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Then it’s hard for me to make my own mind up on that, but of course I accept it is your opinion the environment was toxic and that with the facts, it is a good chance I would agree with you. As far as how a workplace should operate, no one workplace is the same, per my point above about training soldiers, so neither should a match official’s workplace environment be compared to how a workplace of let’s say, a public service department.

As I explained in my post, from conflict comes resilience and conviction and those are two of the most valuable attributes a referee can have, let alone the ability to make quick, rational decisions under pressure which again is a skill which can be improved in an environment of conflict. Heck, looking at it rather bluntly, a game of Rugby League is a conflict and the team which is best prepared for that conflict is often the best performer. So to send a referee into an environment of conflict and to expect him or her to be the arbitrator, I would suggest exposure to conflict at training would be a valuable experience for a referee. You wouldn’t train soldiers without a hint of exposure to conflict, training should match the needs of the individuals tasked with the job they have signed up for. In saying all that, I don’t know what actually constitutes this “toxic” environment which was suggested earlier, so I am not making an actual call on Ganson’s effectiveness as a boss of referees, but in my opinion, exposure to conflict in the right way can certainly help the performance of a referee.

Toulouse and London yes, simply because it increases our catchment area, but let's not pretend that the game in the UK doesn't rely on three or four Super League clubs doing the bulk of elite player development. Wigan, St Helens and Leeds hoover up the best talent from the amateur game. Yes, they're more proactive, but they also have a better proposition to prospective players and, crucially, their parents - the best facilities, good coaches, a strong record of introducing young players to the first team, development experiences and opportunities, good educational partnerships and the prestige of a big club. The rest of Super League, which either don't or can't offer those to the same extent, is largely left to pick up what's left after the big three have had their fill. Other clubs can and should do more. My son plays for a Kirklees area club and not one of the three Kirklees clubs shows any interest in engaging with us - no invites to play at half time, no players showing up to training etc, whereas we're almost turning away similar offers from Bradford and Leeds because we have so many of them. But it's also not as simple to say "the other clubs need to do more on youth development and academies" because those clubs will almost always be starting from a lower base when they're almost always picking second unless you're going to start introducing more stringent service area rules and quotas, but that doesn't necessarily help young players either. The real issue here is that we don't have enough young players in the community game. There are so many clubs struggling to get teams together at various age groups, either borrowing players or even partnering with other clubs just to get some game time and keep the few kids they have. There needs to be so much more investment in that part of the sport if we're ever going to have a chance of increasing the player pool.

The pulling up a player who may be injured is a big no, and has been for a while. I don't know the reasoning why Horne got 6 games and Martin 0, although Martin's was a little tug on Jowitt's shirt where as Horne actually lifted the player, whether that difference is reflected in the punishment I don't know.

I suppose a Wigan fan and a Bradford fan are likely to have quite different views on going to 14 teams, staying with 12, reducing the amount of teams etc. Obviously I'm sat here in a position of safety, knowing we'll be in the league, even if it was cut to 10 (which it won't be btw) but I just can't see the quality being there for 14 teams and going to that could do more harm than good. I get your point that you will always have good teams and bad teams in any league but the level London and Cas were at last year was horrendous and was leading to walk overs every single week. That is no good for the game, especially when some are being broadcast on National TV. I can only see a move to 14 teams leaving us with 3 or 4 sides of that level, so that means that some weeks, we'll likely see 3 or 4 out of the 7 fixtures being walk overs, that will likely see many change channel. I know I just turn games off when they blow out and having more of them just isn't appealing. In an ideal world, there would be enough money in the game to stay at 12 teams and to ditch loop fixtures but we're not there. A top division of 10, with an extremely strong Championship and a set date of teams putting in bids to join the tip division would get my vote ahead of going to 14. As I say, we won't go to 10 anyway, so it's a bit pointless me even discussing it. If we're going to 14 then the best case is that it happens in 2027 and not next year IMO.

SALFORD RED DEVILS have been given a major blow with head coach Paul Rowley confirming there is “quite a lot of damage” to Jonny Vaughan’s...View the full article

SALFORD RED DEVILS have been given a major blow with head coach Paul Rowley confirming there is “quite a lot of damage” to Jonny Vaughan’s...View the full article

SuperLeague with two or more of Bradford, Oldham, Batley, Featherstone, York even, (at the expense of Salford?) to make it up to 14 sounds like we've given up, shrunk the boundaries and told the world that rugby league is a northern sport for northern people. At least with London and Toulouse in, there is some indication that we've broadened our horizons at least a lttle.

Oldham ostriches with the mascot running round in a suit like Bernie Clifton used to

Yes but that's not an inherent advantage to being in SL over being in the Championship. In any case my gripe with IMG isn't against the system in its entirety, but some of the scoring, not just the incumbency bias but also the catchment area and a couple of other issues.

