Healing the Schism - Rugby Union and Rugby League Quiz

Answer: Huddersfield

In the early 1890s, rugby clubs based in the north of England found themselves increasingly at odds with the Rugby Football Union (RFU), the governing body of the game, particularly in regards to clubs providing compensation payments to make up for players' loss of earnings from their regular jobs (rugby being a purely amateur sport), as well as a perceived southern bias in the ruling bodies of the RFU.

This came to a head when a group of Yorkshire based clubs proposed a breakaway body, for which they received support from fellow clubs in Lancashire. On 29 August 1895, representatives of 22 clubs based in Yorkshire and Lancashire met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield to agree to the formation of the Northern Rugby Football Union, which came to be known as the Northern Union (NU), which would allow professionalism in the game.

This led to the RFU issuing sanctions against the players, officials and clubs both of the new organisation, and any amateur clubs that played against the breakaway clubs, and saw many northern amateur clubs choosing to leave the RFU and join the NU.

In 2020, it was announced that the George Hotel in Huddersfield, the site of the birth of what eventually came to be rugby league, would become the home of the new National Rugby League Museum.

Answer: Bath

Following the announcement in August 1995 that rugby union was to become an open game, allowing players to be paid for the first time, moves began to take advantage of the new thaw in relations between rugby's two codes. In January 1996, came an announcement that Bath RFC, then the dominant side in English rugby union, and Wigan RLFC, the similarly dominant side in English rugby league, had agreed to play each other in a challenge series over two games, each playing the other's rules.

The first game, played under league rules, took place at Maine Road on 8 May 1996 and resulted in an 82-6 victory for Wigan, with Bath's only points being a converted try by scrum-half Jon Callard.

The return fixture, under union rules, was held at Twickenham on 25 May, and saw Bath avenge the first result with a 44-19 victory.

Although the series was largely staged for commercial reasons, its success saw the beginnings of a rapprochement between the authorities of the two codes, and led to an offer by the Rugby Football Union to the Rugby Football League of the use of Twickenham for future rugby league events. Twickenham staged its first ever rugby league match when it hosted the opening game of the 2000 Rugby League World Cup between England and Australia.

Answer: Jason Robinson

Jason Robinson began his career in rugby league playing for Hunslet, before signing for Wigan in 1991. Robinson played in both games against Bath in the 1996 cross-code challenge, scoring twice in the first game under league rules. Following the end of the ban on league players taking part in organised rugby union, Robinson was one of a number of Wigan's team, alongside players from other rugby league clubs, that elected to sign short-term deals with clubs in the Courage League - at the time, rugby league had completed its first Super League season as a summer game, which allowed its players to play union in the off-season. Robinson moved to Wigan's erstwhile opponents, Bath, where he played 14 games between September 1996 and January 1997. Four years later, Robinson left Wigan permanently to sign for rugby union side Sale Sharks, citing a lack of anything left to prove in rugby league, and a desire to represent England in rugby union.

As a member of the squad at the 2003 World Cup, Robinson scored England's try in their 20-17 victory in the World Cup Final, while in 2006, following Sale's victory in the Guinness Premiership (as England's top flight competition was then called), he became the first player to have won both the Premiership and the Super League. Robinson retired from top flight rugby in 2007, having played 302 games and scored 685 points for Wigan, and 172 games, scoring 272 points for Bath and Sale, plus 23 international rugby league and 56 international rugby union caps, with 48 and 150 points scored respectively.

Answer: McAlpine Stadium

The 1999 Rugby World Cup, although officially hosted by Wales, was in fact a tournament that would see matches played across Britain, Ireland and France, which included a number of venues in England. In an effort to take advantage of the growing interest in rugby union, one of the venues selected was the McAlpine Stadium in Huddersfield, the home of Super League side Huddersfield Giants, which was scheduled to play host to a game featuring the New Zealand All-Blacks. To promote the tournament further, the stadium was selected as the venue for a set of games during the qualifying tournament featuring England, Italy and the Netherlands.

The game against the Netherlands, held on 14 November 1998, was only England's fourth home international away from Twickenham since 1923, and saw England win by a then record score of 110-0. England's second game at the stadium, a week later, saw a respectable crowd of 15,000 watch England beat Italy 23-15 to qualify for the World Cup.

Answer: Leeds

In 1997, Leeds Rhinos, one of the major rugby league clubs in England, was purchased by a consortium led by the club's chief executive, Gary Hetherington, alongside businessman Paul Caddick. The following year, the pair also purchased Leeds RUFC, which they renamed as Leeds Tykes.

However, instead of running the two clubs as separate entities, it was decided to create a single corporate structure to run them both, and so the Tykes organisation was brought under the umbrella of Leeds Rugby Limited, the entity originally set up in 1996 to run the Rhinos. Upon the purchase of the rugby union club, Leeds Rugby Limited was marketed as the world's first "dual rugby partnership", with union and league clubs in the same organisation.

The merger saw an upswing in both clubs' fortunes, with the Tykes promoted to the Premiership in 2001 and winning their first major trophy, the Powergen Cup, in 2005, while the Rhinos won their first trophy in almost twenty years by winning the 1999 Challenge Cup, before going on to win the Super League title four times between 2004 and 2009.

