Damien

You said to get competitive. Michael Maguire virtually transformed Wigan both on and off the field in a single pre-season and won the Grand Final in his first. The likes of Bradford, Saints and Leeds didn't take a decade to get to their peaks and win honours. Indeed Bradford went from a 7th place finish to SL Champions in 2 seasons under Matthew Elliot and transformed the club with the whole Bulls rebrand. It is more than possible with the right appointments and investment.

When has a full rebuild in RL took a decade? Various big clubs have done it in a fraction of that time. Obviously the money and backing has to be there, which would be the case if the investment that has been alluded to happens.

And the same applied to the Aussies.

By being part time with far less training and games at a far lower intensity.

Course you can

The Premiership essentially morphed into the Grand Final and play offs, obviously with the Champions tag elevating it. County Cups have had their day and there simply aren't enough quality teams to make them worthwhile. We are struggling enough with the Challenge Cup on that front.

You can have both, it's no different than clubs like Wigan.

I'd say he is in a strong position to make the role right for him with the autonomy that he needs.

He says the right things anyway. Good luck to him.

Fair points.

I think the Cricket comparisons are really poor. If I'm a Cricket fan in Wigan of course I'll follow Lancashire as its the cricket team that represents me and is the professional tier of competition. If I want to watch Cricket at the best domestic level it's Lancashire. In RL its far from the same. The equivalent of Lancashire for me is Wigan, we are not a profesional game based on counties or provinces. It's a club game. A Lancashire v Yorkshire game is just another match that is a worse standard than Wigan v various SL teams and will be far worse than dozens of SL games. Sure I'll watch it on TV, as I will pretty much watch any RL, but there is absolutely nothing about that game that would make me bothered about watching it live.

I think at underage level this stuff works fine generally as it is, certainly from a Lancashire and Yorkshire perspective. It gives young players a representative game at a higher level of competition and considerations like crowds and selling the game to the wider public do not matter. That does not mean it works at professional level or serves any purpose.

To what purpose? If the argument for Lancashire v Yorkshire is a higher tier of competition then something like this certainly isn't that. It would be mediocre, Championship level stuff at best and all rather pointless.