JonM

Presumably a typo? They sell around 1.4 million copies per day. The last time a British newspaper had sales over 5 million was back in the 1960s AFAIK.

Well, if you've had the advantage of seeing it on video, I'll defer to your judgment 🙂

Well, you'd have to assume that Goodwin would also be off in that case. He definitely started it with the punch on Gildart.

Yep, Bryson Goodwin started it and O'Loughlin appeared out of nowhere to finish it off. Expect some consequences.

Me too - and I'm in complete agreement with what you said. Thunder play in a ground with 10k capacity & modern stands, better than several SL grounds. New River is probably better than Trailfinders, but really not up to SL standard. Even if you take out the one-off games (the 4000+ on Magic Weekend for Newcastle, half that for FNL for Skolars), Thunder already have much bigger crowds - can't see Skolars getting 900 odd for a game against Coventry for example.

Toronto were able to go out and easily recruit an English speaking coach and a bunch of English speaking players. Harder to do something similar with Francophones? OK - you don't need the whole team to be French, but you want a few you can put in front of the camera and speaking to journalists.

I guess they have Jonathan Ford at stand-off - the best player in the championship IMO and then Stanislas Robin & Willie Barthau in reserve at scrum-half, so perhaps not. One of the French posters will know more than me - I think he came through via USAP XV and then Catalans-u19s.

Thought the Serbs played well with ball in hand, missed too many tackles to make the game competitive. A good warm-up for their world cup games with Spain & Russia, which I expect to be pretty close. The Spanish having 5 French Elite 1 players will certainly help them, Romain Pallares from Toulouse had a great game for them at scrum-half yesterday.

European Qualifier for the world cup, wasn't it? We were getting less than 10k for test matches & competition finals when I started watching RL as kid in the 1970s, so I'll join you in doubting the "desperate decline."

Yes. The play-offs normally get lower crowds than the corresponding regular season game between the same two clubs. That's been the case for at least a decade, this year is no different. Leeds v Hull semi-final last year was the Rhinos lowest SL crowd of the season by some distance. It's not rocket science. If you arrange a Thursday or Friday evening fixture at 5 days notice, a lot of people are unable to attend.

I was taking my son up to Uni in York, so it wasn't too far out of my way 🙂 Some emotional scenes at the end when the players came over to talk with the fans - both Runciman & Marsh seemed to be close to tears, presumably their last match for the club. Tough game, for sure.

Just got home from this. Quite enjoyed it actually. Anyone who thinks Widnes players weren't trying in that game needs their head examined. Some good banter from the antipodean contingent of the Widnes players not in the matchday 19 who were sat in the north stand singing along with the away spectators. Seems like most of them don't have anything lined up for next season. Hard life at the bottom of professional sport.

I struggle to see how he could not pick a poor team, given the squad he's named? It'll be his last game in charge win or lose.

I did the Barcelona marathon in 2014 and took in a game at the Nou Camp afterwards. Bought the ticket online (and I'm certain it was absolutely nowhere near £70.) They still email me with offers, don't see why GPDR would be an issue?

Maybe someone from the RFL has seen Widnes play this season? Before the game, it probably looked like moving London v Halifax to tonight was more likely to matter.