Denton Rovers RLFC

KCOM, it's not perfect but is good looking, functional and offers great weather protection for fans and excellent views for all but a handful if seats.

It looks pap, it's just another two tier box stand, there's nothing to rave about it aesthetically, it'll no doubt eventually pay for itself however.

£440 for an irregular number plate or a slap on the wrist fine for killing a cyclist or pedestrian IF the police/CPS even bring charges. No wonder no-one has respect for the police anymore. Daily Fail is worse than the Sun

it has EVERYTHING to do with it, team sport is tribal, without the history of a sport you lose a massive amount, children being taken to games not just with parents but grandparents who also went. The history of a team and the 'glory days' back in times when there was far far less for people to do and times were much simpler. Name me one sporting club that has had national success at high level that formed in the last 50 years in the UK, Sheffield Eagles were a huge outlier, off top of my head no sporting club of any frontline sport has had teams that were newly formed (not picking up embers of old clubs) have success other than minor competitions in front of a few hundred people. History is such a massive aspect of team sport, but then you dismiss it without any clue whatsoever.

it's not the who but the 'where', geographic location is the main issue for Skolars, not having a 100+year history as even amateur clubs in RL never mind other sports means they are not on a level pegging of realistically available talent or talent that can be developed, that doesn't even take into account financials/living costs/finding job in locality.

I think Skolars will do alright this season, they were looking for a prop as a player coach type a while back but have made a couple of decent signings. My old school mate Kev Flanagan is the community development officer there and he's been hob-nobbing with MPs at HoC amongst other places, so when I see him hopefully in December I'll have a longer chat about how he thinks they will go next year and beyond. Everything considered I think they've done bloody fantastic there and are a great community club.

So you have zero idea about socio-economics, demographic of RL fans/participants and also fail to grasp the fact that a sport/club with relatively little history is in a massive city that can and does take longer to traverse than getting from Hull to Manchester? You like others that think London Broncos and Skolars have a 7-10 million people catchment area are utterly clueless!

Does it, how has that worked in the past to increase viewership both at live games and via TV and indeed participation rates? Frankly it's a poorly thought out concept that has had negative effect on the sport as a whole, adds to player welfare issues, has unbalanced fixtures, loss of income to clubs when you think of the number of derby games, has increased the thinking of fans being able tio get cheap tickets and has had next to zero bearing on interest in RL over the whole period its been running. As described by many here, it's more about what's happening outside the stadia, so really a mickey up with a bit of rugby inbetween, so not really for families and screw people in the Southern regions who have to travel several hundreds of miles even just to get to a game in Liverpool never mind Newcastle. I never made the trip to Newcastle, 5 hours each way by car and similar by train isn't really appealing when all you have is blokes up and down up and down over the games going to get beer and Newcastle isn't really on my top list of places to visit for culture! The RFL have shown no evidence of this working to attract new fans, attendances are massively less than corresponding fixtures if held at clubs ground and have fallen off the last two years with cheap ticket sales meaning even less money, also Southern based fans are given the short end of the stick yet again. If Cardiff had been chosen I would have made the 3+hour trip, it's a far nicer location than Liverpool, stadium is 10x what Anfield is and the locals are friendly and can speak English. Even Leicester would have been a better option, Leicester City holds 32k, more than enough for what's required as not all fans will be in the stadium at any one time and will ensure that fewer available seats will mean no discounts/stupidly low tickets prices. Weldon road at Leicester Tigers even has standing but is only 25.8k capacity, maybe hold the less attractive games there on one day and the bigger fan base games at Leicester City choosing Anfield is a lazy, insular, narrow minded bit of 'thinking' by the RFL and probably worse for the sport than having it at Newcastle which is saying something!

Ditto above. Why does he have to prove something, inheriting a decent team, loads of coaches do that, Lee Radford inherited a team full of cracking youngsters that had, under Peter Gentle (in only his second season picking up scraps of rich Agar) just broken through, got to play-offs and wembley despite an horrendous injury hit season and took that team to within a few points of relegation the next year, if Bradford had not gone down the pan we would have gone down. How many coaches over history have inherited decent sides only for them to be also rans more often than not, you can include NRL in that as well, as well as many other sporting teams. BM has nothing to prove as a coach IMHO (and I say that as a Hull FC fan), those questioning his abilities have zero clue as to how team sport or any group of people in a workplace tasked with a job actually work. without someone who knows what they are doing and gives a s@@t that group of people will not succeed even with some quality workers and certainly not repeat that success time and time again.

