As a player, I can see that.
As well, not all Union is public school and southern. Liverpool-St.Helens (the world's oldest rugby club, 1857, St.Helens barely has an upper class. It's Original name is Liverpool Football Club), Orrell etc, the Army, Police and Navy, Welsh RU, RU in the South West. It's less of a class game than it was but I still believe RL has a steeper hill to climb (in England) for several reasons, one of which is attitudes and the fact the powerbase for Union is aligned more with the business and general establishment (whatever that is these days).
I played at Moss Lane before they merged with Liverpool (we used to play Liverpool... and Tyldesley). Amongst the coaches at St Helens for the junior teams were at least 3 former Saints players. Ray French was also a regular. All these were supposedly given life-bans from RU and RU clubs by the RU hierarchy, but the St Helens club took no notice as there was little of the anti-RL snobbery.
I was more referring to the southern clubs and the RU authorities with my "posh, public-school shitheads and their lackies" comment.
The stories behind the formation of the Northern Union are fascinating. Rugby, in its infancy, had been considered the preserve of the 'gentleman class', but it's popularity spread. When teams formed in more industrialised and working class areas, they were haphazard, lacking in training time and facilities and a bit awed by all the rules. When they played 'gentleman' rugby clubs, the posh ones, having grown up playing the game (and all being able to read!), they knew the rules and tactics better and outperformed the scruffy northern oiks. But, when the northern clubs became more organised in the following years, the roles were reversed. Gruff, working class blokes honed on manual labour began to start battering their public school, white collar contemporaries. In the eyes of the 'elite', this couldn't continue; the oiks dishing it out to gentlemen? The natural order would collapse...
One advantage that the 'gentleman' clubs had was that white collar workers, who comprised most of their teams, only worked Mon-Fri, whereas the northern workers in factories, mills, mines, steelworks, etc worked shifts Mon-Sat. Rugby was played on Saturdays (Sundays were for church bollocks). Northern teams would be weakened clubs, or many players would have to miss work and lose money. Given large, fee-paying crowds were now watching the sport, the northern clubs wanted to compensate players for the money they lost due to playing.
The southern-based administrators of the game, all of them educated in public schools and upper class, were not going to give up any advantage their southern clubs might have and so refused, hiding behind the bizarre 'amateur' principle.
We all know what happened next.
