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So IMG proposed, and has voted in a system that would expand the league to 14 when clubs improved themselves to a higher standard and funding had increased to a level to support it. And now the clubs are heading towards overriding that and include clubs deemed not good enough and without money to fund it. But still, IMG are the issue here.

Workington Town’s charity day on Sunday raised £10,244 for Wasdale Mountain Rescue team, a brilliant effort by all concerned.

Just spoke to Mark Aston and he says he is totally fine to play in the next game.

Started coaching an U13s team in south Wales this year. We’re through to then national semi finals on Sunday. They’ve never really had ‘RL’ coaching before despite playing a couple of seasons as a keeping fit exercise post-RU season. 5 wins, 1 draw, 2 defeats. 20+ training each week. Solid squad of 25-30 available each game. My loose forward was part of a Champions Schools winning team this year also with Glantaf. All very positive.

I'm sorry but I've been sternly advised by one M. Sadler not to pay any attention to what journalists say they've heard from unnamed sources.

This is the mentality difference at the heart of everything. At the start of that season Harry would have told Fev that they should spend more on players to push for promotion. Then the next day if Toulouse knocked on the door that they should spend more on players to push for promotion. Then Bradford the next day etc. And it could only ever work out that season for one club, even if the advice given to each one individually was considered correct. If you're not that club then you either have to double down (if you have the cash), cut back heavily, or run into financial difficulties. It sees the clubs as the primary individual entities with each other as their main competitors. The opposing view (which is more in line with the img thinking) is to see rugby league as the primary entity and the clubs as much collaborators as competitors. The real fight from this point of view is not Featherstone vs Toulouse, it's rugby league vs other sports, video games, etc. Plus if you improve your facilities and boost your social media presence but fail to get promoted, that's a longer lasting legacy than a good set of players you then have to swiftly let go.

Actually scrap that, Id say they add more than many English clubs. They spend up to the salary cap, buy marquee players and play in front of good crowds. That enhances the quality and appeal of the competition.

Well done to Hull KR's medical staff for doing their job and making the right call. It's not an easy job and medical staff are often under immense pressure to get players back out on the field. Good stuff and the way it should be.

Is the Readers Poll in LE this Monday: Do you approve of Nigel Wood's appointment? 1. Yes 2. Yes (in blue)

You're quite happy to cast aspersions on everyone outside the precious heartlands. And yet it is the heartlanders, for all their hard work, who have failed hardest and most frequently. Get a thicker skin if you're going to hurl insults at everyone who doesn't fit the narrow, narrow, narrow vision of what you think rugby league should be.

If you feel insulted by it then why do people think it's ok to denigrate the exact same people doing a much harder job, with much less, in expansion areas... People like me who have spent a lot of time in community clubs in expansion areas often get a "what do you know" attitude on this forum.. or a "how many games do you go to" "how many people so you speak to about this on a regular basis".. and it's all from "heartland fans"... Wonder why people stop bothering??? I don't.

The thing to be crystal clear on here though is that the agreement to bring in IMG was the clubs. The agreement to approve reimagining RL was the clubs. The agreement to go with grading was the clubs. And if we nip back a few years, the decision to go with licensing, was the clubs. The decision to change their mind a few years later, was the clubs. And Super 8's, the clubs. And so on. And all of the above is fine, I'm perfectly happy that the clubs get their say, but doesn't it strike you as odd that they keep changing direction every 3 years or so.

Understandably so there's lots of negativity around the sport at the moment so I thought id start a thread for good news stories. I'll start it off with a story about a club that I myself have been critical of. I can only applaud this - well done guys, what a gesture

Anglian Vipers Ladies are travelling to play Hull KR Ladies 2nd team before their Ladies’ first team game against Fev on Sunday, on the proper Craven Park pitch, a proud moment for the club.

Isnt this just looking at it entirely the wrong way - expecting away teams to bring you income ?

They’re a competitive (usually) team fulfilling SL fixtures, who offer a great Saturday evening tv slot and away fans love going to Perpignan, what more do you want? I can’t think of any championship club who’d improve SL by replacing Catalan.