Please explain your comment, or are you of the thinking that Kevin 'I'm not the coach' Sinfield was running the show whilst BM was at Leeds and that it was he and not BM that kept the Leeds team at the top/pointy end of things for so long? If so please enlighten us to how KS was doing that. How many players that were there (at Leeds) throughout his tenure and were quality players from the off, how players came through and improved under BM? How many players did he introduce/sign that had an impact on the team, how much did Leeds win before and after and did good quality players that were with the club a long time before BM also perform to the same high standards for same duration under BMs predecessor? Just so that we have all the information to formulate a proper opinion as to why people like yourself question the coaching ability of one of the most successful UK coaches and for us to maybe actually be better armed as to answering the question if he can aid TWP over the coming years, not that they are comparable in the slightest to even many championship teams in terms of being 'built' I await your detailed response.

Nice one, it's so much better than that little egg cup that onion play for.

No it isn't absurd at all, your statement would seem to be the absurd, you fail to grasp that summer only lasts for 3 months and the season takes all of that in, we can't have a full 'summer' season as the planet the rest of us are on doesn't run that long! As for "prided itself", what the hell does that even mean! it wasn't about pride, it was highlighted that we ARE a summer sport, which is wholly accurate to most, but pride, really?? We changed to make it so that grounds were more playable more often, that it was going to be nicer for fans and safer for players, also due to not having to compete (as much) with other UK sports, that's zero to do with pride and all about practicalities and business decisions with a bit of fan and player welfare chucked in. The start time is perfectly fine, it takes full advantage of the best expected weather for both players and fans whilst giving xmas a miss. Even pushing one month back would not improve matters weather conditions wise overall, you would seemingly want finals in late September and November just as the kids have gone back to school and had their holidays and the GF only 5/6 weeks or so from xmas, oh and the internationals played into early December, that would work out really well. You haven't thought it through in the slightest!

there are not enough Northerner's who are prepared to travel more than 20 miles to get to a game (anymore) to fill a 90k capacity stadia, you can't even get 70,000 over two days with ridiculously low priced tickets for 7 matches of rugby on a micturate up weekend nor indeed more than 35k for an international. It seems obvious to me and others that so called 'big' teams have lightweight supporters even when their teams are getting to the final of the CC, semi finals are even worse unless it's in their own backyard! Those moaning are usually the ones who have bought tickets, that said, unless Hull make it next year I'm probably going to give it a miss. Still think moving it to back end of May would have a significant influence on attendance.

Reminds me about Brett Mullins saying he was much faster than Jiffy, Davies skinned him in the 7s when Canberra played GB and did him again at Wembley, even more hilarious was that Warren who was commentating said he thought Davies had lost a step in recent seasons.

By definition it IS best international player otherwise they would not be participating in International matches would they? Or do you think best international performance is somehow different to best international player, the latter whom can only perform on an international level if they are an international player, if so, please explain how?

Could you not say the same thing for our lads, series won, turn off and think of pre season only a few weeks away😅 *those in the internationals get a few weeks grace at least) It can often come down to pride in a so called 'dead rubber, Kiwis will not want to be losing 3-0, we will want to do exactly that, they will or should be fired up. Whilst we have done well I've been a bit underwhelmed by this NZ team, I understand they are rebuilding but which teams aren't in sport, there are always players departing and new ones taking their place and untried at the next level. Overall I think they've looked lacklustre and not played to their capabilities, yes our resolute defence has influenced that a fair bit but they will be disappointed in how they've played over the two games so far so you would think they'll be wanting to prove to themselves first and foremost but also to their fans (plus the media hawks) that they aren't a whitewash team. Should be a belter and despite the two wins I've gone for a Kiwi win by 6.

