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To make league, they reduced the teams to 13 a side and took out a lot of the stuff that slows a union game down (contested rucks, scrums etc) so there's more running and play is turned around faster, which requires players to be fitter in league. That's why forwards in league are leaner than they are in union, and their careers only last till 30ish. And in league, the halves are more effective at putting plays on. If you've been watching league all your life, you'll find union slow, complicated and a bit of a clusterfuck.
If you don't know which is which, just assume you're watching union. Much more widespread. League is only played on the east coast of Australia, parts of England and a few places in NZ.
I'm probably the only person here from a place where league is more popular than union. It exists here, but like some other places it's a richboy game, played by sons of doctors, private school kids and the like. Our team is consistently last in the Supers competition.
The rugby union over here lures a few league players across every year because they can afford to pay players more. They usually end up playing for Australia in rugby too, the Wallabies' last decent run coincided with when they had lured a few leaguies across. In the 2003 World Cup (when Australia made the final), they had 3 leaguies in their backline (Wendell Sailor, Mat Rogers, Lote Tuqiri). Most of them tend to end up back in league (Sailor, Rogers, Timana Tahu have, Lote Tuqiri is thinking about it). Berrick Barnes (current Wallaby) used to be a leaguie, as did Brad Thorn (All Blacks) who switched between league and union twice. Sonny Bill Williams and Mark Gasnier are 2 former league players who are playing club rugby somewhere in Europe right now, Karmichael Hunt will join them soon.
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