Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, confused the two forms of rugby during her remarks at a Rugby League World Cup event on Thursday in St. Helens.
According to Dorries, who thought it happened in rugby league, in the 2003 rugby union World Cup final between England and Australia, Jonny Wilkinson scored the game-winning drop goal for England.
“I’ve always quite enjoyed the idea of rugby league,” Dorries said in her speech.
What I remember most clearly is the drop goal from 2003.
“At the time, we were drinking Bloody Marys,” she continued. Later, she tweeted an apology for her mistake. She acknowledged that she might have altered her speech coding, just like Jason Robinson.
The League and union have a long history in the UK. The amount of rugby league I’ve seen over my life has obviously decreased, but I’m looking forward to watching England (and all the other home nations) participate in this fall’s RL World Cup.
Vice-chairman Billy Vaughan thought the event, which took place at the Portico Vine rugby league club in St Helens, was humorous.
They just need to finish their homework. It won’t harm her in any way because someone else wrote that speech for her. The differences between the codes are substantial, and it comes off as mocking.
Regulations, point systems, and team sizes differ between rugby league and rugby union. A union side has 15 players, whereas a league side has 13 players.
During the release of an interim report, Dorries had been talking about the World Cup’s social impact programme, which is investing £25 million in local communities all around England.
The Rugby League World Cup CEO, Jon Dutton, said he was happy the secretary of state was present to support the report’s launch despite the fact that she “clearly made a mistake.”
We want more people to be aware of what beautiful sports rugby union and rugby league are, and despite being 127 years old, the sport needs a competition like this to grow in popularity, he said. We spoke, and we eagerly anticipate her attending the competition.
