Rugby Union or Rugby League?

RUGBY LEAGUE is better?

Rugby League is the better game in every way. It's faster, more open, more exciting. In League, the ball is always in motion; in Union, the ball always seems to be stuck under a pile of bodies. In League, most of the points come from tries; in Union, most of the points come from penalties. League games are all-action, with barely enough time to squeeze in TV replays; Union games involve lots of standing around in bewilderment as the play gets halted for constant rule infringements.

The reason for the constant rule infringements is that Union has far too many rules. Nobody knows them all: not the players, not the commentators, and certainly not the gentlemen in burberry who shout 'heave' on the sidelines. Perhaps fittingly for a game played by people who grow up to be lawyers, games often hinge on the interpretation of obscure rules and precedents that are applied almost at random. It's like an ultra-violent version of Mornington Crescent.

I'm tempted to say that the more rules there are in a game, the less satisfactory it is. Chess, for example, is a very simple game, yet it is deep and rich enough to have inspired a mass of study and literature. Go is simpler and richer again. In fact, simplicity has been the key to most of the games that have inspired the popular imagination - from football to basketball, from Scrabble to Monopoly. Apart from Rugby Union, I can't think of another popular game with such a messy, patched-up ruleset. Why has this abomination survived for so long? And why has it flourished when there is a much simpler and more satisfactory alternative in Rugby League?

Rugby Union is better?
Rugby union has bigger and better tournaments for the fans to enjoy – the Six Nations, Heineken Cup and of course the World Cup. These are unsurpassed in quality, passion and pure theatricality, which is something that isn't offered in league. Also, the number of league to union converts (Jason Robinson, Wendell Sailor, Henry Paul etc) proves that union is the better code!

Rugby league is simply a game where you run forward, then jog backwards the way you have just come. It is a stop start game. Rugby union requires so much more. People who think rugby union is just a bloodbath sport for fighting are wrong. It is a game that flows and has complex tactics. Whenever I have watched rugby league, I find it intolerably dull, and I think that is because I have played the wonderful game that is rugby union.

What do you think??