for the BBC-2 Trophy
(See below)

Today the game of Rugby League stands at what might be the threshold of a new golden age of fast and flowing football. And BBC-2's Floodlit Rugby League Competition -which reaches its climax tonight-must certainly take some credit for the transformation.
This year's floodlit contest was launched in an atmosphere of suspicion, suspense, and controversy. The Rugby League had decided that the time was ripe for radical experimentation with the 'play-the-ball' rules, if the game was to be dissuaded from its apparent death-wish. And the floodlit competition was selected as the guinea-pig for the drastic new rules.
Just how successful the televised experiment has proved to be can be judged by the fact that within a few weeks of the floodlit competition getting under way, the 'new rugby' was brought into operation in League games as well.
If tonight's final runs true to form it should be full of the sort of fast and furious football which some people say hasn't been seen regularly in Rugby League for nearly fifteen years. (Brian Finch)