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Comments like this really wind me up . We are behind them , we go to watch them play Cornwall and Midlands , and we’re a dwindling minority . You also need to tell it as you see it honestly or it’s not gonna be much of a forum

So, you've got the women and men of Huddersfield and Wigan playing on Saturday, so far, so simple. To watch both games, you have to buy seperate tickets and leave the stadium between games. Do they want it to be a failure? https://giantsrl.com/article/8866/wigan-warriors-double-header-tickets-on-sale

All of that is just an unnecessary fudge though. They have designed a brand new system, it should be made fit for purpose and future-proof. Grade A is genuinely unnecessary unless they are going to be fluid with the number of teams in SL, which they won't be. The whole 'suck it and see what happens' approach doesn't demonstrate control. When you have a blank canvas, creating something flawed is a worry.

It doesn't matter if it's empty or not. The game shouldn't be tolerating coaches throwing objects at fans. If it wasn't a Leigh coach your tune would be very different.

Hingano is by far our best halfback and should start there every week when fit , i personally don't think there's a lot between harris and williams , teanby , michael and fitzy are too similar and the opposition soon figure them out , with their footwork and class jordy and ukuma are the only 2 forwards at present who can break the line , thankfully early days with some good uns to return but i still feel investment in a tried and tested backrower would improve things immensely.

This is fair - I don't think the thresholds are too onerous, but we aren't at 14 yet, or anywhere near - clubs may be hovering around that 12-13.5 mark, but as you say, it is difficult to make that last step. My main frustration here is that this was always going to be controversial, and tbh, very boring - I think they had to land the strategy and associated comms well - and they just haven't. The Grade A point is just confusing. It means nothing. Grade A gets you nowt. Yet at the start of this Grade A guaranteed you permanent SL status and gave you that security, but there is no security if your score is changed annually. The loose comms around how may teams they will have in SL is poor too. It is just vague statements, basically kicking the can down the road. I don;t think they appreciated how fixated people would get on these 0.25 scores etc.

It does rather miss out quite a bit of the narrative. International RL is a tough sell, and when the biggest and richest RL nation in the world consistently undermines it, you get to the point where you have to question the motives. Four perfect recent examples. 1. Successful Four Nations concept scrapped, not replaced by a 6 or 8 team tournaments which was mean to be the plan. 2. The sh** show that was the Denver Test. As above, RL is a tough sell anyway without internal sabotage. 3. The postponement of the RLWC in 2021 and the associated costs that created. I have some sympathy with them on this one, but when other international sports were working out how to make it work, we just walked away. 4. The recent criticism of the England's staging of the Tonga series, saying we need to do better (a valid point), but it was distracting from the car crash of the Pacific Final that they'd just held in NZ in front of a smaller crowd than that in Leeds. I was one of the biggest critics of the RLWC last time, but we have regularly pulled in crowds that the biggest RL nation in the world can only dream of.

15 quid to watch Valkyrie v Leeds followed by Knights v Sheffield at York on Sunday. You don't have to leave the stadium* in between games, although a lovely new lounge bar and grill has opened up next door... *Some York fans might actually want to!

Both as you’d want to know how the fire started but pushing someone downstairs in the event of a fire is incredibly stupid.

Convincing people they are worthless so they become grateful for whatever they can get is one form of negging.

That's what negging does. We now become happy for any scraps.

It doesn’t seem to matter when they do the double headers at the Rhinos.

It seems unlikely that there will be more than 12 teams that achieve a grade A this year, but with noises coming out of Leigh, Wakefield and Cas, it would not surprise me to see a team miss out on Super League with a score of 14.something, and 13 or more grade As becoming a real possibility for 2026 season. Ultimately, you can commit to a certain score guaranteeing a place in Super League, or you can commit to a certain number of teams. You can't do both with absolute certainty, and I fear the RFL have dug a bit of a hole for themselves here.

Yeah I agree there is certainly some teams that do look a lot better but for me teams like Bradford and Sheffield are very much the same and I would argue the only reason they look better is because a lot of the teams around them have almost dropped off a cliff in Fev, Toulouse, York, and Fax. For me the biggest surprises are how far off the pace York are and how much I think Bradford have under performed. I really thought they would be clear second, obviously there is still time but they look anything but that at the moment.

Very harsh for me putting Currier in that group. He was one of the Great Britain centres at the time and sustained a career threatening injury on his debut for us.

