NADINE DORRIES deserved all the lampooning she received for her faux pas on Thursday, telling an assembled audience of Rugby League dignitaries and journalists at a World Cup event how much she loved Rugby League, then going on to describe Jonny Wilkinson’s Union World Cup-winning drop-goal from 2003.

This is the perfect example of a lack of broader sporting cultural identity that has plagued our sport for a century or more.

Naturally, our existing fan base will snort their derision at the Secretary of State for Sport’s naiveté. We read regularly that our sport’s fan and participation base is gradually ageing, and we aren’t replacing it successfully with a young or diverse demographic.

So ponder for a moment that whether Nadine represents a whole cross-section of society who, when asked to identify something in Rugby League, end up straying into Rugby Union for their answers.

This tells us a very uncomfortable truth about what we have as a sport.

We have a product and brand that doesn’t differentiate from a financially and geographically more expansive relative. And it also sends alarming signals about what we don’t have – an appeal, a crossover, or a foothold into a huge swathe of society, who will either default to historical memes about flat-caps and pit villages or see nothing of interest and move on (along with their money and patronage) to something else.

I’m certain our new bedfellows at IMG will be noting with great concern, rather than humour, Nadine Dorries’ faux pas.

But once the sniggering stops, what are we as a sport going to do to change perception?

I suspect very little. And when you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.

Andy Preston, Ilford, Essex

WHERE IS THE TOM BERGIN TROPHY?

In response to the letter from Chris Heinitz in the Mailbag (20 June edition), it is several years since the Rugby League Writers Association (now RLWBA) and the RFL enjoyed a close working relationship (Aims and Ambitions No. 2 in the RLWBA Constitution), which may go part of the way to explaining the disappearance of the Tom Bergin Trophy.

The trophy was introduced by the RLWA in 1987 in memory of a man who reported on Salford Rugby League club for fifty years and was both President and Chairman of the writers’ association for 25 years. He was a real stalwart of the organisation.

The first winner of the Tom Bergin was Gary Ainsworth of Swinton in 1987.

A side issue of the constant changes in the structure of divisions, play-offs and sponsorships for the second tier of the game resulted in less regular contact between the two bodies and the Tom Bergin Trophy disappeared, like several other awards.

All RLWBA-sponsored awards were named after Rugby League journalists – the Jack Bentley Trophy in the short-lived Charity Shield, the Arthur Brooks Merit Ward for services to the game, the Harry Sunderland Trophy (Championship from 1965, Premiership from 1974, Grand Final from 1998) and the Raymond Fletcher Trophy (RLWBA Player of the Year).