Rugby League is more a northern thing in this country, which has never really taken off in the South. Murdoch - he of the Sun paper - has tried (Maybe succeeded) into turning it into something it isn't (wasn't), and to the observer, it's like he tried to capture some of the glitz American football has. The clubs were encouraged to adopt silly animal or otherwise names, hence Bradford Northern became Bradford Bulls, Wigan became Wigan Warriors. After a brief flirtation with this sillyness, Halifax dropped the "Blue Sox" tag and became Halifax again. As they were dumped out of the Superleague, Murdoch probably didn't give a stuff.
That's all he wanted - money raising glitz, when Rugby League was always more about real fans, walking to the match, past washing in the street, and the fans mixed in the ground - trouble was as rare as rocking horse doo-doo.

Having said that, a friend of mine, a real fanatical RL fan tells me there's one club in the league whose fans (??!!) are trying to introduce football style violence, and who the other fans as a result hate and dread playing against. Club begins with "F"