rugby union holds as being a foundation of the code all the way back to Rugby School.

As pointed out above, in the early 1900s there was a distinct absence of rucks and mauls. Akin to rugby league and American football, play momentarily stopped after each tackle or held call, everyone got back to their feet, and play recommenced by putting the ball back down on the ground and kicking/playing it with the foot.

The set scrums were not the neatly formed pieces that rugby union prides itself on today. Forwards had no set position, and packed into scrums depending upon who was closest to where it was being formed. Sounds like the rush in a modern rugby league scrum when one side wants to pack quickly so the referee will call time off!

The front rows of the opposing forwards packed against each other BEFORE their own second rowers were in place - there was no bull-rush "Engage!" of the packs that we see today in rugby union. The front rowers binded against their opponents with the same lack of force they would use to bind with a team mate.

Many of the scrums looked no better than they do in modern rugby league - in fact, with two extra forwards on each side they actually look worse. The half-backs rarely got the ball into the tunnel at the first attempt, as it invariably hit a front rowers foot. The scrums were far from settled, as they constantly moved while the half-back tried to line up with the tunnel opening.

So I got it wrong. I am astounded to say that, apart from line-outs and the desire to kick the football at every opportunity, today's rugby union is not a throwback to the past. Both League and Union took different paths away from 19th century rugby. Remarkably, there seems to be more features of "old rugby" in rugby league than there is rugby union.