I definitely don't blame Walker, nobody has 10/10 games every week, and he wasn't alone in being below par. If anyone has to take responsibility it has to be Muzz, it's his job to get the players ready and up for the game. If the whole team is playing badly then it has to be down to him. If our forwards are receiving the ball standing still, or are missing tackles then they need told or subbed. The Midlands coach has his team fired up and enthusiastic, they had done their homework on our plays and neutralised our attack set after set. We seemed to have no idea that Callum McLelland likes to take the line on and waved him through. Maybe if we had a ref that would have let us get a quick PTB we could have got some field position and got a roll on, but especially in the first half we played a lot of the game in our own half as they pinned us back with the big bombs and the wind at their backs. Predictably the wind dropped in the second half but we still struggled to get a lot of field position, and when we got into good positions we dropped the ball. I think it's tough calling Sammut out as he tried to make things happen, kicking out on the full aside I thought he had a decent game. His chip over the top took a wicked bounce which would have been a try and us within a score of them. They say not to over react whether you win or lose, Midlands have a decent team, they played well on the day and deserved to win. It's up to our lads to show the reaction in the next game, and Muzz to get them ripping it up. UTT

Cry me a tear. People are commenting on RMT rightly criticising the deal and giving their own opinions on that deal. That's it. I'm sure most people really don't care enough about Hull KR to see this as an opportunity to just have a dig. Hull FC really have nothing to do with this, you seem obsessed with them, and what they did over a decade ago in a different time is irrelevant. This is all on Hull KR, no amount of spin or deflection changes that.

Hmm. So this sponsorship was such a bad decision that you wrote to the club to complain, but anyone else complaining about this sponsorship is just having a dig at your club?

There is a bit more to this than meets the eye. A 4-team u12s league starts on Saturday so is probably not yet listed on rugby-league.com. Primary rugby (u6-u11s) - which had pretty much fallen away since Covid - is also much healthier this year. At u18s, there are 3 teams competing in merit fixtures - there was nothing last year. Sigma College (Colchester) recently lost in the national final. Newman College (Brighton) are another strong college team. U14s - there are a few teams playing merit fixtures outside the league structure, including Feltham who are Richmond re-born after a couple of years away. U16s likewise, including Bedford who have restarted at that age group. In my view, 2024 is a year of consolidation in the league structure whilst a similar number of clubs outside that build up towards league (re-)entry in 2025. For comparison: last year, 8 clubs ran at least one junior team, this year it could be 10 or 11. It is tough going - and the game down here has its problems - but the league tables don't show the full picture of activity.

All sorted thanks, the RFL central team were very helpful.

It is not usual for a player to punch another without provocation, however it usually is the one retaliating that gets caught and rightly so will be suspended, hopefully the video has picked the up first offence and the Midlands player is punished also. you are right the game did turn ugly, due to constant lying on at the PTB not controlled effectively or to the rules of the game.

A note on Williams, when he was at Haven he played his best stuff off the cuff, you may be right that the game plan is hindering him. I'd give him time and stick with him, he'll come good for you I'm sure

Today in history … The tomb of King Herod is discovered 2007 Vladimir Putin is inaugurated Russian President 2000 The Scream is recovered after being stolen 1994 Khruschev announces they’ve got Gary Powers 1960 Jodl signs unconditional surrender 1945 ( repeated the next day for the Soviets ) Norway Debate begins 1940 Condor Legion arrives in Spain 1937 U-20 sinks The Lusitania 1915 Greek independence 1832 World premiere of Beethoven’s 9th 1824 Palace of Versailles opened by Louis XIV 1664

By the way, if you watch the 'highlights', looks as though Dags wasn't wrong about Romeo's 'try'!

Never heard of any double headers where you had to buy 2 tickets & leave in between games and re-enter. I guess they are expecting a full house, so can't double sell seats .....

Heard a rumor Wakey are also amongst the clubs after Elliot Whitehead.

Nowt I disagree with there, Gav.

Put Hingano at 6 and leave him there until he next gets injured. If/when that happens then its time to move him on. Leave Harris at 7. Pembo well ahead of Williams for me. We needed a prop at the start of the season and we signed a winger/marketing manager, leaving a homegrown winger with SL potential in the stands. No I will not stop being angry about this. Our marquee has moved on after 2 games and we still need a prop. A French lad that can't get a visa doesn't count.

Spot on. It's that simple.

I'm not saying Saints shouldn't have been punished. I am however saying that throwing something at someone is definitely worse that winding someone up. Also if the bar is the needing it to lethal, it leaves open the plethora of objects coaches are allowed to throw at fans with no punishment by your reckoning.

