Bristol Sonics pull out of West of England league

[Moscow01]

And games in South Wales involving Cardiff, Blue Bulls and Valley Cougars postponed due to referee unavailability.

What a sorry state of affairs. 

[welshmagpie]

Northampton Demons also withdrawn themselves from competition in 2018

its not looking so rosy 

[welshmagpie]

Serious question, how do we realistically stabilise RL in the south?

[Pigeon Lofter]

6 minutes ago, welshmagpie said:

Serious question, how do we realistically stabilise RL in the south?

One way would be to get more games on terrestrial television (BBC for sure) and re-ignite the national consciousness for the game. You have to see Rugby League to be attracted to it.

Not necessarily SL,as that's already out of the equation and belongs lock,stock and barrel to Sky.

[Chamey]

In my southern uni (which is a complete deadspot for top 4 level rugby of either code, none in the county) the rugby league society collapsed a few years ago due to a lack of players and now is formally closed because there were only 3 members, while every single Halls runs at least one XV, alongside 5 uni XVs. It’s in a dire state, and more money needs to be spent on the south and lower levels, not less.

[gingerjon]

Money and people whose job it is to get players and support leagues.

Volunteers and goodwill alone will always, at some point, lead to instability.

[Sports Prophet]

31 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Money and people whose job it is to get players and support leagues.

Volunteers and goodwill alone will always, at some point, lead to instability.

The decline of grassroots RL in London and the South East has been almost as swift as its climb to the second largest junior league in the country.

The RFL’s reliance on Sport England funding to support grassroots development is culpable and a travesty that ignores the organisation’s entire remit.

[DEANO]

It’s time people woke up and smelt the coffee. Rl unfortunately is a northern game played and watched by northerners. With a few exceptions 

[Scubby]

4 minutes ago, DEANO said:

It’s time people woke up and smelt the coffee. Rl unfortunately is a northern game played and watched by northerners. With a few exceptions 

So there are no similar patterns with clubs in the heartlands folding then? Why make it into a north south thing? Where are all the teams that played in the 8-division Yorkshire Sunday League that was around when I was a kid?

[PeterWardFormerSLStormRL]

It's happening in Union too. Clubs folding for lack of players . Slight difference being though because the various RUs invested in development officers who's goal focussed on developing grass roots and youth RU for its own sake. Issue in Union is that players keep it up till 18 then fall off the map due to lack of high level non-pro pathways and loss of interest too. 

We are not just competing with RU, football, cricket etc . We are competing with Xboxs and play stations as kids are getting more sedentary . To be honest I don't know the answer for either code but agree some strong national media and RFL investment would help. Without expansion the sport is resigned to a managed decline .

[nadera78]

16 minutes ago, DEANO said:

It’s time people woke up and smelt the coffee. Rl unfortunately is a northern game played and watched by northerners. With a few exceptions 

One day people like you are going to get your wish and there'll be absolutely no-one outside of a handful of northern towns playing Rugby League. You still won't be happy though, blaming someone else for the sport being ignored and patronised, a training ground for NRL and union.

[DEANO]

Sorry mate. I’m just stating facts. I wish the game was global never mind English wide. But sadly it isn’t 

[Chamey]

1 minute ago, PeterWardFormerSLStormRL said:

It's happening in Union too. Clubs folding for lack of players . Slight difference being though because the various RUs invested in development officers who's goal focussed on developing grass roots and youth RU for its own sake. Issue in Union is that players keep it up till 18 then fall off the map due to lack of high level non-pro pathways and loss of interest too. 

We are not just competing with RU, football, cricket etc . We are competing with Xboxs and play stations as kids are getting more sedentary . To be honest I don't know the answer for either code but agree some strong national media and RFL investment would help. Without expansion the sport is resigned to a managed decline .

The difference is that in RU at least total players are climbing, which means that either more adults are playing or more children are. Either way they will likely feed into the RU economy by watching matches, playing, or introducing others. Whereas RL is undergoing total collapse in large parts of the country, with total players falling off a cliff as well. The RFL needs to take command of the game and take a larger cut of the money in order to do proper development funding. Creating an international game would help massively, the RFU invest £100m a year into the club game from internationals (1/3rd into grassroots, i.e. 3rd tier and below) whereas the RFL probably just spend the £2.5m they get from Sport England each year. How can we expect to compete? The SL clubs need to stop being so horridly short termist.

[PeterWardFormerSLStormRL]

Couldn't agree more . Though RU participation noticeably down in Scotland . 

[EastLondonMike]

Sadly the RFL abandoned the development areas of the game when they lost the Sport England funding, certainly here in London. 5 years or so ago we had 4-5 RFL employees down in London, as well as development officers. Very quickly that become none. And I've not seen any real attempts from the leadership to reverse that, then or now.

Though it has to be said the London RL foundation (a charity) do some good things down here.

Sad to hear about the Sonics troubles.

[Chamey]

6 minutes ago, EastLondonMike said:

Sadly the RFL abandoned the development areas of the game when they lost the Sport England funding, certainly here in London. 5 years or so ago we had 4-5 RFL employees down in London, as well as development officers. Very quickly that become none. And I've not seen any real attempts from the leadership to reverse that, then or now.

