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It’s a big weekend for the Vipers. Saturday sees the men’s team take on Bedford Tigers in the East RL semi final at Wymomdham. The weather is looking good and a decent crowd is expected. The winners will take on Hemel in the final a week later, also at Wymomdham. On Sunday the ladies travel to Hull to play the Hull KR ladies development team as an opener to the Hull KR v Leigh ladies Championship game. The team have just finished second in the East RL comp. This will be a great experience for them and they’re really looking forward to it.

Sad to see but a lot of it is of their own making. Every year they seem to budget for much higher gates than they actually get, you'd think they would have learned that lesson by now. Then there is the "we have had no home games for a few weeks" excuse - sorry, but the flip side of that is that you had a run of home games with no away game costs (Buses etc) so should have been putting some money away to cover that. Also, they have 7 Aussies playing for them - the cost of that must be very high when you factor in accommodation, travel etc on top of their wages. So yes I have sympathy for the Haven fans, but the Haven club seems to make the same mistakes over and over again without ever learning their lesson. The fact is, whether they like it or not, they can't afford to compete at Championship level on their current income streams. But they don't want to accept it, so they end up in situations like this regularly and relying on the same group of fans to bail them out. Its a lesson our club has had to learn the hard way before and are now taking steps to address - get the income streams in place before you take the step up, not just hope for the best.

Jeez Harry, that's really small time thinking. You think IMG are in this for commission on half a dozen telly sales.. Jeez, you're making yourself look a bit silly on this.

And to add, Zac Hunter who played for the Vipers in the 2023 season has just been selected to make his NSW Cup debut tomorrow, in the Eels v Panthers game at the Commbank Stadium. Brilliant news for him.

Course they do

Both deserve a point.

See what exactly? "If players run in they'll be sat down." Partington ran in. Partington got a yellow card. Pretty straight forward.

Great effort from both teams neither team deserve to lose a draw was absolutely the right result. Having said that although Saints are still well off it its results like this that could start building some belief again.

He told them he would sinbin any player running in, stupid from Partington.

Or, the players are idiots.

Yeah it's awful reading but there still bringing players in, brought in god knows how many overseas over the last few years, how can the expect to do all that on awful gates. This isn't the 1st season it's happened, it's basically every year. Bounty competitions have thrown money at them and there still in such a state, I feel for there fans who get asked to continuously dig into there own pockets to bail them out,but that's a very poorly run club I don't care what anyone says

SL is the only other professional rugby league competition in the world. There is always going to be plenty of movement between the two leagues. Including NRL players wanting to move to the other side of the world for a few years. Not sure which players you are referring which made you post this. The most recent NRL-SL singings have been TPJ, Nick Cotric, Tristan Sailor, David Armstrong, John Bateman, Reimis Smith, and Luke Keary. All of those guys besides Keary are 23-28 and in the primes of their career.

I hate it

He literally just explained it on tv.

That's disgracefully levelling up from Kendall.

Not the first and not the last young man to throw up in St Helens on a Thursday evening. It's the new Friday after all.

Can’t blame him to be fair , he was something else !

The match review panel have watched the footage of the red card incident and have decided there shouldn’t be any further action against Budsy, so no ban or fine for him which is pretty rare for a red card these days. Speaks volumes about how Forster milked it though.

I'm not aware of any league, in any sport, in any country across that world that doesn't allow foreign players. RL has had overseas player bans at various times in the past, it never worked. I think the answer is about getting the balance right, not adopting one extreme or the other.

At times, you can have the same broadcast across multiple channels, one of the particular challenges is that there may only be 2 live broadcasts, (say darts and super league) yet SL will be on the equivalent of Sky Sports 8, while 2 to 7 are full of random repeats that at times literally nobody is watching. This year it has led to a SL game beibg shown live on Showcase, which isn't primarily a sports channel, despite not having live sport on around 4 or 5 of their channels. It's all a bit random, and whereas in the past you'd maybe have 3 or 4 premium sports channels to flick through for content, it's now much more but with less on. I actually think now would be the time to return to say, 4 linear channels and have SS+ behind it where coverage overlaps. But I think they've made their bed with committing specific channels for certain sports. Logistically it looks a pain for both Sky and customers tbh.