Answer: Barrie-Jon Mather

Barrie-Jon Mather was born in a suburb of Wigan, before his family moved to Blackpool. While at school, he became a promising rugby union player, eventually being selected for England Schoolboys, where he played alongside future England rugby union internationals Matt Dawson and Richard Hill.

However, despite his success at schoolboy level, he elected to play rugby league, and signed for Wigan at the age of 19 in 1992. Mather remained at Wigan for three years, before a dispute over his contract led to him leave and join Australian club Western Reds, with whom he remained until 1997. During the period between 1994 and 1996, Mather won a total of five international caps, with three for the Great Britain side and two for England at the 1995 Rugby League World Cup. On his return to England, Mather joined Castleford Tigers, with whom he played in Super League for a season before making a move to rugby union side Sale Sharks.

This move was part funded by the Rugby Football Union, during a period when the RFU was actively recruiting some of the top talents in rugby league to play for the England team. Mather was called into the England squad and played in the Five Nations Championship decider against Wales in April 1999, becoming the first England rugby union debutant to have previously played international rugby league for Great Britain, which proved to be his only appearance for England.

At the end of his contract with Sale in 2000, Mather rejoined Castleford. He remained in rugby league for another two years, before making a final move back to union with Coventry in 2002.

Answer: St Helens

The success of the 1996 cross-code challenge between Bath and Wigan, as well as Wigan's winning appearance in the 1996 Middlesex Sevens tournament at Twickenham, the warming of relations between the Rugby Football Union and the Rugby Football League led the RFU to make the offer of the use of Twickenham to the RFL for the Challenge Cup final, then regarded as the showpiece in the domestic rugby league calendar.

Although rugby league was regarded as a "northern" game, the traditional home of the Challenge Cup final was London's Wembley Stadium.

However, in the late 1990s plans were proceeding apace for the eventual demolition and rebuilding of Wembley, which eventually saw the stadium closed in October 2000. The 2000 Challenge Cup final had been the first staged away from Wembley, with Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh hosting the game.

The following year, the RFL accepted the RFU's offer, and more than 68,000 fans attended to see the then reigning Super League champions St Helens defeat the cup holders Bradford 13-6. St Helens' victory at Twickenham was their eighth in the competition; the club's ninth Challenge Cup victory came in 2006, and also took place at Twickenham, when they defeated Huddersfield.

Answer: Wigan

The Middlesex Sevens was a charity rugby sevens tournament traditionally held at the end of the rugby union season at Twickenham. The competition, held on a single day (rugby sevens matches are played over a duration of fourteen minutes, with two halves of seven minutes each), would see some of England's top club sides come up against a number of other teams invited by the organisers.

In 1996, as part of the rapprochement between rugby union and rugby league, the organisers of the Middlesex Sevens invited Wigan to participate in the competition, the first time a rugby league side had been so invited. Taking place midway between their cross-code challenge against Bath, Wigan brought a significant number of their Super League squad to the competition, which they entered as overwhelming favourites. During the competition they beat Richmond in Round 1 before facing three of that season's top four in the Courage League - Harlequins, Leicester and Wasps, who they defeated 38-15 in the final to become the first rugby league side to win the competition. Six years later, in 2002, the organisers invited the reigning Super League champions, Bradford Bulls, to take part.

The Bradford side arrived at the competition having played a league game the day before, and eventually won the competition by beating Wasps 42-14.

Answer: Sale Sharks

In January 2003, the reigning Super League champions St Helens and the Premiership runners-up Sale Sharks faced off in a new cross-code challenge event at Knowsley Road, the rugby league side's home ground. Unlike the first such event between Wigan and Bath in 1996, this was to be a one-off game, with each half played under each code's rules. By 2003, rugby union had been fully professional for more than seven years.

The fitness levels of professional rugby union players had significantly improved from the first days of professionalism in the mid 1990s, and led to what was seen at the time as a significant upset.

In the first half of the fixture, Sale, who included former rugby league legend Jason Robinson in their side, ran up a score of 41-0 under union rules, while in the second half, played under league rules, Sale, although unable to score themselves, were able to limit St Helens to just 39 points, leading to a final score of 41-39 to the rugby union side.

In 2014, Sale attempted to schedule another cross-code game, this time against Salford City Reds, with whom they share a stadium, although this eventually did not take place.

Answer: Harlequins

London Broncos was originally founded in 1980 as Fulham RLFC by the then chairman of Fulham FC. Originally playing at the football club's Craven Cottage ground, following the ending of Fulham's backing, the rugby league side was forced into a nomadic existence playing at various sites around the capital.

In 1991, the club was renamed as London Crusaders, before it was purchased in 1994 by the Australian club Brisbane Broncos, who applied their moniker to the side. Despite this stability, and relative success on the pitch, the club maintained a nomadic status, which included two stints at the Stoop Memorial Ground, the home of rugby union side Harlequins.

In 2005, London Broncos was purchased by businessman Ian Lenagan, who took the club back to the Stoop for a third time.

At the same time, the club announced a partnership with Harlequins, which saw the Broncos renamed as Harlequins RL. However, unlike the relationship between Leeds Rhinos and Leeds Tykes, the two Harlequins clubs remained separate entities.

This relationship lasted until 2011, after which the rugby league side reverted back to its old name of London Broncos, eventually leaving the Stoop in 2013.