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Naturally, when an important club like Toulouse were not given a 3 year exemption, at minimum, from relegation after their promotion to Super League. The RFL is run by incompetent little men who are scared to offend the selfish flat cappers like Huddersfield CEO Thewlis. Rugby league will never expand in the northern hemisphere under such leadership.

Well done Catalan. Excellent performance in a cracking game. Tough match with plenty of good performances on both sides. But Catalan’s resolve and determination was immense. Well done to them again. However, this board again has turned another match thread involving Saints into an unreadable mess.

Well done Catalan. Absolutely and thoroughly deserved.

It's actually comical the amount of people that think that refs are biased towards certain teams. Yes you may moan about a decision that you thought should go the other way but by and large refs are right 99% of the time and certainly make far less mistakes than any of us would. If you think that refs are bent go and have a look for the rest of the brain cells you seem to have misplaced.

Thought tonight was a very good match, entertaining and pretty high quality. I'm not sure it was obvious from TV but Catalans line speed was exceptional, as was their goal line defence and composure. I think the scoreline was a pretty fair reflection of how little there was between the two sides. Over the last few years, we have been comfortably the best side in the league and if we played near or close to our best, we would win. The difference this year is that even where I thought we played very well, there are teams who are more than our match and better than us. I was frustrated at our failure to kick the 2 with 10 to go. We had scored one try all match and decided that the easier option was go for two tries in the last 10 minutes, rather than 1 try and guaranteed penalty? It made no sense at all apart from sticking to a very strange rugby league convention that we don't kick penalties unless we can avoid it. Perhaps with a little more pace out wide we could have nicked it but I'm not sure it would have been deserved. Catalans were outstanding tonight and sometimes you have to credit your opposition and accept that your best efforts weren't quite enough.

I see yet another match thread has turned into another ref bashing fest. Grow up and watch the rugby you sad gits!

Stop drinking.

That's a massive loss. He's been player of the season for me. Never stops, never moans and is constantly improving. He just gets on with it wherever he's asked to play and does a fantastic job. Gutted for him.

“Ruining the integrity of the competition” for three years was arguably the best thing Super League and The RFL have done this century as Catalans Dragons are now one of the leading clubs, with good attendances, good results on the pitch (they’ve won more major honours in 17 years than many established clubs) and have handed debuts to 79 French born players that would have ordinarily been unlikely to debut in the competition.

Just need a Wire win tomorrow ( complete with mass brawl and a load of cards ) followed by a nice quiet win for the Pards and all is well with the RL world

The home crowd jeering the referee at the hooter. (Perhaps because he pinged them twice for offside, when it's traditionally only the once per game.) Bizarre!

Wilkin did at half time that Saints got the rub of the green of the ref, nothing changed in the second half, best team won.

Do we not sin bin people anymore for cumulative foul play? While each individual high tackle hasn’t necessarily warranted a yellow card, there’s been 5-6 committed by Catalans now and there’s not even been a word to Garcia to sort it out.

1 minute into the 2nd half and the ref gives Cats a penalty when they knocked on at PTB, wonder if someone has shown him this forum at half time!

Never mind. This match thread as usual is absolutely embarrassing so I'm not gonna bother.

But these are not even 50/50 decisions. Saints lost the ball twice and got two penalties.

The one player I would love to sign again next season is Josh. He has the versatility that we need , and in a difficult season he has stood out

Over 800+ sold full allocation. I believe some in hospitality. Also looks like many are being snapped up direct from Huddersfield today on top of that. We have just got 4 x from Huddersfield for away end and I can see many other fans doing the same. Expecting anywhere between 1100-1500 away fans I guess.

Well, they’ve got shirts for sale. Now they just need players, equipment, a pitch, opponents etc.

Yes, I should have clarified really that my point was more around the big finals etc. I 100% agree that we should always know when England are next playing, even if dates and venues aren't locked down. I've always banged on about needing two international windows, one in June and one in November, so we always know there will be fixtures

Especially when they can such a choice of empty seats to choose from.

Australia need to be left out if they want to mess around. England, NZ, Tonga, Samoa for me.

The point I was making about the stadium is that they won't score negatively in relation to a large number of other clubs. Odsal probably gets more criticism (including from Bradford fans) about the general state of the place and the spectator experience, but they are unlikely to score any fewer points for their stadium than most other clubs. The scoring system for stadia is either 1.5 points if you meet the SL minimum standards on 9 very specific areas (mostly to do with media access), or 0.5 points for everyone else. So those people who are saying no way can Bradford make SL because of the state of their stadium - that's irrelevant (of course they could be denied entry through the existing "not meeting SL standards" criteria, but there's plenty of precedent for that being ignored over the years). Again, not having a pop at Bradford, I don't think they'll get enough points anyway, - just saying that people who reckon it's unthinkable that Bradford could be admitted to SL playing at Odsal as it is now, there's nothing that would even downgrade them in the IMG scoring system.

