batch

Yup, when Wigan were sweeping all before them they were the only pro setup at the time. I know players, and have friends who know players, who played for the likes of Widnes during that early 90's period - when Widnes were good - and they were holding down full time jobs at the same time.

Even upto about 5 years ago the relative of a family friend who played (not sure if he does now or not) for Warrington was working part time as a prison guard.

SSES

League went open in 1895 with the formation of the Northern Rugby Union over issues to do with broken time payment to compensate players for missing work to play rugby, was pretty much a north/south divide.

I suppose you could class this as professional in that the players were getting paid by the clubs to play, but they were by no means at all full time pros, all had full time jobs.

League became popular in France in the 1930s due to the 'shamateurism' row that emerged with union players receiving unofficial payments, this got reversed again during the War when the Vichy put a ban on rugby league so union became popular again.

The formation of the Murdoch driven super league led to the first real full time professionals around 1996, although some clubs as batch mentioned were training pretty much full time before that.

Brief history of league, basically went full time pro at a similar time to union but has been a 'professional' sport since the 1890s