On watching both the Martin and Horne incidents, i'm struggling to see how there is 6 games of ban worth of difference between the 2 incidents. Martin clearly pulls the shirt up on a downed player and so does Horne. I get the need for and support a zero-tolerance stance on things even if a player isn't actually injured, but I would be pretty angry if I was a Cas fan when you see a very similar incident go unpunished in the same evening's tribunal. Personally, I just want to see referees given the power to stop teams taking the mick when it comes to time wasting. Wigan* really pushed the limits on it last weekend with some tackles taking around 10 seconds to get a play the ball and the referee having to ask the player to play the ball multiple times. There doesn't seem to be any directive where referees can actually punish this within the rules. *Every team does it, I'm just using it as an example

Cutting the league again and making the league smaller and smaller will see the demise of the sport. I always stand by the point that no matter how many teams you have, the top team will always be better than the team at the bottom. Even if we cut the teams to 8, Catalans are still ###### and got battered by 60 against the top team a couple of weeks ago. Also this myth that if we cut now, then a in a few years time we'll be able to grow the league is just false. Why does anyone think cutting a Castleford from SL for example, losing over a million pounds in central distribribution, sponsorships etc, that they'll suddenly be stronger to expand the league in a few years time. Look at strong traditional clubs who spent more than 1 year out of SL. Bradford. Halifax. Widnes etc. They are clearly some teams who have plodded a long in SL, particularly player development. But those teams who are talked about coming up will improve this. Toulouse - exposure to more better French players coming through Bradford - still one of the best at producing players. Give them SL money that will get even better London - Again, a hot bed of RL talent down there. I don't disagree, that the first year they'll be some lopsided scores, but in a couple of years, I'd wager a Toulouse, London, York etc would be stronger than the likes of Hudds, Cas are at the moment.

You can have absolutely woeful clubs, worse than Championship ones, stay up with P/R purely because there was 1 club worse than them. In this system multiple can move.

DANNY MCGUIRE has revealed that Castleford Tigers will appeal the six-game ban handed to Liam Horne. Horne was given the mammoth suspension last night at...View the full article

DANNY MCGUIRE has revealed that Castleford Tigers will appeal the six-game ban handed to Liam Horne. Horne was given the mammoth suspension last night at...View the full article

No, straight P&R isn't comparable in this sense at all. Under straight P & R a team that finishes top/wins the Grand Final doesn't have to worry that the team at the bottom of SL might have higher crowds/more sponsorship/more merchandise sales.

Yeah for clarity I don't doubt they'll manage to push it through. I guess I'm just aggrieved that we're in July and there's still some discussion about the methodology of how we work out who goes in what division next year, but I should know better because we've been here plenty of times before!

Won't there just be a vote to change that particular section of the operational rules? Of course, with the grading handbook being 'subject to amendment' there's some wiggle room there to push something through, no matter how demented.

There aren't enough good players knocking around to ensure we have 12 reasonably competitive teams in Superleague currently, so I don't know how we go to 14. Increasing quotas will only help so much. I don't like the loop fixtures but I'd rather play Leigh and Warrington 3 times, than see us pump Oldham or York by 60/70 points (in saying that, they'd probably beat us at the minute). I'd stay with 12 in 2026 and look to make any changes from 2027, which would at least give some breathing space for some actual planning. It wouldn't go down well with many but I think we'd actually be better going backwards and going down to a 10 team Superleague in the shorter term of the next 2 to 3 years. If we did that, we could then look at a model a bit like the NRL are doing with expansion clubs, of giving out places a couple of years in advance and allowing those clubs to plan properly for an entrance to Superleague. It would take maybe 6 or 7 years to get up to 14 clubs then and there would be some pain in between in terms of loop fixtures and maybe bye rounds but longer term, I think we would find the league in much better health overall.

There is certainly an advantage to being in SL of course, but that's to be expected, literally any system would have some sort of advantage like that to some extent. Straight P/R does this too for example.

Yes my bad, you're correct, but it still highlights the massive inbuilt advantage of being in SL. One year being in SL will signficantly boost your attendances and lots of other financial areas, 3 in a row will make you almost untouchable for Championship clubs barring a Salford-style meltdown.

Ha ha yes of course! Did you really think I meant it should be applied in that case?

Its a 3 year average for those points. This is from the gang who threaten legal challenges, laugh in the face of sport england rules and regulations, and have bullied their way into control of the sport. They don't care and will do whatever it takes.

all hell's going to break loose, isn't it? I doubt it. This lot have shown that they pay scant regards to the rules when they put Wood into a position in contravention of Sport England rules.

Attendances are an average over 3 years, surely London aren't getting another 1.25 points on the back of a season where they just crept over the 3k threshold when previously they had 1,079.