Sports Prophet

Can’t remember.

Is it anything like that Ice Gridiron I see is played in Germany with no skates?

I did. I remember seeing a Belgian team narrowly lose to a pretty handy, yet not at full strength Hammersmith team. Great game that. About 28-24 with I would say about 1200-1500 fans at the game in Brussels. Remember of teams in Italy. They may well not exist now. Spain… well there was a Catalonian thing going there back in the day which I didn’t have any real awareness of. I wouldn’t say we will never see clubs emerge from those places again.

I knew there would be one. Didn’t expect it to be a yank

Common Hopie, have a bit of fun you grinch

RU - 3-0 Lions, although Wallabies could pinch one RL - 3-0 Kanga’s although I would love to see an England win more than an Aus win Cri’ - 4-0 Aus

The RFL have enough difficulty sustaining clubs with rising travel costs in this division. Adding more French teams instead of extinguishing the division would be a mistake. In my opinion, the RL pyramid from the top should be SL, Championship (both pan European) with regional divisions below, including the French Elite. I believe the French pyramid should have space at Elite 1 or more likely Elite 2 as a gateway for new clubs from Italy, Spain, Belgium and Serbia looking to cut their teeth at a higher level.

So there brings my other two questions, in your belief, there was no real problem which needed fixing. Are you happy with the scrappiness of the many short drop outs we see today?

This thread has gone off topic very quickly, the contested possession theme of it really interests me. The lack thereof has been a talking point for more than two years now and lead to the change in the laws for the start of the 2024 NRL season as explained here: https://www.nrl.com/news/2024/01/17/2024-laws-and-interpretations/amp/ You demonstrate where I am coming from. Rugby League’s beauty is in its simplicity. Contested possession like scrums and lineouts in RU are two points which turn me off that sport as they are slow and messy. Talks of these law changes making the game unpredictable have failed. Clubs almost routinely now take short drop outs and the result is a mess. The introduction of Law changes above has led to scrappy exchanges of play often demonstrating a lack of skill to adequately take advantage of the benefit on offer. Moreso, I can’t understand why teams continue to attempt these short drop outs when the match isn’t on the line and the success rate is so low. The time where we do often see contested possession as a great demonstration of skill is from bombs and cross field kicks as you have said and for me, that is plenty.

Surely there they could play the week before Wembley?

It’s Kenty this time calling out a lack of contested possession as one of RL’s biggest problems. We have seen the NRL try and rectify this by encouraging more short restarts where not travelling the required 10m being downgraded from a penalty offence. Not to the benefit of the game in my opinion. The short restarts are predominantly scrappy, with knock ons aplenty and reasonably common are the restarts which don’t travel the required 10m or go out on the full. If anything, by encouraging more of these short kick offs, the game is encouraging scrappy, ugly football, demonstrating a lack of skill to suitably execute. So I pose the question, maybe instead of being concerned that there is a lack of contested possession in our game, my question is slightly different… 1. Do we even think lack of contested possession is a problem? If yes, then 2. Is it a problem which needs fixing? If yes, then 3. Are you happy with the resulting outcome from the attempt to fix it?

I would like to see a referee penalise a player excessively slowing the play the ball for time wasting. I haven’t seen many times where if I were with the whistle, that I would blow it though. Defenders can’t take matters into their own hands. Section 11.3 clearly outlines once a player is held it is illegal to move the player from the point of the tackle which I would happily argue includes moving the player off the ground.

Skolars always struggled with fielding a squad in the local competitions. Dropping out of the Championship was unlikely to change those fortunes.

I would love to see a 16 - 20 nation Pacific World Cup prioritising home games for nations in the following order and all group games and Quarters played at: PNG, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, France (New Cal’). Semis and Final played at Eden Park.

Interestingly (or not as may be the case), the removal of RL from the main menu on BBC page when overseas occurred on the eve of either the opening match of the 2013 WC, the Semi or the Final. Considering the “world” event which was - or was about to be - taking place, it was a slap in the face from the BBC at the time. Has never been rectified.