Sporting Bygones: Truce called between league and union during war saw them battle one another

Instead, 15 years later, we still have the same old tired arguments and prejudices, the two camps are like aged spinsters, doomed to live out their days together without ever passing the salt or the time of day. Rugby is still a game divided, despite the early promise when Bath and Wigan faced each other in the days when professional rugby union was a baby; the chances are it will stay that way.

But if the lack of progress towards a unified code is disappointing for some, for the majority it is confirmation that the split of 1895 was a defining moment, that the creation of a second rugby front ensured that the union game could never again dictate.

Many of those who delight in that position – even though they are far too young to remember the actual matches – point to two afternoons in the depths of the Second World War as proof of their code's supremacy, the famous League v Union games staged at Headingley and Odsal to raise funds for service charities.

The playing of rugby league within the armed forces is a comparatively recent innovation; during the war and for some years afterwards any rugby played was under union laws but, significantly, the strict ban on union players taking the field alongside league counterparts was ignored.

Union and league men played together for their unit or their regiment right the way through to the Combined Services and it was the Northern Command Sports Board, president and commander-in-chief Sir Ralph Eastwood, which organised the first meeting of teams representing the two codes.

The encounter, at Headingley on Saturday, January 23 1943, was billed as "the first match ever played between representative teams of union and league players" and was administered under Twickenham's laws. The union team led 8-3 at half-time but the league side fought back to finish as winners by 18-11.

The event was such a success that a second game was organised, this time by the Inter-Services Rugby Football Committee, to be played at Odsal on Saturday, April 29 1944 and again the league players came out on top, by a 15-10 margin.

The match was the focal point of a full programme of war-time entertainment featuring pipe bands, Highland dancing and "demonstrations of get-fit exercises, basketball etc by convalescent and PT staff, marching and counter-marching by drums and bugles of Bradford Wing ATC".

Inspection of the teams on duty in both matches gives an indication of why the league players prevailed; they had the better side on both occasions, even if they were comfortably (or otherwise) out-ranked.

In 1943 the union team included nine officers in their line-up and one more in 1944; the league side did not contain a single commissioned officer in either meeting, an indication, perhaps, of union's middle-class roots rather than any discrimination among those selecting the respective sides.

The 13-a-side team boasted a considerable base of household names drawn from the traditional heartland of the game with the great Ernest Ward, still a legend at Odsal, at full-back and another Bradford Northern favourite Willie Davies at stand-off.

Davies played international rugby at both codes and was a cousin of Haydn Tanner, his half-back partner on the day Swansea beat the magnificent 1935 All Black side led by Jack Manchester.

The cousins were still at Gowerton County School when they played against the New Zealanders and Manchester – according to rugby folklore – sent the message home "Tell them we have been beaten, but don't tell them it was by a pair of schoolboys".

Davies earned his first cap for Wales in 1936 and had won eight caps by the time he joined Bradford Northern in 1939. He then added rugby league caps for Great Britain to his collection when he played in Australia in the historic 1946 tour Down Under and he was still in the Test side when the Australians came over the following winter.

Cousin Haydn was in the Union XV at both Headingley and Odsal and is still regarded by many as the best scrum-half in the history of the Welsh game, better, even, than Gareth Edwards.

He was 18 when he made his debut for Wales – again New Zealand provided the opposition and again the Welsh side prevailed. He would play 25 matches for Wales, 12 of them as captain, and toured South Africa with the Lions in 1938 but injury limited him to one Test appearance.

He led the Barbarians against the Australian tourists in 1948 and a year later played his final match for Wales

A third Odsal hero alongside Ward and Davies in the League XV in both war-time matches was Trevor Foster, who had played as a youngster for Newport and Pill Harriers before "going North" in 1938.

He would play 428 games for Bradford, scoring 140 tries, 24 of them in the 1947-8 season, and crossed the line in both the 1947 and 1949 Challenge Cup finals at Wembley when Northern won the trophy.

He played international rugby league for Wales and Tests for Great Britain against New Zealand and Australia.

He later played a significant part, alongside Joe Phillips, in 1963 when it appeared Bradford Northern would go out of existence.

The pair convinced the Rugby Football League and the public of the city that Northern should not be lost and their energy and enthusiasm were key elements in the establishment of the club that became today's Bradford Bulls.

In contrast to the star-spangled line-up they faced, the Union XV was – Tanner apart – a little short of players of the highest quality but, with perfect irony, they did include in the second match two men who would make names for themselves in the game: prop forward Robin Prescott and No 8 Bob Weighill.

Both would become secretary of the Rugby Football Union and had, as part of their day-to-day duties, to uphold their code's strict application of the regulations prohibiting union clubs fielding players from "the other game" and from excluding forever from rugby union men who dared try their hand at rugby league.