The new episode of Rugby Reloaded looks at the long history of coal-mining and rugby league. Rugby and coalminers in the north of England formed an unbreakable bond as far as back as the 1880s. Rugby league was built on pit villages and mining towns - of the first ten members of the RFL Hall of Fame, three were miners.

But as this episode explains, this link went much deeper, because both mining and rugby league were seen as exemplars of working-class toughness, teamwork and identity, a spirit which continues even today, long after the last pits have closed.

Boys playing rugby league outside Haig Pit near Whitehaven in 1951.