ComeAllWithin.co.uk - Rugby 2030

CHRONOLOGY OF KEY EVENTS

2012 - After several years of undeclared hostility between some Northern Unions and the rest of the world over the introduction of the ELVs, the final straw for many was the introduction of The New Unified Code uniting League and Union in 2011. An alliance of the Australian RU, and the Murdoch media empire anxious to expand viewing figures globally were thought to be the main movers behind the change.

Sky viewers were able to watch Rugby Club's S Barnes move seamlessly from initial condemnation of the moves one week to full on and enthusiastic support in the following weeks edition of Rugby Club. Mind you, it took Dewi Morris several weeks to catch up with the change in policy as he continued to mutter about how the changes would lead to Ben Foden returning from Northampton to Sale.

The main features of the Unified code were:-

Scrums - That the scrum would be reduced to seven players with the traditional union number eight being the position to be consigned to history. Scrums of seven players - props, hooker, locks and only two flankers - were retained as the main means of restarting play but only after a knock on. They were still competitive but only just and there were less of them.

Penalties - That is direct kicks at goal were abolished - kicking at the goal was limited to the conversion of tries - all other offences, incidents - resulted in free kicks without the option of a scrum - Serious offences resulted in place kick - usually to touch - lesser offences resulted in a free kick of the tap and go variety with the opposition retreating at least 15 meters.

Limited players at the breakdown /tackle area - The "leaguers" won out here with a compromise between the league "one on one" followed by a kick back and the union all the support you can legally muster. The new code saw only one other player from each side being allowed to contest the ball after a tackle.

Compulsory Cheer Leaders - Originally intended to bring a wider and younger audience to rugby it actually led to a highly competitive market in leggy young ladies with at one point Leicester Tigers offering over £1million plus a slightly used flanker for the Natal Sharks Lovelies.

2012 England secede from IRRB

These changes led to the Great Schism when England seceded from the IRRB hoping to take the other "Home Nations" with them. None did and as usual only Canada supported the English. At the time a Canadian RU spokesperson said...

"I don't know why we are always the only country supporting England but its sort of traditional - they, the English, always think that the Celtic nations will support them but they never do and are always bought off by the French. I suppose we Canadians don't dislike anybody really - except the Americans that is"

2014 England rejoin IRRB - During their self imposed exile England and English clubs won every competition they entered - The Real World Cup, The Real Heiniken Cup and the Real Six Nations. In every international game they beat Canada by large numbers of points in front of some people at Twickenham.

Once again though it was the media what done it . Sky continued to show Unified Rugby from France, Ireland, Wales and the Southern Hemisphere along side sporadic coverage of the Premiership and the so called " Internationals " . But they, the Murdoch media, were not happy.

It was a thundering article in the Murdoch owned Times newspaper by one S Barnes that is considered by many to have been the turning point. In it he hinted darkly that TV revenues were under threat as TV companies were re-considering coverage of rugby played in England.

A week later, after a very bloody emergency meeting of the RFU at which only the promise of extra members dinners with ladies optional, persuaded the die hards to succumb, a letter was sent to the IRRB and the other "Home Nations" requesting that England be allowed to rejoin and that they would after all adopt the Unified Code.

2015 - 2030   Peace in our Time? This was essentially a period for reconciliation and reconstruction but was not without some problems.

Domestically - the Premiership was expanded in order to take in the now Unified Code, ex rugby league clubs in the north of the country and the original twelve team league was replaced by two 10 team conferences accommodating "new clubs" such as Wigan, St Helens, Bradford and Leeds Rhinos.

The inclusion of St Helens caused some consternation as people considered the confusion that would be caused twice a season   by rival fans both singing Oh Wendy and chanting " Come on you Saints". The problem was solved - sort of - by ensuring that Northampton and St Helens always played in different Conferences.

No one thought of the possibility of them meeting in the play offs which they did in the Grand Final of 2019 which Northampton won 43-19. Northampton were noted for their prescience in building links with Rugby league back in the first decade of the century had paid off handsomely.

The new extended League was generally thought to be a good thing except in Exeter where rioting broke out in protest at what their supporters saw as yet another elitist plot to keep them out of the Premiership by importing privileged Northerners. A Mr Rob Andrew was burned in effigy and a man was assaulted in the street for wearing a flat cap and keeping a whippet. Many famous English clubs go off the map.

