Martyn Sadler

I just want to place on record my thanks to Paul Wellens for the courteous and considerate way he has always treated the media while he has been the head coach at St Helens. It's clearly been a tough decision by the club but I'm sure Paul will bounce back elsewhere and I suspect he will gain a lot from being in a new environment after so many years with the Saints.

Thanks for your interesting response. Initially we would be selling largely to the same audience but offering them something different, like Sevens in rugby union. The point about Nines is that as a shortened form of the game, it is far more flexible in terms of expanding the audience and the geographical spread of the game. But a lot would depend on how it was organised and whether it had a decent promotional infrastructure. Those are not necessarily strong points for our sport. As for taking the game to towns and cities where professional teams don't exist, we did that for a brief time in the 1990s, but it petered out through a lack of ambition.

Check out the new edition of the League Express Podcast. Jake Kearnan and I discuss a range of topics in relation to events both on and off the field, including the play-offs in both Super League and the NRL, and we discuss my proposal for a new competition for Super League.

It is, and I almost fainted when I saw it!

No, the letter was sent to the directors of SLE. In a strict sense Kris is correct, as GingerJon has pointed out, but in the sense that a letter was actually sent, he has skilfully skirted around the facts. I'm not too surprised that Wigan are reluctant to reveal the details as the letter went down like a lead balloon with most of the other clubs.

Thanks. You're making my point for me.

That's a very sensible point. But a challenge to one is effectively a challenge to all. De jure is often not the same as de facto.

Only if you think the RFL and SLE are totally unconnected entities.

Quote of the week! We might feature it in League Express.

Oh no we didn't. The only sense in which Kris is correct is that the legal challenge from Wigan has been made to Super League (Europe) as opposed to the RFL, because it was SLE that made the decision to move to 14 clubs.

Are you referring to the article about Shane Richardson. If so, I'm not sure why it's embarrassing, but the question you should be asking is whether it was a coincidence that the article appeared in the Sydney Telegraph at roughly the same time as the Guardian article.

If you alienate at least ten of the clubs in your competition I'm not sure it's a sensible business strategy. A tech billionaire may know a lot about tech, but I suspect that Derek knows far more about Rugby League.

Tell that to Mike Danson!