M j M

That only works if you think that fans are commodities that can be added together or traded rather than just disappearing when their club disappears, which would be the case for the vast majority.

I wonder what would have happened if the Broncos had settled down and tried to redevelop the stadium rather than leaving Barnet Copthall all those years ago. The amount of money spent on rent and moving about over the past 30 years would have funded a very nice set up there.

Likewise certain types of Trinity fans.

The argument seems to be if someone runs into you, putting your arms out to protect yourself/them counts as making a move.

Bentley's feet literally don't move.

Bentley didn't move.

60% shareholding is control. I suspect he or his team didn't have the foresight to try and embed certain things alongside the Giants' rights to play at the stadium. As we've seen at Hull (and in days gone by Wigan) relying just on goodwill leaves teams exposed. I would hope he gets a decent price for the 20% the Giants own as a contribution towards the new ground, especially if the soccer club owners think there is great redevelopment potential there.

The equivalent Leeds event is this Wednesday and free tickets are still available: https://therhinos.co.uk/article/21757/roy-francis-rugbys-forgotten-black-leader---book-launch-on-wednesday-4th-june

How has that been allowed to happen given Ken Davy had complete control of the stadium at some point? Given his position of strength why weren't the Giants rights secured and their identity retained, contractually, at the ground?

15k is a good crowd for Leeds on a Saturday afternoon. It would have been better on a Friday night or Sunday afternoon.

If you've not noticed Powell moaning about referees you've not been following his coaching career very closely.

Yeah or that. Messing around with Connor's role seems dumb given his influence on the game so far.

Surely an easier change than whatever Arthur has decided to do here would be Watkins to centre and Handley to full back?

Looking like there will be around 16k in attendance for this one.

How are both these things, stated in adjacent sentences, true? "the most-watched Origin in history" "the highest-rating Origin match since 2016"

RL has never claimed that though, and allowing union's lie to have anything to do with our sport just lets the people who propagated it 130 years ago win. (There will never be a time when enough years have passed to begin conceding anything like this to the RFU )

It doesn't relate to RL as such, the opposite in fact. Webb Ellis was a creation myth that was only brought to the fore as the Northern Union came into being, specifically so that rugby union could assert a form of control over the shared heritage of the two sports.

I'd be amazed if they weren't taking advice regularly. Suggesting they are trading whilst insolvent without knowing the full situation or seeing that advice isn't helpful.

There's plenty of weaknesses in the Leeds squad but back row isn't one of them.

According to the SMH Meninga won't be coaching the Kangaroos as they want him to focus on the Perth job. Potentially bad news for England if Australia put a top quality coach in place. That said they mention Kevin Walters as a potential replacement so perhaps not https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/nrl-to-remove-meninga-from-ashes-series-with-fittler-smith-and-walters-in-the-frame-20250528-p5m30f.html

WITCHHUNT!

First lesson someone at London needs to learn is that you don't let a Hetherington public letter or email go out without fixing up the punctuation first.

I think this is a key thing. The Challenge Cup final, when compared to international games, has never in my perception really attracted a big non Rugby League audience, this was instead always a big event for people who were already fans. We can point to Magic Weekend, the Grand Final and maybe the Ashes game as reasons neutral fans aren't going in the same numbers they used to. But there is something else there around people being less interested in the community getting together for the annual big day out. Whether that can still be traced back to the "Super Greed" dislocation or would have happened anyway I don't know. But something has changed to make this a more overtly partisan rather than a Rugby League community event. For me it hasn't even crossed my mind to suggest going to this event even though we went to the old Wembley every game right to the end and go to every Grand Final. The only neutral cup final i've attended since the new place opened is the first Saints vs Catalans one.

As I feel in a particularly pedantic mood I feel obliged to say there is also always a programme seller just inside the Kirkstall Lane entrance as well as the above two locations.

They could be better, no doubt about that. It's the desperation to paint black and white lines and to pretend its all a big northern plot holding the game back that really irritates when all the people involved would dearly love to see Rugby League have a much stronger national footprint.