I've nothing against Makinson, he's done well in a couple of games at International level and done very well at club level. That said he's clearly not the world's best nor most influential player. Golden Boot award goes to the world's best player, that isn't him and most people would agree with that. Those in charge changed the format to one that utterly changes what the meaning of the award is, an award based on less than half a dozen games if that, it's feckless, it devalues the award and makes no sense given as discussed some players/countries are not getting more than a couple of international matches in the qualifying period. It's an excruciating embarrassment IMO. Recognition for Makinson? Well done Tommy, what's it like to be given an award as the worlds best international player based on 3-4 games?😅

what are you on about?

So I've gathered, it's a ridiculous format as others have pointed out and frankly it makes a mockery of the award. No sooner has big Nige settled in, he and his cronies have proven yet again what a bunch of feckwit cretins they are!

I thought it was best player over last 12 months, imo that was tesco

Tickets were already cheap for concessions, christ, I paid less for mater and pater than it costs for the same seat at Hull anyways, further reducing prices has proven time and time again not to be a solution of any kind, particularly not to encourage last minute sales when folk have as you mention, already planned what they might be doing. Then again, it is Elland Road, that famous historic stadium that will make people want to go no matter what the event is so we've nothing to worry about ... RFL should take a stand and say there are never going to be reduced tickets ever again for those buying last minute, discounts for early bird buyers only and say of bought in non heartland community clubs. This isn't marketing by the RFL, it's desperate unthinking tactics that will fail every single time.

World famous, no it isn't, maybe 30-40 years ago, it still won't and clearly didn't have any attraction in a heartlands area enough to bump up sales which fell massively short of target. So you think rugby fans will go there so that their non soccer/non liverpool kids can social media we've been to Anfield, utterly ridiculous. How many of these kids were there that would not have attended anyway with their rugby fan parents? If you and others are going to make claims then at least put some figures to it. The KCOM is in a nice park seting, it might not have the old history of a once famous club but it's by far a nicer place to visit overall, I'd rather we had a game at Goodison Park than Anfield

Anfield never has and never will be 'world class', it's not an attraction for any fans who go there other than the actual sporting event taking place unless you are some weird soccer fan who will only go to x stadium to follow their team and not others. You have been there before right, you have seen the lovely inviting area it's located in? it's a bog standard fairly large capacity soccer stadium that's well past its sell by date. If you think rugby supporters go there and spend £££ simply because it's Anfield then you are very much deluded. First you've not a scrap of evidence that is the case and second, given it's the only test match West of the Pennines within easy reach of millions the 'Anfield' draw in the way you are purporting it to be really did not work at all did it, in fact managed an abysmally lower number of the corresponding fixture in a non heartland area and was only 45% 'full'. Sounds like a great attraction to fans , not!

You didn't really need helpers as there are signs everywhere for the KCOM, plus the park and ride. The stadium is on the same road that the train station exits out of. As for atmosphere, despite the early try, the awful officiating (for both sides) and stop start didn't really help. When we had 24k in 2015 and 25k against Fiji in '13 it was a fantastic atmosphere, far far better than the one this time around and of all the internationals I've been to there this was the flattest. Having a second game in Yorkshire meant this was the game that was in danger of losing some of the West Yorkshire support and I think that was fairly obvious when the fixtures were announced. I would have made both the KCOM and a game in London and taken some friends to the London game but as it happens that was a non starter. This was huge glaring error, to then not support the actual first game in terms of marketing it (which has been covered elsewhere) is a disgrace. I've no idea how much Anfield cost to use but given the 18,000 lost ticket sales compared to the Olympic stadium in '15 plus the 6k down at Hull, it's astounding that people are still giving any praise to the organisers and saying that 26k is even ok. It was poop, less than half a stadium, I would not take a test back there again, it was an abject failure from a ticket sales POV. The only reason there will be good sales for Leeds is that there was a decent performance and fans are buoyed, a dismal loss at Anfield and the gate wouldn't reach 25k at ER. Hopefully sense will prevail and we get a London fixture for the next big set of games, don't mind if there's one in Leeds but can see that Hull will get 'punished' for not maxing out the ground.

@ 2:41, Richard Agar is holding a pint and waving the hooligans on, we all hate Leeds, hahahaha