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Listed Sporting Events

I am very grateful for that intervention. My hon. Friend has probably pinched about three seconds of my speech, but that is neither here nor there because I fully agree with him. The point that he makes is very important. In rugby league, most of the players come from quite deprived backgrounds. Many of them do not have the family discipline that perhaps exists in other families, but going into rugby league gives them that discipline. It gives them the personal satisfaction of achieving excellence in speed, skill, ball-handling ability and so on. Also, if someone makes a mistake and a penalty is awarded against them, it is 10 metres, and that is 10 metres that the forwards have to get back and they do not like it. They tell their colleagues, "You stop giving away penalties." If someone is sent off or sin-binned, the whole team get battered for that. I think that my hon. Friend's point was about that peer group discipline. Equally, the respect that the officials receive in rugby league is paramount. That applies to rugby union as well; we should be fair about that. In rugby, nobody questions the decisions of the officials, which is absolutely right. That self-discipline comes from playing the game; people have an understanding of how to talk to officials and so on. I remember going to two games at the Millennium stadium. One was Wigan Athletic against Manchester United in the Carling cup. There was segregation. There were police all over the place. There was no trouble, as it happened; nevertheless, there was that anticipation. I then went to watch Wigan Warriors playing St. Helens. There were no police about. There was no segregation. Alcohol was freely available. It was a great atmosphere and a great day. The difference between the two comes from the community spirit that flows all the way through the game of rugby. It is important that the rugby league challenge cup is on free-to-air television so that we can project that to the nation. We can do that by having the schools, which provide the usual opener to our game, there and we can show what our game can do for the individual, for sport and for rugby league. It is important that when the Secretary of State finishes his consultation—we shall ensure that he gets many more than the 148 people responding in the first instance—he takes that on board and ensures that the rugby league challenge cup final is free to air so that everybody can see it.