Bleep was a bloke who had serious issues in his life. We clashed a few times and I regret being too hard on him. We should remember that Rugby League is a family game and we are all part of that family. I'm very sorry Bleep. Heartfelt sympathy to his family and friends.

It is with great sadness that I inform you all of the death of bleep1673, David Hesketh. He was a true die hard fan of rugby league. He was looking forward to going to Toulouse to watch a match in August. He lived, breathed and died rugby. His first gift to our daughter was a tiny rugby ball. As soon as she could walk properly, taught her how to tackle. In his will he wrote that he wanted his death to be announced here. Thank you for the banter, it truly brightened his days.

What? He’s scored over 20 tries so far this year, on his day he’s unplayable

brilliant well deserved win for the better team - Wellens ageing army creaking and cracking?

Nailbiter of a finish! I think I need a(nother) glass of wine.

Unless you are Saints. They just ask for it back and get it.

No. he is saying Chaka Khan.

We're just better! And don't need to push the Refs as we own the RFL.

He's not bent, he's just having a shocker. That missed knock on at the end of the first half is unforgivable at this level.

We can’t have Saints losing, can we?

I'm not sure how much value the sponsors of rugby league clubs get from Sky TV, most of them seem to be local concerns doing things for local reasons. Certainly at the price we sell shirt sponsorship for they've no right to expect much. I can well imagine rugby union club sponsors like Allianz might prefer & perhaps should expect a larger TV audience for their brand, for the price they pay. Unfortunately for our sport the equation is different. Just another £250k per club in media rights would more than cover most clubs for losing every deal they have!

Report today from Hendo that Josh Daley is out for 8 weeks , we will miss him moving us around the park.

Firmly in my pocket.

Who is going to pay for this merger and new stadium at Lillyhall, it would take an investment of millions would it not? The current plans for our new stadium in Workington i doubt will be super league standard with the current funding in place and will be a shared football stadium with Workington Reds. There was a strong rumour that both Town and Haven approached the RLF to discuss a merger quite a few years ago and were told the only funding they would get from them would be double central funding for 1 year, which would equate to 80k this season based on what Haven say they got.

You'd normally back Saints at home but the Dragons will be far too good and quick on the wings, that's where the game could be won for them. Tight game either way.

I'm not sure this metric is too problematic. If we look at what it is there to do, it is to benefit clubs who are not playing in small towns with loads of other clubs around them. If we start to widen what we use as a potential audience, then the benchmark just increases too. It's fine for delivering the aimed outcome. If clubs do really well by resonating with people outside of their local authority, they will score well on crowds, social media, tv viewers etc.

Massive game now, hopefully Giants will stop the pussies' resurgence with a severe thrashing, saying that I'll take any win to put some daylight between us. Good to see plenty of Wakey fans making the trip even though most of them had apparently packed in in April, it's good for them to visit a modern seated stadium with relative comfort

It would appear from the comments so far, Batley are going Toulouse.

Not sure if this has been mentioned but TNT sport are also interested https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyleague/article-12294661/TNT-Sport-make-shock-bid-rugby-Super-League-TV-rights.html

I wouldn't be surprised if Ellis plays for us this week. There is no point risking key players who are carrying niggling injuries with the 1895 semi final only a week away, and it seems to me that is where the priorities lie at the moment.

I'm not sure which is/was sponsored by Coral, but the east stand (main seated stand) holds 4,890. The south bank hospitality, incorporating corporate/sponsors/directors holds 620. Although the media facilities aren't particularly luxurious, I think they do technically meet the requirements in terms of space and use, etc.

Oldham fans on their forum are saying they have a "halfback incoming" - If it's been decided that Ellis helping Swinton win could damage York, then maybe he is being sent out to Oldham in L1 instead.

Salford are better team and have beaten them twice so Salford win for me

Those are fair points. I suppose the bigger problem is that if you go to many sports internationals you know when the next one will be and who it will be against becuase they are relatively regular. Because we don't have this regularity (which would be good to have just the next in midseaon already arranged for example) and becuase we are looking at trying to keep momentum with a group of people that may lose contact with the game outside of internationals (especially initially in their "interest cycle") it is made starker that if they enjoy the experience they have no idea how or when to get their next hit. This is also a reason I think mid season internationals are so important rather than end of season, becuase you can then point them (at worst) to the telebox and super league.

Can’t be much of a grandstand they are proposing, you can barely get a bus down the back of the original one. Bobg is right about the pitch size as well, we will finish up with one metre dead ball areas. We will have to wait and see what we finish up with, but it looks like there will be a lot of disappointed Town fans. l

It highlights how truly daft it is to even consider rubbish systems like this