Regardless of the rights and wrongs of Sonny Bill Williams' sudden defection to union, this is a very dark time for league. Australia is the only country where league is a significant professional sport and if it's perceived to be losing all its top players then league's status will decline rapidly. It may not be long before league becomes softball to union's baseball.
I just hope that while union is stealing the players, SANZAR could also have stolen one of league's more successful concepts - the club system. As in English football, league clubs inspire the kind of passion that translates into healthy profits - in fact it has allowed some clubs to survive well beyond normal financial feasibility!
Unfortunately SANZAR has continued to persist with self serving franchising arrangements that are designed to prevent clubs becoming too powerful in their own right. However the pull of Europe that is causing such strife for league is also working to the detriment of southern hemisphere union.
Imagine if SANZAR had committed itself to a club system from the outset. Canterbury might by now be the world's favourite union club, and the SANZAR competition might have been resilient enough to continue to attract the best players out of TV revenues. Instead it can look forward to becoming a feeder competition that the top players will yearn to leave.
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