Just to clear a few things up. Salford have had central support, and not that long ago. Earlier this season when they couldn’t pay wages, the RFL stepped in to make sure they could fulfil fixtures paying the wages. That’s a serious intervention, and it’s more direct than anything London have received in a very long time. The idea that London have been ring-fenced or handed piles of cash doesn’t reflect reality. They’ve never been protected like Catalans were. They’ve been relegated multiple times including on points difference in 2019 with 10 wins while other clubs in financial trouble have stayed up. Yes, David Hughes was still backing the club until recently but that support faltered after the IMG grading effectively relegated London before a ball was kicked last year. Since then, they’ve been operating on limited resources, with no owned home ground and very minimal central backing. Nobody wants to see Salford pushed out of the game, but let’s not pretend they’ve never been helped - or that London have had some special treatment. If anything, they’ve usually been left out in the cold in recent decades!

I assume that when you put these arguments to Nigel he replied, "I'm not reading all that, just call everyone prejudiced."

But this is also just bang wrong. I mean, all those Aussies that we are gonna start recruiting now are not from the Northern Heartlands. Neither are those Kiwi players. Or even those from PNG and Catalans. There is no real logic as to why some people like RL and others don't. People are not hard-wired in some way that makes them prefer 6 tackles versus line-outs. The real difference is exposure, things being embedded in schools, colleges, universities, local village clubs, pubs, community clubs etc. RL just isn't present in most places - that is the main reason people in some places don't appear interested in RL - not because their brain works differently to heartland folk. I don't think we should be doing less in the Heartlands. We should be doing more - we have to do more to stay afloat, but the opportunities for real growth in player pathways is likely to be modest. It's a numbers game, as well as being the best we can in Heartlands, we need to be going where there are opportunities for player development - naturally you would likely focus on Wales, London and France initially as these are already warm to RL and have some form of groundwork already done. But we really should be looking outside of these areas too. A few people have made the point that we need to sow the seeds all over the place and nurture them to grow over the long term. That doesn't mean routing millions away from the heartlands and spending it recklessly elsewhere, but it just can't be accepted when people say to not bother with London because they aren't interested - that just isn't true. In reality, very many of the best RL players in history have not been from the North of England. We can't forget that - there is a whole world outside of the North - we should be looking for the next Jonathan Davies or Martin Offiah all over the place, not just in Warrington, Leigh, Batley or Cas. The problem with a club led board and strategy is that clubs don't really need the above to happen - they can just sign in players from the Aussie league and let them thrive and develop players - but the game here really does need it, especially if we are really focused on developing a successful test team, and growing the game commercially. A club-led strategy and a sport-led strategy can be very very different - IMO, we need a high quality board and leadership team to deliver something that has conflicts - time will tell if this is that board and leadership team.

This entirely misses the point. The fact those two clubs don’t have competition for miles and miles is the entire point! Rugby league doesn’t need more clubs in the same confined spaces to build participation, anyone in Leigh interested in rugby league has choices and don’t need the Leopards. Anyone in Keighley has access to other elite pathways. Same in Hunslet, and many other places. But the sport has the ability to get more people playing in London and South West France. For minority sports, getting more people playing is key to the mission. The fact you see those clubs strength in that aspect and the strategic advantage it brings us as some sort of “cheating” is precisely the mindset that’s held our sport back for years. It’s not about what makes life better or worse for Leigh relatively, it’s not about any one club… it’s about what’s going to be best for the sport overall.

You've had the last fifteen years and all of the years from 1895 to 1995. And in the intervening years you had the majority of focus. If the game's declined in the heartlands, it's because of a complete and total failure of the people there in spite of having the most favourable set up for rugby league in the country.

Toulouse should be first one as there by far the best run club outside of sl. The argument of not bringing away fans is pathetic and from very small minded people I say this as a Salford fan who they would likely take the place off

I would add to this the safety net for keeping players in the game. If you're a academy player looking at your future career prospects would you feel secure knowing if you don't make it as SL level immediately your only option is dropping into the community game? Would a semi-pro league to fall back on not be encouraging when you're deciding whether to fully commit to rugby as a career? Tyler Dupree gets released from Leeds academy and is questioning whether to continue. He takes up a semi-pro contract at Oldham for a season, is then signed by Widnes, within half a season Salford have picked him up, two years later Wigan have paid a transfer fee for him and he's an England international. What does the alternative look like where there's no decent standard semi-pro structure for him to drop into while he develops into an SL standard player? Matty Smith has a half season loan to Widnes before becoming an SL standard player, goes off to win a few trophies, and then returns to Widnes for a couple of years to wind down his career and assess his future options. If you'd asked the 20 year old Matty Smith if he would prefer that when his body starts to give out (at a point in time that he cannot predict) he would be happy retiring there and then because no SL will want him, or if he'd prefer to go back to Widnes for a few years, get paid some kind of salary and work out what it is he wants to do with the rest of his working life, which is he picking?

