IT MIGHT be heresy in some parts of south west Lancashire and south west London to say so, but sometimes I do wonder why the two codes of rugby bother to remain apart.

The rules could be changed very easily and, after all, both games are now nothing like they were 100 years ago, so change is not an unwelcome or foreign idea.

Union has made itself into a terrible mess by taking on some features of an attempt at more open rugby while maintaining those features of its play which militate against more open rugby and which clog play up, slow it down and reward negativity.

The interchange of players, coaches and, more importantly, philosophies are increasingly being passed between the codes.

The current leading try scorer in the Guinness premiership is the ex-Wigan full-back, Chris Ashton at Northampton, where he plays with the ex-Widnes and Salford half-back, Stephen Myler, who has already been tipped by rugby union journalists as a future England rugby union stand-off.

Oh, and if you venture down to the west country they rave about the sublime skills of their wizard centre, Shontayne Hape, who played for the Bradford Bulls and New Zealand with great distinction for many years.

But in terms of the extraordinary movement from league to union which has taken place, often below the radar, over the last 15 years or so, perhaps the most remarkable transition has been the move to senior positions in coaching at the biggest union clubs of former League stars.

When I watched Wigan win the Middlesex Sevens in 1996, I would have been more than a little sceptical if someone had told me that Andy Farrell, Jason Robinson and Shaun Edwards would all end up as coaches at Saracens, Sale and Wasps respectively.

It is a quiet revolution which too many union refusniks have been unable to acknowledge with any grace.

Rather like the grubber kick through a crowded defence, or the high kick to the winger in the corner, or the use of dummy runners in midfield, rugby union has taken far more from rugby league than was ever the case the other way round. That is not to say, of course, that rugby league can’t learn from the other code – for example it is massively behind in terms of its international game and generating corporate sponsorship.

The differences between the two codes have shrunk hugely in the years since rugby union went openly professional. Perhaps now is the time to begin a conversation about how a new, combined set of rules would work to the great benefit of both codes, of what, in its origins, language and espirit de corps, is a common parentage in the game of rugby football.