Tommygilf

There or Headingley are the best options for Neutral grounds imo.

Thank God you're coming round to the idea that Canada is unlikely to produce a roster of SL players tomorrow! As for disingenuously creating criteria, takes one to know one! Frankly I take it as a compliment at this stage! The problem with this "junior development" argument is that we have Salford in SL who don't do any and an only recently former SL team in Widnes having their Academy funding totally withdrawn by SL (obviously by extension by SLs chairmen) despite it being one of the few bright aspects of the club. It seems current SL clubs have as poor an attitude to junior development than Toronto. At least Toronto come out with their vision as the world being better with more rugby balls in Kids hands. Nice slogan at least. I was wondering whether to reply to this in all honesty but hey ho!

London play leeds the week before and Leeds Salford is last game of the season iirc!

I can see what you're saying but they have also undoubtedly generated more interest over here, both quantifiable and anecdotal. Arguably they've got more positive attention in the British media than most of our clubs ever have. Even if we take all of what you say and put it together, its still pretty significant.

Of course NZ disproportionately contributes TV Dollars. They have 1 team yet have put in a huge sum of money as detailed above - Catalans and Toronto certainly don't come close. The financial give back from the NRL is solely to the Warriors. If it were the other way around would you accept Australia coming under the jurisdiction of New Zealand? If the NZRL is structurally weak its probably something to do with it having little to no money. Equally I doubt what they would need would be huge sums in relation to the NZ tv money the NRL gets. As for the RFL, I am one of the keenest critics. However, having barely any money themselves, and not getting millions in TV rights from Wales(difficult to judge as it is a UK wide deal), Canada or France, they don't really make much if anything from TV money or have any ability to do anything like what you suggest. Indeed the RFL effectively funds the 2 WELSH teams, accommodates 2 French teams and probably 2 Canadians. Whilst they may be ###### in a lot of areas like organising internationals, they should get credit where its due. The hypocrisy comes only from an insular League competition barely being able to see past its own nose yet wanting to control every aspect of the game. The pacific international games being wrapped up in the NRL deal is a joke - no other major sport would allow one league to negotiate its TV deals for a number of international sides except maybe in NA? Perhaps that is what you want, an NFL style world where only that league matters and the rest of the world bows down before it???

I don't know if you're trolling or being wilfully ignorant here. What the guy is saying is that NZ over contributes to the NRL in terms of both players and TV dollars. That is undeniable. The fact that you're insisting on the NZRL coming under the jurisdiction of the ARLC to receive any funding says more about Australia and the NRLs attitude to the rest of RL than anything I could write. No wonder the international game struggles when the NRL can't have total control (and right to reap the profits).

Through a mixture of us being poor on the field, resting on our laurels in terms of advertising presence in the city and people getting out of the habit due to the reduced capacity we've seen our average drop by 3-4k. With hindsight (although I was saying this at the time too) we should have organised to play at Elland Road for a season or at least most of it and get the whole thing rebuilt as quickly as possible. Could have averaged close to 20k even with Freebies and then come back to a finished new facility at Headingley.

Announced he's going to Gold Coast starting 1st of July.

I love this game largely on the basis I can use one of my alltime favourite chants of "I would rather have a pasty than a pie!"

I know this sounds somewhat ridiculous but could Super Rugby (Union) be on the cards?

A friend of mine lives on his street and said the same mate. Clearly on the move just depends where.

I've seen Penrith mentioned as apparently they have two centres out injured at the moment? Perhaps that means they would have some cap dispensation.

Absolutely. I don't think we're at the stage with our junior internationals where we could say once you've made the choice at after u21s thats it but realistically the nation swapping should stop. Perhaps we should do what Bath RU do and have every player put their national team flag on their shirt somewhere to indicate who they intend to line up for. Even if it seems rather minor, its a repeated way of reminding players of the international game and reinforcing commitment to it.

I don't think it needs that the GF regularly gets near to the capacity of OT without any extra games anyway.

Yeah I'd hope it was somewhere a bit more inspiring frankly. Everyone who goes to GC seems to leave somewhat diminshed which is a shame considering their grand scale beginnings.