Dear God, Martyn we've done this subject to death but if you weren't so blinded by your fealty to The Great Leader you'd be able to apply a little more nuance, and some of your points might land. As it is, people price them out. Of course Wood was good at some things, but a fairer-minded assessor would recognise that those lay in areas of financial prudence and operational governance. Not strategy. After the 2000 World Cup that was very important for the sport, and his work should be appreciated. But there is little evidence of his strategic insight or capability, and plenty of evidence in the negative column. On the Super 8's, they were a number-crunchers solution to internal political challenges in search of a strategy. It focused the sport's narrative at the end of the season on poor sides, playing a poor brand of rugby, in front of smaller crowds made up of fans who'd endured a bad season. Sport is about excellence, and new audiences - the general sports viewers we need - are attracted by having the elite version of the game presented to them, not the weak. It's why more Aussies watch the race to the play-offs than the Cowboys versus the Tigers. Thank God we ditched it before it did even more damage. The TV deal was a factor of external market dynamics: Sky feared a well-resourced new entrant, and so proactively took us off the table ahead of time (now there's an example of good strategy) Then how about the international game? Wood didn't invent the Four Nations in the way many readers may imply from your note. The actual success was the creation of the Tri Nations, again an exercise in using the sport's elite to build interest from a general sports audience. That was 'invented' by the Aussies, heavily influenced by Wayne Bennett, seeing the value of rugby union's own Tri Nations and seeking an equivalent. What Wood did was later turn it into a Four Nations concept, which weakened its pull as an elite event by adding an annual whipping boy (seeing a theme yet?), and may well have been a factor in its ultimate demise. Finally, what about Magic? I thought the Magic Weekend was a great idea, credit where credit is due. The intention was to retain and develop an audience in South Wales that we had incubated through holding the Challenge Cup there (note that those 3 years were the last time we had geniune 75,000 attendances for the cup final). Again though the RFL under Nigel demonstrated it's poor grasp on long-term strategy by abandoning Cardiff as a venue, allegedly seeing it as a potential travelling circus to attract local authority subsidy. But in reality that hasn't happened, and we have decided to stick with one location, and just taken it back up north to be closer to the heartland fanbase (when the heartland fanbase already have regular rugby on their doorstep and that wasn't the point of the weekend on its creation). Rather than committing to Cardiff for the long-term and building on the platform we'd started... another example of financial tactics (short-term seeking local authority subsidy; securing an event by enabling a base of more local attendees) overcoming effective long-term growth strategy (building an audience in South Wales) So, what we have is reems of evidence of a man capable of delivering prudent financial management, and good operational governance, but incapable of strategy. That's a classic CFO or COO personal profile, and precisely why such people need to work with a strategic CEO in order to achieve results. It doesn't mean Wood is incompetent, but it does mean that he is the wrong profile of individual for the job ahead of us.

I still find it bizarre that there are people who are incredulous at the idea of an agency being paid a fee for the work they do.

Have some shame Martyn, this is embarrassing.

His severance package was 300k. The loss on the Odsal shenanigans to the RFL is, what, 900k. His vison is forever short term. His list of failures extensive. The damage caused by his actions irreperable. So, yes, I'm happy to accept for me that it is personal *as well as* the absolute unnecessary carnage caused by the ridiculous coup that, so far, has delivered precisely nothing. So I can add to the list above: failure to deliver review on time, failure to take control of any of the issues affecting the game, failure to be open on any aspect of governance.

We could call it "Only RL Fans".

Is there anything more RL than "the board is great because they are free"?

Spotted this on Instagram, looks like George Williams, Offiah and Adam Hills are doing a London bus tour to promote the Wembley game tomorrow to mark 100 days to go.. Also saw this in City AM interviewing Rhodri Jones on the series: https://www.cityam.com/exclusive-wembley-sales-key-to-rugby-league-ashes-record-crowd-hopes/

This para: "The clubs have told us they want sensible, coherent strategies that puts their needs at the heart of what the centre does, with a regulatory environment that actually makes life easier for the clubs that do so much to provide wonderful entertainment for all of us." Well, yeah, of course that's what the clubs want. But actually, this really shouldn't be all about the clubs needs. They come and go. And which clubs needs get met? The strategies should be all about what is best for the sport of RL in the UK. This is no more than a club-led coup. They wanted a club led review. They want club led strategies. The clubs want to lead the game. Even though they've shown time and again that they arent capable of leading the sport. The regulatory bit basically means they dont want to be held to any standards. We're back to 14 years ago when Wood's RFL scrapped licensing because the admin was hard. Grading is going.

