Thank you NBC, it’s been wonderful

Some time in the early morning Sunday New Zealand beat France to win the Web Ellis Trophy in the Rugby World Cup. Now, I’m sure the Kiwi and Kangeroo on Greenlake was heaving at three in the morning when the final whistle blew. New Zealand were red hot favorites, lets just say the Kiwis at work were feeling confident on Friday.

It ended up being a lot close than many expected, including me. I thought that once the Haka was done the French were going to get roundly spanked. The game was not a wide open advert for the game, it was a tough defensive battle that either side could have won.

As fascinating as this is, it’s not what was remarkable about the game. It was live on one of the major TV channels, that was the good bit. I was able to sit at home with a glass of wine and enjoy live rugby. Yes, a wide open classic would have been nice, but unlike England’s victory in 2003 I did not have to go looking for a bar with the game on in the early hours of Sunday morning to enjoy the spectacle.

Over the last month there has been a lot of rugby on a couple of channels, and much of it, including all the USA games, have been live. OK it could be an indication of how much money NBC sports has left after paying for the Olympics, but I am a fan of this.

Saturday at work I got into a discussion over rugby with one of ex-pat friends. He’s from the North of England where they play Rugby League. I come from the South of England where we played Rugby Union.

This chasm between the two codes of the same game is one of the things that define the North-South divide in England. Union is typically played in the private schools of England and is often referred to as a “game for ruffians, played by Gentleman.” When I went to school close to London there was no Rugby League, only Union. Yeah the BBC showed some league on the tele. There were teams from all these far away places like Wigan, Hull, Wakefield and Salford. Until 2006 there were no London based teams that played Rugby League at the top level.

And they are an off shoot of Harlequins, one of the most successful Rugby Union teams.

Now Northern-Pete was going to slum it and watch the Rugby final, but he felt the need to defend Rugby League and hope I could see the light. He started channeling the late great League commentator Eddie Waring “League, it’s a tough as teak and as northern as Yorkshire pud” (go look it up on Wikipedia).

I’ll give him this, League is faster, the hits are tougher and the game can be more entertaining. Northern-Pete insisted that 15 players a side is way too many on the field. Personally, I think they came up with that number so as to keep the maximum number of schoolboys occupied on a Wednesday afternoon in the winter. League only has 13 a side, the rules are very different.

Union was the original code, and until 1995 was strictly amateur, players were not allowed to be paid for playing the game. That professionalism (or lack of) was what caused the North to break from the South of England, all the way back in 1895. League paid their players, then the separate code evolved in an effort to be more entertaining and under duress I may be willing to admit it may have achieved that when played well.

Union has so much tradition, and yes I grew up playing and watching to game.. League is a game owned by the working class, Union belongs to the middle class. It really does sum up the stereotypical English North-South divide very, very well.

This has not been a great World Cup, especially if you are English, they really were woeful and never looked like doing well. But it has been wonderful to see top class rugby live on TV, the best side in the tournament won and hopefully NBC will repeat the experiment in four years time.