History
Rugby football was an increasingly popular sport for Wales in the 1890s and particularly in the south where its popularity surpassed that of association football. The Welsh coal miners shared the same working class ethos of the miners from the northern counties of England. The impending schism of 1895 tore apart the English rugby union and in the early 1900s, the shock waves were being felt in rugby worldwide, though there was little desire in Wales to embrace professionalism. Amateurism in Wales was seen as a means of holding together a community in which there were expectations by the public on their sportsman to not turn their back on international rugby. The Welsh took pride in the position rugby gave them in the sporting world, and therefore the Welsh Rugby Union saw little attraction in turning professional.
Nonetheless, many Welsh players signed for English clubs. The Northern Union's administrators began to ponder the possibilities of international competitions against an English representative side. The first attempt met with a lack of public interest, and the first scheduled Northern Union international, also became the first postponed Northern Union international. It was rescheduled for the 5 April 1904. The team opposing England was labelled Other Nationalities and consisted of Welshmen and a few Scots. The Other Nationalities proved too strong, defeating the English 9 - 3. In 1905, England gained back some credibility with a 21 - 11 win.
In 1907 a professional version of the "All Blacks" rugby team from New Zealand (nicknamed the All Golds by Australian press) toured England in what became the first set of international games played under the new NU rules. The All Golds had not played under the Northern Union rules and underwent a week of intensive training. The first Wales international league game took place at Aberdare on 1 January 1908 played against the All Golds. Wales went on to defeat New Zealand 9-8, the winning try scored by former Wales rugby union international Dai Jones.
In 1907, the Welsh Northern Union was formed in Wrexham, but the Northern Union refused it affiliation as they wanted the body located in the South of Wales and the WNU soon folded. In 1907 two Welsh clubs Ebbw Vale RLFC and Merthyr Tydfil RLFC joined the Northern Union and also competed in the Challenge Cup.
During the 1908-09 season, there were sufficient numbers of Welsh clubs to run a separate Welsh League section of the competition, alongside the Northern Union's Yorkshire and Lancashire Leagues. The Welsh League lasted only two seasons before folding in 1910 due to a lack of teams.
In 1926 the RFL formed a Welsh commission in an attempt to convert rugby union clubs to rugby league.
From 1949 to 1955 a Welsh league was run by the Welsh commission but it was disbanded due to lack of interest and finance. Founder members were Neath, Cardiff, Llanelli, Bridgend, Ystradgynlais, Aberavon, Amman Vale and Blaina.
Harsh economic times in the 1980s meant that rugby union players such as Jonathan Davies and Scott Gibbs 'Went North' to play professional rugby league in order to earn a living. This flow of players was halted when rugby union became professional in 1995.
With the Rugby League Conference’s growth throughout England, the RFL and its WRL arm set up an amateur club, the Cardiff Demons who joined the Central South Division of the Rugby League Conference in 2001. The Demons, who were mainly made up of former players from the university UWIC rugby league club were quite successful and instantly saw interest from other parts of Wales grow.
In 2002, two former students of Swansea University decided to set up a local club called the Swansea Bulls - now Swansea Valley Miners - with the view to play friendly matches against the Demons and other touring clubs. Peter Thomas and Gareth Jones, both former Welsh Student R.L. team members started an amateur team out of the Morriston R.F.C. ground with a mixture of university and local union players. Junior teams soon started playing league and one team, coached by Neville Price was coached by the Bradford Bulls team coaches on a weekend tour.
The following year, the RFL decided to expand, letting in six more open-aged sides to form the Welsh division of the Rugby League Conference with North Wales Coasters playing in one of the English divisions.
With the traditional venue of Wembley being rebuilt, the Rugby League Challenge Cup was played at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff in 2003, 2004 and 2005.
Wales Rugby League achieved governing body status in 2005 and employed its first professional chairman, Mark Rowley, in 2006.
Crusaders joined National League Two in 2006. They played against Brisbane Broncos in the Bulmers Original Cider Challenge at the Brewery Field on Thursday 15 February 2007, losing with a scoreline of 6-32. They achieved promotion to National League One in 2007.
More recently, the Rugby Football League (RFL) took an entire round of Super League matches to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales on the weekend of 5–6 May 2007. This was called Millennium Magic.
Read more about this topic: Rugby League In Wales
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