CanadianRugger

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McCrone is a good player and I like his style but I think he plays better with Brierley than Wallace as I think Brierley is a better passer and has better vision than Wallace but Wallace is more of the athlete between the two. A lot of people were unfair with McCrone this season and it is mostly because they don't understand basic Rugby Tactics, the Blake Wallace Held Up try in the 71st Minute of last game being the case in point. I will review it for you: Sidlow takes a hit up on 3rd Phase Ball and try's to offload to Ackers and it is knocked on in the process by London and Toronto recovers and gets a new set of Six. Toronto had been attacking up the Centre with Hit Ups for the past couple of phases. McCrone immediately starts moving the ball right for a number of phases to try and drag London's Defence towards Toronto's right side of the field: You can see here he is pointing and the next two phases go to the right: Phase 1 Ball: Sims takes a pop from Ackers Phase 2 Ball: McCrone tries to see if the Defence are sleeping and almost catches them: Phase 3 Ball: Ackers picks and go's to pop to Dixon but Dixon ran an inside line which was what I believe a mistake on his part as they just attacked there and the Defence isn't really being stretched at this point and as you can see, he has triple coverage whereas there was more space on the right side. Phase 4 Ball: Ackers takes ball and passes to Wallace who is acting as First Receiver as McCrone and Wallace have split. The problem at this point is Toronto have played the entire set inside the same 1/3 of the field. I will explain what I mean after this post. Wallace takes a step back inside which is a good decision at he will fix his defender but instead of distributing like a good stand off, he decides to run right at the Sweeping Defence that are coming back across the field towards him which is why they were able to get a triple tackle on him. IMO, Wallace should have stepped, moved the ball to Matty Russell who was running a hard line. O'Brien was running a hard line that would have been a good pop ball from Russell and you would have probably had a good two on one situation with Rawsthorne most likely on the outside. Now I don't like to second guess players decisions and Wallace did almost score but looking at the video replay and where Toronto had played the ball up until that point. The Ball needs to GO WIDE. Look at the London players as well. You've got Four players moving towards Wallace and you can see Walker the Fullback a little behind the line just by the left post. That type of play will work against amateur sides but that ball 100% needed to go wide. Now back to the overall attack here. I thought it was a poor set of six. Toronto was 25 yards from the try line and spent the entire phase playing in the Middle Third of the field: Rugby strategy is fairly simple and what you usually do is divide the field into nice thirds with the point being to try to move the ball forward and side to side in order to create gaps in one of the zones. Toronto spent nine or ten phases moving the ball almost exclusively in the middle third (orange part of the field), London didn't even have to do much in the way of Defence as there was never any attempt to stretch the Defence. You won't score playing like that at this game. This brings me back to Josh McCrone. Josh McCrone is a plucky player and he does a good job marshalling his players and having a go at the Defence. He needs someone outside him though that can move the ball wide and make the plays happen. I like Blake Wallace but I don't necessarily think he pairs all that well with McCrone and feel Brierley would do better in this regard. McCrone was at his best when he was paired with Terry Campese at Stand-Off in the NRL. Terry was a wizard who would throw 30 yard passes like no ones business.

I find the Championship is a weird League. It is this sort of intermediary that doesn't really need to exist but does for whatever reason. Half the teams should clearly be playing in League One while the other half should probably be playing in Super League. I would like to see the RFL dissolve the Championship and split the top half with Super League and the Bottom Half merge in to League One. Merge the entire thing under Super League though and give them exclusive control of the entire competition. TV Revenue seems to be the major sticking point. I've got a feeling though that Rugby League needs to take a page out of the UFC and do their own broadcasting as I feel the product is grossly undervalued by Sky Sports and the League is getting a raw deal. They can set up their own streaming service and sell rights to television companies who want to show the games. Big matches can be shown on PPV like the UFC and members can watch the Regular Season via a Fight Pass type app. The McGregor vs Nurmagomedov fight did 2.5 million PPV at $64 dollars Canadian a pop, that is $160 million dollars. Shute Shield in Australia recently had the TV rights bought by a little known entrepreneur who moved the games to online streaming and revitalized the broadcasting style and mechanisms. It has turned the competition around and it is now doing better than Super Rugby attendance wise and is true grassroots sport. You cna read about it here: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/rugby-s-struggle-for-relevance-and-unlikely-grassroots-revival-20180820-p4zyjm.html Someone needs to drop the cash though and put their money where their mouth is.