As the smart money moved North, Wasps went out of business in 2020 followed by Saracens a year later whose attempt to move to Dewsbury ended in bankruptcy .

During this period the decline of Leicester was noticeable. Unable to cope with the new laws which discouraged ball killing and coupled with the abolition of penalty kicks at goal, they slipped out of the Premiership in 2021 and passing through ND1 they were last heard of trying to found a revanchiste body to be called "The Real Rugby Union" with some dissident Ulstermen and a bloke called Jones

France - In France, Le Rugby quatorziemme led to an expansion of the game out of the South Western heartlands with new clubs prospering in places like Lille, Nantes and Strasbourg. Paris Stade Francais were close down in 2017 after being found guilty of outraging public decency with their new "see through" kit.

The "Six Nations" Attempts to revive the format as it was prior to the English secession were confused by the fact that during that period the other five nations had taken the opportunity to reform the competition and rugby in Europe generally.

Firstly, they had invited the top ranked second tier nation to take England's place in 2013 and this was Portugal. They then formalised the proceedings by allowing for promotion and relegation between the Top Six as they were now known and the European Conference as the second tier nations were now called.

The French or the Welsh, according to your prejudices, were believed to have been behind a move to make England earn their place by playing in the Conference and having to earn promotion to the Top Six. However, the continuing demise of rugby in Scotland led to the inability of Scotland to field a club team for the Heiniken Cup or the " Top Six " in 2014 and, after much secret diplomacy and an alleged sweetener from an unnamed media mogul, a deal was done and England replaced Scotland.

A further complication was revealed in 2019 when it was discovered that the newly promoted Spanish team, at the expense of Wales, was in fact all Argentinian born and were the same Barcelona team that had got to the semi finals of that year's Heineken Cup.

The decline in Welsh Rugby was attributed to the rise of Cardiff City soccer club who, financed by a succession of Russian Oligarchs, had risen to win the English Football Premiership and the UEFA Cup by 2017. The other key factor was the short sighted insistence on Welsh born players only - introduced in 2016 after Ospreys lost the Heineken Cup final with a team that only had one player called Jones in it - and he was from South Africa.

World Rugby The English secession was seen as the great opportunity and without the guardians of tradition present to thwart their plans the radicals led by the Australians introduced several major changes .

From 2013 onwards there was no reserved foundation nations places in the World Cup - instead all national teams would, as in soccer, play qualifying games over the four years leading up to each world cup competition.

This led to problems In Europe. There was much gerrymandering as the "Home Nations" tried to set up qualifying pools in which they wouldn't have to play each other. However much this was viewed as reprehensible. It was, in fact, mirrored in the Southern Hemisphere where Australia and New Zealand contrived to avoid each other by being in separate pools with the Island teams and Japan.

Everybody thought that the South Africans had an unfair advantage in the Africa South Pool as did Argentina in the South American Pool.

Eventually, it was decided to resort to seeding and a secret and unimpeachable seeding committee was set up. This consisted of representatives from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Ireland, Wales and later, on re admission, England.

The results of the seedings for pool places for the consequent World Cup were generally held to be fair except in England where people grumbled about Wales being in a pool with Luxembourg, San Marino, and Vatican City. This resentment was short-lived however as Wales were knocked out by Vatican City who fielded a team of muscular Christian Brothers and very sinister people who claimed to be "connected ".

Further doubts about the new system arose in 2022 when New Zealand failed to qualify having been beaten into third place in their pool by Samoa and Fiji .

South Africa was expelled from world rugby as result of the great cloning scandal of 2031, when they miraculously fielded a team that contained players with a remarkable physical similarity to Gary Pagel, Victor Matfield, and Brian Habana amongst others.

Other Developments - all of this went on against a background of major world events that included...

2025 - The second American Civil War - California, Arizona and New Mexico secede over the issue of having Spanish as an alternative official language.

2019 - The restoration of the monarchy in Russia. Vladimir Putin is crowned Tsar despite attempts a by a journalist wearing a Northampton Saints shirt to disrupt the ceremony by shouting "You are an impostor called Jones and you were actually born in Wellingborough!"

2029 Europe joins the pound - In a shock move the Cameron Government in its third term agrees to a single currency if it is called the pound and has a picture of the British monarch on it. EU agrees to this and within a year a new pan European currency is in circulation - it is called the pound and does have a picture of King Charles in the corner if you look very closely. Otherwise, the new notes are dominated by images of popular figures from European History like Eric Cantona and ABBA...

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