paulwalker71

Wigan and Leeds are bloody lucky that Toronto bottled the MPG last year!

This is a very good point When I first got a SKY (or was it BSkyB then?) aerial back in the day, it was a HUGE step forward to be able to watch top quality rugby with a knowledgeable and articulate commentator who wasn't dear old Eddie Waring or Ray 'Ooooooooh' French. The step up was really quite something. And younger viewers who don't recall just how much of a joke Rugby League was back in the days of Grandstand on a Saturday afternoon, and Eddie struggling to get his words out as he (sadly) declined in health, need to bear this in mind when they bag Eddie. Thanks for taking RL a big step forward Eddie, and have a happy retirement.

The exact games and channels I predicted earlier in the thread, albeit I got the days wrong. Happy with that. Four good TV games there

Bulls are at Toronto the previous weekend, so fly back Monday. Don't really think it's on to have to play Leeds much before Sunday I would guess Thursday: Huddersfield Vs Saints (Sky) Friday: Hull vs Castleford (Sky) Saturday: Warrington vs Wigan (BBC 1) Sunday : Bulls vs Leeds (BBC2)

I just don't think that's the case from my observation, first hand, of the Championship in the past few years. We've had a largely full-time squad for the last few seasons - apparently we have 22 full time players this season. Yet our team consistently fails to look like it will be able to dominate the so-called 'part time' teams. As for comparing us with the current SL teams, we are miles off! If we get drawn against a top half SL team in the next round of the cup I would expect us to lose by 50+ points, possibly more. Perhaps we are just signing dross, I don't know? But my observation is that our full-time players, for the most part, are several levels below even the bottom half of SL.

Here we go again At the risk of starting to sound like Parksider (heaven forbid), we need to consider that going to 2x10s in the Northern Hemisphere and to 20 clubs in the NRL means that we somehow need to find a LOT of extra players. I can't do the maths to work it out exactly but it must mean at least 200 extra players to make sufficient squads to do that. Where do you think that an expanded NRL is going to look for top players? That's right, the best players currently in SL. And that would be at the exact same time as SL needs to find about 100 extra players. We are back to that question that nobody seems to want to answer: Where will those players come from?

To be fair to Hull, it was good to see them giving a chance to a batch of youngsters. There are plenty of Hull fans here who constantly bag Radford for not giving them a chance - perhaps they'll give him credit now. I thought their young kids stood up very well in quite a hostile environment against a big physical team. Good on them!

Dragons throw it away

I don't think even the most ardent Hull supporter could disagree that it's sweet justice that Catalans got a try after that perfectly good try was chalked off for absolutely no reason

There is absolutely no chance of Widnes dropping two divisions.

To be fair to Wakefield, this is a real coup. I remember when we had Compaq sponsoring us back in day, it really felt like we ha a bit of swagger about us! (Being top of SL at the time probably helped with that as well, but still...). I've still got my Compaq branded shirt! Still, I do agree with DaveT, the press release could use some editing, and a decent photograph.

Thank you John, it is much appreciated

Well, I expect the crowd will be..ummm.... 'merry'.. by that time on a Saturday night in Blackpool ?

Yes it's been mentioned on the Bulls website that our game against Halifax will be live on Sky, kick off is 8.00 pm on the Saturday.

There used to be a very vocal female who sat right at the front of the main stand at Odsal who would constantly stand up and loudly berate the referee at five minute intervals throughout the game. At some points she would get to the point of shouting herself hoarse, to the point where she could barely make a sound - but the process still continued! The thing was that she had no idea that most people behind her were either laughing at her (not 'with' her, I can assure you) and telling her to sit down and (to coin a phrase) 'stfu'... She seemed to disappear when we got relegated from Super League. I tend to stand on the popular side now (due to the inflated Odsal prices) so as well as saving money, I also save the potential damage to my ears.

London As the season goes on, and injuries start to pile up, they simply won't have the depth of squad to win games when they really need to. They've done really well so far, and they'll no doubt pick up other 'against the odds' victories - but I just think the other teams will know too much and have too much to end up below London.

I agree with that, but it has possibly made the decision easier.

No thanks, we'll settle for the other guy you sacked off

It's a perfectly normal thing in top-level sport for a head coach to want to bring in his own backroom team

Well done WWR, hopefully a victory is not far off

The other factor to consider is the number of teams whose attendances have fallen away drastically, most of them teams who haven't been involved in SL (or barely) Oldham 4,426 Workington 3,774 Doncaster 3,356 Sheffield 3,186 Swinton 2,703 Rochdale 2,609 Any of those teams would kill to have crowds like that now! It's all very well looking at how St Helens or Warrington have grown their crowds, but those supporters who were watching those teams in the list above haven't somehow transferred their allegiance - they've been lost to the game. The gap between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' is a LOT wider now than it was back then.

Best post on this thread ?

It's not as simple as that. When we (Bradford Bulls) had our meltdown the other year, the club determined to stay 'full time pro'. With the season about to start we signed up the available players on full-time contracts. After a brief flurry of encouraging results we settled into a rhythm of getting battered every week. The lesson was that we had full-time players who were considerably worse than the part-time players we were playing against! Simply giving sub-standard players (some of who have no right being full time players) full time contracts does not increase the depth or standard. All is does is give a job to people who, in fact, can't really make it at professional level. Developing good quality professional players requires a lot of pieces of a jigsaw to be put in place. It involves junior development, player pathways right through the age bands, as well as health, nutrition, skills coaching and a whole load of other stuff. And not everyone makes the grade, of course - some will fall by the wayside. Not that many teams are prepared to put in that hard work! That includes some of the teams either in Super League or looking to get there.

There is, according to Wikipedia. It also has a school, that offers courses in sport. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Bolton_Stadium And I assume it has got the usual conference, banqueting and meeting facilities that modern stadia have. And that's before you start on hosting pop concerts etc. Plenty of opportunities to generate money, I would have thought.

Always had a real soft spot for Blackpool, in fact I kinda saw them as my 'second team'