Dunbar

I commented on the article, not you personally. I am not interested in belonging to a site where insults are endorsed.

I responded to this politely yesterday but I would like to check with your fellow moderators if this type of insult is within the guidelines of civil dialogue set out for this site? I have followed these guidelines for 10 years and over 19,000 posts, it would be nice if that effort was reciprocated.

Indeed I would like our players to be rewarded more for their efforts. But within the appropriate commercial framework in which the sport operates... we have seen what wage inflation has done to other sports who try to live beyond their means. There are comparatives to be made, but I am not sure that a $765 million contract is a sensible one, although I am aware that sometimes you need to use figures that grab the attention.

I try not to be, I hope I come across as open minded and respectful on here. But comparing Rugby League to Baseball is nonsense, there is literally no point. Anyway, a Happy New Year to you.

I was in the middle of a massive post on players staying down after high contact and late contact and how hard it is to differentiate between legitimate foul play and play acting... then I remembered the name of the thread is 'RL dark arts'. That's what they do.

Aren't your 4th and 5th points in your list in the same category as players staying down after contact though, all 3 are about players feigning injury or foul play to gain an advantage?

The article quoted is clearly nonsense, comparing Rugby League to one of the biggest sports leagues in the biggest sports market on the planet makes no sense. But it has led to an interesting discussion on how our game is played and I have some sympathy with both sides of the discussion. I can see why some people see that the modern game has become more formulaic. While the ball is in play longer, there is a lot more structure to the modern game with a lot more set plays being run... every team does the same shift plays and it is the team that executes best that excels, but not necessarily the most innovative. There was less structure and more innovation in previous era's... even the spectacular tries today often come from structured plays. But that is not to say we don't have great individual players today and there is off the cuff play... I am talking about the aggregate. But, on the other hand, when you watch older games (full matches), you see that it is not as innovative and exciting as our memories suggest. I recently watched the full matches from the 1982 and 1986 Kangaroo tours and it was amazing how many errors there were, the benefit of memories is that we only remember what the greats did and not how many balls they dropped. There was so many errors in one game that I almost stopped watching and then I remembered these were some of the best players we have ever seen. Maybe a prece of all that is the game is different, but still the best sport on the planet by an absolute mile.

The crowd that day was 13,226. I'm sure Saints would be hugely disappointed if they got that for a Wigan game these days.

And I haven't brought it up before. But it was definitely a voluntary tackle.

Ok, seeing as though there have been a couple of posts. Twice in the last 28 days: Pool = 19,700 Snooker = 19,300 Ever in the last year, yes or no: Pool = 3,535,400 Snooker = 1,035,600

Because of the post above where there may be a significant difference between irregular and regular participation, I thought in the sense of fairness I would look at the darts and Rugby League data (seeing as though that is the focus of the discussion). I posted earlier that using the 'at least twice in the last 28 days' definition of participation, the results were: Darts = 11,300 Rugby League = 55,800 But when we query the much more broad 'yes or no by activity in the last year', we get: Darts = 1,963,800 Rugby League = 120,300 So Rugby League is a much more regular sport and darts much higher as an irregular or casual activity. Pretty much like most of us would have expected I guess. As the Sports England Active Lives survey defaults to the 28 days description as its definition of participation, I guess the discussion on whether darts or Rugby League is more popular as a participation sport is still debatable, but darts certainly has more people playing it per year. As I say, it all boils down to definitions.

It all boils down to the definition of participation. The 'at least twice in the last 28 days' is the important variable here I think as that implies something more than an irregular participation. My guess is that pool is much higher when you look at single instance or less regular activities. The query builders are on the Sport England website so you can have a look if you want... as this is a Rugby League site, I am not going to bother comparing pool and snooker.

I do feel obliged to point out that 19,700 is higher than 19,300.

Participation data shows that snooker = 19,300 (darts was 11,300 and RL 55,800) Pool is at 19,700. This is adults (aged 16+) who have taken part in the activity at least twice in the last 28 days.

If anyone is interested, I have checked the Active Lives survey data and there is no participation data for Gavin and Stacey.