totalloiner wrote:
ok andy you name me five ENGLISH internationals who coverted from union to league in the 70's 80's 90's i bet you couldn't count them on one hand, because we all know they were well paid in their day jobs unlike the welsh coverts jon webb (surgeon) brian moore (solicitor) rory underwood (RAF pilot) to name just 3.
There's an interesting bit in one of the Rothmans RL Yearbooks (circa 1981, I think) about how Warrington spent months trying to woo 'Sir' Clive Woodward.
If you listen to the stories about those days when you could cop a life ban for playing League, there were a lot of coaches in northern England with massive league pedigrees coaching in the background at a lot of onion clubs and coupled with that, there were also a lot of lower league or decent amateur league players turning out for Union clubs under false names.
I'd say it is one of the fundamental reasons that when 'kick & clap' used to rave about their county championship series, there was usually a 'northern' county in there. Not because they filled their teams with moonlighting league players (that would be too obvious, even for the RFU old farts) but the players who played alongside them also had to be half-decent to get a game in a 'big' northern Union club sides.
Remember, in those days, the big Union club sides weren't like they are today ... There wasn't even a league as such (just look up the 'Northern Union (sic) Merit Table' for starters). Around here, the likes of Otley were considered to be a 'big' Union club and that was one of the reasons why they landed a game for the first 'kick & clap world cup' in '87.