I'm just surprised you're surprised mate

It doesn’t help when we don’t have the same pivots two weeks running, how can you build a partnership between the halves and LF when they keep changing, not the fault of Hendo , he can’t help players being injured or suspended except tightening up on the discipline. All that said we have a small pack, which needs bolstering with a player like Pauli but who is fit and a settled half back pairing, move JT back to loose give him the captaincy to take pressure of Harris so he can concentrate on his own game and sort out the centres and wings, we miss Jesse Dee , not the biggest lad but my god he puts 100% in as does Santi in the forwards. Like you so am sure it will come good.

Then you're right - Grade A is meaningless

To be totally honest Oxy, very rarely do I 'trawl' the internet but there are those on here that do, and that is where I obtained my information from, @Damien and @Dave T must obviously have seen or been made aware considering their response on these recent posts. When this IMG stuff was first disclosed and there was a thread of many pages even before the indicative gradings were published, the theme on here was any club that obtained an 'A' grade would be included in SL no matter how many 'A's were awarded. Those who are pro IMG said if we get more than 12 'A's then the system will be working and the sport will be in a much better place than it presently is. Then the indicative grades were published suggesting there would be 7 'A's if things stayed as they were when the consensus of opinion was there would be a maximum of 5. Totally agree, after the initial year of 'proper' grades, it will be nigh on impossible for a Championship club to breach the divide, such is the criteria in favour of the SL clubs. And as I referred to in my previous post, any club that does achieve 15 points and an 'A' grade will have done what this system requires and irrespective of which division they play in should have the same financial distribution and criteria weighting to reflect what all the other 'A's benefit from.

We've absolutely no chance of getting close to 13 Grade As this year. It's actually really hard - to reach 15 points you need 7k plus a week, AND have them paying full price plus corporate AND average a top 10 performance AND tick all the stadium boxes...plus more. I don't see any more than last year, let alone 13. In a few years it might be an issue, but that will only mean the new model is working and producing strong clubs.

somehow these days feels more doldum than the doldum days, back then we had nowt but you always felt the team on the pitch was battling together for the club. now we have loads of opportunities and we are just butchering them all

Biggest problem is not at junior level it's where do the kids go afterwards

Let's face it, it was a stupid idea. People on either side of the deal must really be naïve if they they didn't see this getting a backlash.

I think there's one player that deserves special mention from the game yesterday, and that's Brad England. In the 1st half he did his job but was guilty of a couple of errors, but in the 2nd half he certainly made up fot it. Plus when Gale was sent off he was moved into centre. Taking the ball he runs hard and tackles with the same commitment. Well done Brad England.

I've had it, got it the other year with a load of other Festbiers, here's what I recall of the evening:

Most people posting here have little to no real rivalry with KR. I have to assume that RMT's criticism isn't driven by club rivalries. I'm not sure why you are trying to turn this into an FC v KR thing.

no , they need us more than ever , as a genuine fan i will be there and it's the cup anything can happen

It’s called being a supporter. A supporter goes through thick and thin. After all without the supporters in the doldrums days we wouldn’t be where we are now

One of the things that really annoy me is when players clearly drop the ball backwards and refs still give a knock on!

Hull FC agreed a sponsorship deal when P&O Ferries were a large local employer of good standing. Hull KR agreed a sponsorship deal after P&O had sacked all the local workforce in scandalous circumstances. Trying to equate the two is amazing.

Talk about deflection.

Sounds good:

Id make sure to have scouts watching their players from an early age, give back handers to the parents and probably slip Siddal a few quid as well to encourage them to send the players Fax's way. A cynic would say that is very much how it happens at the moment at many amateur clubs around the country. I'd just have to make sure to be the one offering the most money. On the second point its similar for a lot of the lads, there are loads in the amateur game who could play at a high level in the championship but the money simply is not there in the game for them to make the commitment needed.

Yeah, neither offence should be suspended. That's a complete joke. A suspended sentence should be for mild offences and serve as a warning not to do it again. It certainly should not be used for serious offences that the game should have a hard line on, like throwing a bottle at a fan.

Along with Hull and City, Rovers were given the opportunity to play at the KC/MKM when it was first built. They politely and sensibly declined. It would have been a suicidal move for them. Hull were just popping across Anlaby Road so remained in the heart of their community, Rovers would have been abandoning theirs.