Though it has to be said the London RL foundation (a charity) do some good things down here.

Sad to hear about the Sonics troubles.

Don't RFL still get £10m from Sport England (same as RU)?

 

8 minutes ago, PeterWardFormerSLStormRL said:

Couldn't agree more . Though RU participation noticeably down in Scotland . 

Yeah, however Scotland not being completely rubbish may reverse that. The thing is that we've got so few strong countries that even one in decline threatens the very existence of RL, whereas RU could survive. On a similar note World Rugby (Union) run a 'get into rugby' programme which has really boosted the sport in South America (Brazil are playing the Māori All Blacks later on this year for example & they're launching a pan-continent Pro league in a few years), where is rugby league's version of this?

[PeterWardFormerSLStormRL]

It all smacks to me of missed opportunities or a lack of ambition.

[bowes]

1 hour ago, Sports Prophet said:

The decline of grassroots RL in London and the South East has been almost as swift as its climb to the second largest junior league in the country.

The RFL’s reliance on Sport England funding to support grassroots development is culpable and a travesty that ignores the organisation’s entire remit.

In the Midlands there’s two reasons for the decline. One is the end of Sports England funding (Birmingham actually ran a full junior set up and closed every age group the day the funding was withdrawn to give one example) and the other is the creation of the Midlands under 16 team wiped out most of the junior clubs in the region by leaving them too short of players to run 

[GeordieSaint]

30 minutes ago, DEANO said:

Sorry mate. I’m just stating facts. I wish the game was global never mind English wide. But sadly it isn’t 

Rugby League is played on every continent bar Antarctica so sounds pretty global to me. 

RL would also fall flat on its ###### in the north if the support and finance was pulled from it as has happened across the rest of the country.

[ckn]

34 minutes ago, Chamey said:

The difference is that in RU at least total players are climbing, which means that either more adults are playing or more children are. Either way they will likely feed into the RU economy by watching matches, playing, or introducing others. Whereas RL is undergoing total collapse in large parts of the country, with total players falling off a cliff as well. The RFL needs to take command of the game and take a larger cut of the money in order to do proper development funding. Creating an international game would help massively, the RFU invest £100m a year into the club game from internationals (1/3rd into grassroots, i.e. 3rd tier and below) whereas the RFL probably just spend the £2.5m they get from Sport England each year. How can we expect to compete? The SL clubs need to stop being so horridly short termist.

Hmmm, most of your posts so far in your short visit to this forum contain unfavourable comparisons between rugby league and union.  Please at least make an effort and stop talking about union. 

[paulwalker71]

I guess many of us were hoping that Bristol Sonics would provide a pathway and a viable community partner for the proposed Bristol club mooted for League 1

Given the total silence about the Bristol club, and the demise of the Sonics, it really doesn't look promising for RL in the area...

[Chamey]

3 minutes ago, ckn said:

Hmmm, most of your posts so far in your short visit to this forum contain unfavourable comparisons between rugby league and union.  Please at least make an effort and stop talking about union. 

Okay, will do (although the only negative comparisons are about the reach, because I'm hoping that people will start seeing that just focusing on SL and neglecting the community game, will not help spread the greatest game).

[ckn]

1 hour ago, Sports Prophet said:

The decline of grassroots RL in London and the South East has been almost as swift as its climb to the second largest junior league in the country.

The RFL’s reliance on Sport England funding to support grassroots development is culpable and a travesty that ignores the organisation’s entire remit.

Sport England funding comes with definite requirements and the RFL deliberately ignored key ones, including withdrawing development officers outside of areas where the SL clubs funded them out of goodwill.  The whole idea of the Sport England funding is to fund national development, it's meant to be used to bring up standards nationally and the RFL could have used its own money to fund heartland development if it wanted.  The troubles in the English game outside of the heartlands can almost entirely be pointed at the decisions coming from Red Hall over such things.

[Sports Prophet]

19 minutes ago, ckn said:

Sport England funding comes with definite requirements and the RFL deliberately ignored key ones, including withdrawing development officers outside of areas where the SL clubs funded them out of goodwill.  The whole idea of the Sport England funding is to fund national development, it's meant to be used to bring up standards nationally and the RFL could have used its own money to fund heartland development if it wanted.  The troubles in the English game outside of the heartlands can almost entirely be pointed at the decisions coming from Red Hall over such things.

100% and yet here we all are as key stakeholders in the game, allowing Red Hall to continually fail the sport. The ability of our sports governors to be unaccountable for their failures is masterful.

[bowes]

1 hour ago, paulwalker71 said:

I guess many of us were hoping that Bristol Sonics would provide a pathway and a viable community partner for the proposed Bristol club mooted for League 1

Given the total silence about the Bristol club, and the demise of the Sonics, it really doesn't look promising for RL in the area...

Sounds like Bristol’s not happening now. The All Golds have reformed in the West of England League (by taking over Gloucestershire Warriors) and recruited players from other clubs, this was the final nail in the coffin for Bristol Sonics