There’s a TV re-run tonight, 11.50pm on BBC1, of the brilliant documentary called ‘The Rugby Codebreakers’ which looks at the way the many Welsh Rugby Union players were treated in their homeland when they decided to “go north” and turn pro in Rugby League.
It follows ‘Match Of The Day 2’ and if anyone out there still hasn’t seen it, then don’t miss it this time round; it’s a brilliant production. Carolyn Hitt presents a look at the Welsh players, during the 100-year amateur era, who switched codes from Union to League — considered by many in Wales and the south of England to be a taboo.
Though presented by the Welsh and first shown on BBC Wales, it depicts Rugby League in a good light and concludes that all the wrongs of the mass migration of rugby players from the Principality to the mill towns of the North of England had their origins in The Valleys. — Roger Halstead.
