Nineteen ninety-seven is the most important year in rugby league history - at least since the Great Schism of 1895. It's also the year the sport's current administrators want you to forget, when a pay television war in Australia drove the game to the brink and brutally exposed it's ingrained qualities and flaws in all their bloody glory. Journalist Steve Mascord covered the Super League War for the Sydney Morning Herald and on the 25th anniversary of the divided season has interviewed more than 100 others who lived through it - from Ken Arthurson and John Ribot to Newcastle Knights ballboy Michael Maher - bringing you the absolute definitive story of rugby's Second Great Schism. It's the rugby league's most important story, being told while it's not too late. You'll never quite see the game the same way again.
Two Tribes: The Untold Story of Rugby League's Divided Year and the Birth of the NRL
Nineteen ninety-seven is the most important year in rugby league history - at least since the Great Schism of 1895. It's also the year the sport's current administrators want you to forget, when a pay television war in Australia drove the game to the brink and brutally exposed it's ingrained qualities and flaws in all their bloody glory. Journalist Steve Mascord covered the Super League War for the Sydney Morning Herald and on the 25th anniversary of the divided season has interviewed more than 100 others who lived through it - from Ken Arthurson and John Ribot to Newcastle Knights ballboy Michael Maher - bringing you the absolute definitive story of rugby's Second Great Schism. It's the rugby league's most important story, being told while it's not too late. You'll never quite see the game the same way again.