ON SUNDAY we had rugby league's Arriva Trains Cup final, when 6,500 people saw Salford City Reds beat Leigh Centurions at Rochdale's Spotland Stadium.

It was one of the most important games of the National League season, as it decided who was to lift its first bit of silverware, with only two more trophies - the Divisions One and Two titles - now up for grabs.

Yet where was the national media coverage, with very few match previews and only the occasional paragraph in report or reaction?

Okay, it might be a new competition which is still growing in prestige and, okay, Super League was bound to take precedence in the papers - which begs the question why the Rugby Football League played the Arriva final on the same day as four Super League matches. But the underlining issue is the coverage the game as a whole receives from national media.

The amount of column inches dedicated to rugby league is pitiful considering the size and popularity of the game, and for the National League it is even worse.

Regional newspapers can in the main be exempt from this criticism (naturally, as I am writing in one) as they concentrate more on their own local clubs - in whatever sport - and rarely do the game a disservice.

But the national media have long come under fire from league fans up and down the country.

Without wanting to bring up old resentments, it is easy to compare coverage afforded to rugby league and rugby union (comparing it to football would, of course, be futile as that has already gone beyond saturation point).

If you look at the game in terms of popularity, the top tier in both codes attract similar average attendances - both the Super League and Zurich Premiership getting 8,000-plus mean average - with all the individual record crowds belonging to the 13-a-side code. Of the next two tiers in the professional set-ups, rugby league has the higher average.

But nonetheless, the coverage afforded to league, especially in the broadsheets, is far less comprehensive than that handed to union.

Of course, the international scene in union is stronger, but that does not explain why club union gets so much more coverage and columns than club league.

On a similar note, county cricket gets comparatively small crowds yet that too gets a much fairer crack of the whip than rugby league.

The coverage, or rather the lack of, is a major bone of contention, while quality as well as quantity is often chastised.

Some broadsheet union writers, for example, seem to take a perverse glee out of criticising league rather than writing about union, while league writers rarely get the space to go into any detail.

And just why the BBC persists in showing rows and rows of chimney tops whenever the Challenge Cup comes around is beyond a joke - forget the facts, let's persevere with the old stereotype. Furthermore, the Super League Show is still not shown in London, despite the capital now having two professional clubs.

Rugby league has been doubling its efforts to expand in recent years and the game seems to be taking off in non-traditional areas, but the lack of media coverage has always been a hindrance.

Whatever the reasons, there is inequity, yet despite this, the crowds remain decent. Imagine what they would be like if the game was ever talked up in the national press.

- TKO was written this week by Peter Martini

Updated: 09:54 Tuesday, July 08, 2003