John Drake

Locked.

Ahem. Just to remind everyone what this thread is supposed to be about...

Doesn't look like it. I'm locking this thread now as it has driftred way off topic. We'll be posting match threads up for the remaining rounds of the Challenge Cup in 2026 so the actual games can be discussed in those as and when. If anyone wants to discuss the structure of it, the promotion of it, or any other aspects relating to it, please feel free to start a new thread. Thanks

I have strategically decided to merge the 'Strategic Review' and 'Abi Ekoku' threads as for the last few pages of each they have essentially been discussing the same things.

A lot of people still refer to League Express as the Rugby Leaguer, though its 'proper' name is... Rugby Leaguer & League Express. And Rugby League World is still often confused with Open Rugby even though the title was changed last century (1999). We're not bothered what you call 'em, as long as you're buying 'em!

Just to clarify, anyone using any part of this forum, public or private, to make any kind of threat aimed at others will be permanently banned.

This unloved Disney era spin-off is turning out to be pretty good. The scenes in the diving contraption were very claustrophobic and effective. I think the cliffhangers, especially the end of episode 3, would have been even more powerful if they'd stripped these episodes across 5 consecutive nights and made us wait a bit for the resolution, instead of 2-2-1. Looking forward to seeing how it all gets wrapped up on Sunday. I'm hoping the Tardis materialises just before the closing credits... the Doctor steps out and says "Did you miss me?"

I enjoyed watching the re-edited version of The Sea Devils on BBC Four, followed by the first two episodes of The War Between the Land and the Sea on BBC One on Sunday night. Seems to have done ok in the ratings up against the final of I'm a Celeb, and generally avoided the kind of vitriolic criticism aimed at Doctor Who itself these days. I'd call that a 'win' after all the doom and gloom surrounding the Disney Plus era of the show.

No one is preventing someone local from setting up a rival to the Hastings Observer, that will employ brilliant investigative journalists to cover local issues, other than the fact not enough people will pay to read it to make it viable and it'll quickly go out of business (which will be why the original one was sold off to the group who stripped it of anything worth paying for). Go on, give it a go and see how long it lasts if is as easy as you suggest. I wish things were different, I honestly do, personally I loathe the clickbait world we live in now, but the internet and the availability of 'free content' (factual or otherwise, who knows) has completely pulled the rug from under the kind of world we might all prefer to live in. How do you uninvent it? You can't. So how do you generate revenue to pay wages of the people you want to create the quality content? Answers on a postcard, please, to anyone in the publishing industry. Similarly, when ITV is shortly subsumed into Sky TV, people will scratch their heads and wonder why it happened, but the reality is their audiences have collapsed and ad revenue along with it, because people don't watch linear broadcast TV anymore and if they do, they skip through all the ads that pay for the programmes to be made or scream blue murder about paying a licence fee to keep the BBC going. 'Free' stuff comes at a very heavy cost.

Ahem... this, obviously. https://www.totalrl.com/product/rugby-league-yearbook-2025-26/

Must be the off-season.

Q: Why is there no brilliant investigative journalism these days like there was in the past...? A: People don't want to pay to read or watch it, and it doesn't come for free. Good luck squaring that circle.

Can we keep this thread to a kit design discussion? The stuff about the relative merits of sponsors/sponsorship probably needs a separate thread, if someone would like to start one. Thanks. That Bulls kit is lovely, btw.

Beat me to it. Give me Odsal any day of the week. Home is where the is.

Some low grade insults going on in here. It's not the TRL way now, is it. You all know that. Here's yet another reminder of the T&Cs which haven't changed since 2019 so you should all be pretty familiar with them by now. Please read and absorb, with particular attention to the bits in bold. Thanks Joe Stalin Site Admin TERMS & CONDITIONS OF USE Last updated 10th April 2019 Your use of these forums constitutes your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions. League Publications Ltd (LPL) reserves the right to change these Terms and Conditions at any time by posting changes here. Your continued use of the site after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of this agreement as modified by the posted changes. You agree to use the site only for lawful purposes, and in a manner which does not infringe the rights of, or restrict or inhibit the use and enjoyment of this site by any third party. You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or League Publications Ltd. These Terms & Conditions apply in full to all communications made on this site, whether in the public forums or via the Private Messaging system. All contributions must be civil and tasteful. No disruptive, offensive or abusive behaviour. Contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble. No unlawful or objectionable content. Unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable. Only one username per person is allowed. If you attempt to use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting the forum or annoying other users, use the personal details of another individual to register one or more accounts, or deliberately swap your username with someone else for the same purpose, your account may be disabled without warning. No spamming or off-topic material. No advertising without prior permission. No inappropriate (e.g. vulgar, offensive etc) user names, or usernames which are an attempt to impersonate another individual. We reserve the right to issue warnings and/or temporarily/permanently suspend access to all or part of the site if any of the above conditions are infringed. We reserve the right to request a user to validate their identity by post in order to continue using the forum. All users accept complete and total responsibility for any potentially harmful, libelous or other legally actionable comments and that they indemnify League Publications Ltd to the total extent of any and all costs, settlements and judgements involved with defending any legal claim against their posts. If these Terms and Conditions are not accepted in full, your use of the site must be terminated immediately.