Here are the numbers of League matches for each team which got lower attendances than when they played Catalans at home in the 2024 season (and who they were against in order of fixtures). Where loop fixtures have been involved I have picked the highest to compare with and given a second rating for the second home match - these clubs were London and Leeds. You can make your own conclusions... Castleford: 4/12 (HUD/LON/WIG/SAL) Huddersfield: 0/12 Hull KR: 2/12 (WAR/HUD) Hull FC: 2/12 (WIG/SAL) Leeds: 7/12 (WAR/HUD/LON/LON/WIG/CAT/HULL) Loop fixture higher than 3 (WAR/LON/WIG) . Leigh: 2/12 (HUD/LON) London: 12/12 and 0/12 Salford: 7/12 (CAS/WIG/LON/HULL/CAS/LEE/HUD) St Helens: 4/12 (HULL/HUD/CAS/SAL) Warrington: 9/12 (HULL/CAS/STH/HULL/HKR/SAL/HUD/LEE/LON) Wigan: 5/12 (CAS/LON/HUD/LEI/HULL)

Pinch yourselves folks……two years ago who would have dreamed you would be two points off the top of the championship? What a ride you have been on. Almost one year ago you struggled to beat the mighty hornets 14-10. Enjoy the rest of the season.

Super League is a European league. It is literally listed at Companies House as Super League Europe Ltd.

What absolutely rubbish. Until this season Catalans have been attractive to watch, as shown by SKY picking their games more than other teams.

You've constantly told us you don't do Social Media. Maybe have a little think why you haven't seen any. With all the games being professionally filmed all the clubs and the RFL have access to quality footage to clip and use however they like, we have seen the quality of output on social media improve dramatically. We used to get dodgy film filmed on one camera by the clubs posted, it's a world away from what it was Harry. Then let's look at the output the clubs are putting out, podcasts, behind the scenes videos more interviews etc etc, this is because they have been forced to do this stuff or they will get left behind. You can kid yourself it has nothing to do with IMG, but you'd be wrong.

Oh my, the hypocrisy is priceless.

Mark Aston picked Matty Marsh and played him depite having no confirmation that he'd been signed off. Everything else is pretty much irrelevant.

Gets interesting at 5 min 30.

We have bye months in League 1.

If there's enough money and junior development in the game for a 14 team Super League, then great. There's nowhere near enough, but they're doing it anyway. I've heard that Toulouse actually declined an invitation on the basis of not getting any funding. If that's true, then fair play to them. If it was all above board, they should absolutely be in before anyone else in the Championship.

I think a lot can be taken from the Josh Drinkwater interview when he signed a 12 month extension, I'll bet he knows exactly what is going on behind the scenes and the probably make up of the Oldham side next season. To this extent probably most of the rest of the squad do also so now's the time a lot of players are trying to get themselves sorted for next year. Those Oldham players who already have a contract for next season are obviously sorted, those who's contracts run out this year must by now have an idea if they are in SL's plans for next year, if they are then happy days but as it looks like Oldham may be splashing the cash on some big names a few players (Lawton / Craven for example) may be thinking if they've not had the seal of approval for next year already then best to seek pastures new and get sorted now instead of faffing about seeing what comes up at the end of the season. Oldham have a big squad, they are also linked with every other player out there for next season so the next couple of months are bound to see some transition of the current squad. Oldham are aiming to move up another level and as good as I think all current Oldham players are maybe in MF / SL's eyes they may not be up to the task for where they envisage Oldham aspiring to and its better for them to move on instead of being unhappy. I don't see any of this as any massive conspiracy, for me its good forward planning. Trust the coaching staff, they know what they are doing and I see exciting times for Oldham in the coming rest of the season!!!! COME ON OLDHAM!!!

Good luck against the Bulls .

I'd love to see North Wales Crusaders back at the Racecourse, in Wrexham....thus saving a 90 mile round trip for a home game!

Can we please not make up fictional roles for Nigel to appoint himself to..?

Are they locating to Barking, or the Isle of Dogs. Or just Barking,,,,,

Something for those pesky away fans moves a step closer.

As a Trinity fan, I'm over the moon that we are even been talked about as top 6 contenders at this (or any), stage of the season. However it plays out, it's already been a remarkable season for Trinity.

Quite a long WhatsApp but we got there in the end.