People watch sport for entertainment, TWP didn't win but I found the Eight's super entertaining. The last game was a nail biter and I personally can't wait for next season to start already. My personal opinion is the Championship needs to be split in two and the full time sides need to be placed in Super League while the part time sides need to be placed in league 1. Keep promotion and relegation but market both leagues as a single product. The irony of this is clubs like Batley, Whitehaven, Dewsbury, etc would have a better shot at promotion if they did this. There is very little fluidity between the Haves and Have Nots at the moment and I think this needs to change. The problem with Super League is the same three or four teams are essentially competing against each other year in-year out. There is no mechanism or way for anyone else to have a go at it. It is essentially a foregone conclusion that one of Leeds, Wigan or St Helens are going to win the league every year. These clubs have too much power and that is no way to build a successful professional sport.

China is decent at Baseball dude, they have their own professional league. Ran in to some financial problems but is back up and running as of 2014. They have also done ok at the World Baseball Classic and have appeared in All four WBC Events. Yah they aren't Japan but they are competitive. Rugby League would love the diversity of the WBC that actually mostly uses locals as opposed to Heritage teams, although they do use a couple. Baseball is probably one of America's most successful sporting exports, they have definitely been more successful at exporting that sport than Cricket has which is in regression in a lot of places. You want to talk about expansion, look at ice hockey. Half the NHL teams now exist in places that don't traditionally get much or any snow. The NHL's most recent team is Las Vegas, a true mecca of winter sport LOL. KHL is also doing well, even Beijing has a pro ice hockey team now in a Major League. Heck Australia had their first NHLer this past year. Rugby League is never going to grow in popularity if money and investments aren't made anywhere outside the M62 or East Coast of Australia. It is a good sport and should be more popular than it is.

Baseball pretty much everywhere it is played outside the United States. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Venezuela, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama, etc.

I once played in a tournament in Massachusetts. They didn't like our style of play which was rugged to say the least. I played for a number of coaches that were body first/puck second type of guys.

They don't get it. 1967 was the last time the Leafs won Lord Stanley and they are the richest team in professional hockey. TWP will be back and we will get us some more silverwear!

Good post and I agree. It was a very close Middle 8s and no team bar Leeds was really safe until the very end. Toronto were unlucky but that's the way she goes. I was entertained which is what sport is all about. I'm happy London got promoted but am sad it came at our expense. I'd like to see Toulouse, London and Toronto all in Super League.

Did I say win Super League? All three beat Super League sides in the Eights and Widnes is knocked out. They are good enough to play in Super League.

So much BS coming out of people's mouths on this forum. Toronto went 5-2 in the Middle Eights and were very close to beating Hull KR. Change the Hull KR result and Toronto are first place and an automatic promotion and we aren't even having this conversation. As for Toronto's performance against, they were held up three times and botched three other chances to score. Outside of Pallisier running wild for that ten minute period in the first, London never looked like they were going to get a try. London's defence managed to withstand the pressure and they came out victors. I watched most of the games in the Eights and only Halifax didn't look like they belonged on the field. London, Toulouse and Toronto are all clearly good enough to play in Super League. Any calls for Rowley to go are highly premature. Rowley was classy in defeat and he should be given another kick at the can.

I would say out of favour. Probably for Defense.

Yep, he was put under immense pressure a couple of times and did well to field a number of kicks!

Rowley to stay another season, he needs another shot. Three held ups yesterday and three botched tries. London played out of there skins yesterday but were lucky to come away with it. They didn't look the better team in attack. Walker had a cracker at Fullback.

He should be given another shot. London never looked like they were threatening the Toronto try line on Saturday. Toronto had three held ups and three other botched chances. Sometimes the bounces just don't go your way. The team played well this season and we always knew it was going to be tough with all the early season turmoil, injuries, etc. Rowley needs another season.