Really feel for Les, the players and the fans who are there week in/week out. Hope the rest of the community rally round the club for the rest of the season and we get to the end. New faces and new ideas need brought to the club so hopefully their help is accepted. Hopefully we get someone on the board who is used to dealing with business plans etc and can start slowly putting our best foot forward to a brighter future. It ain't over till it's over

6,000 nits …… I knew one or two lads from school who could beat that number of nits on any given school day!

Hopefully they sort themselves out,we don't want to lose any clubs.

I'm sure he very much cost us the game away at Widnes quite a few years back allowing them to score in the 7th play and win. Didn't see him for a while after that, but he definitely go his career back on track as I remember him taking charge of the CC final Hull vs Warrington, in as much as you hardly noticed him that day, and on the odd occasion you did he seemed to be 100% spot with his calls

Not just a new club. They should all have to do it

For a club that was on its backside this time last year ,I was very surprised they decided to bring in even more imports in with Owen mccarron,edene gebbie ,Lachlan hannigan ,then furthermore Jake maizen from Halifax ,clearly spent well above there means or projected income . absolutely criminal being in that situation last year and then repeating the same mistakes within a year

For IMG to be so precise with the particulars of a 'Big Screen' if one was cynical they would think IMG were on commission from the manufacturers of such equipment for every new screen sold to those they are advising of the required standard.

The difference here is that the USA team were I believe entirely from the state of Utah, where they actually have a fledgling Rugby League competition going at Junior level. They have a 4 team league at senior level too. There are a lot of Polynesians in Utah and there are a lot of them that are already familiar with league. This is the start of a long process for Rugby League in Utah, but they are trying their best to build up the sport and not rely on Union.

Going to be very difficult for Haven to survive this time but hopefully they can pull through however there has to be something the league can do to stop clubs grossly overspending. I think our board has done great work in developing the community side of the club and are gradually reaping rewards with both increasing attendances and sponsorship

I seem to regularly be reading about NRL players who are at the end of their careers in the NRL being signed by SL clubs rather than retiring. This just seems to be where SL clubs and SL in general is at the moment. NRL players don’t see SL as a place they want to play unless they’ve finished their NRL career and just want to extend their careers by a couple of years and to see a bit of Europe. Surely it would be better for SL clubs and SL as a whole if they put more faith in their juniors and just had a few better quality NRL players. Wigan, Saints and possibly Warrington seem to be the only clubs that aren’t doing this as much

Agreed.

That was a try for me, his fingers were on the bottom of the ball.

You know a full back is flavour of the month when he drops the ball and the commentator says “he’s done well there”

The main thing a team in league 1 has to do is get a team on the pitch that is competitive. Everything else is a bonus. Coventry Bears had juniors all the way up to u16 while in league 1. Fat lot of good it did them when funding for league 1 was withdrawn.

Not sure if you have seen it but their interim chairman has put out the rallying call.Feel really sorry for him and I hope he gets help to keep the club going,it’s obvious massive mistakes have been made yet again after last season. 331 at home to Toulouse is pitiful,where are the fans? From the outside it seems they have lost touch with their fan base and all the brilliant community clubs that surround them?

No he’s Australian, came through their system, he was in England for a few months last summer so played for the Vipers while here.

It's been a bit of a disaster on Sky Sports since they went to named channels tbh.

With the players out injured and the one's that have left, it'll be interesting squad news tomorrow, some players could get a much needed run out, and then onto kieghley where we might have a couple of players back win the league, c'mon owdam

If you don’t want to discuss just go on another thread

Hornets’ (position assuming)! Week 1 Game 1 3 (Hornets) v 4, Game 2 5 v 6 Week 2 Game 3 Winner of Game 1 Hornets v loser 2, Game 4 Loser of Game 1 v Winner of Game 2 Week 3 Game 5 Loser of Game 3 v Winner of Game 4 Week 4 Game 6 Winner of Game 3 Hornets v Winner of Game 5 Then the winner of game 6 Hornets play the 12th placed team in the Championship for promotion.>>> Hornets

I think one of the main criteria for inclusion in League 1 is to have some sort of junior pathways otherwise they might as well just be used as feeder clubs for the full time clubs. They should have some development going on in their local areas and at least a tier 3 academy

"Refs might make us raise an eyebrow now and then but I don't recall any actually causing us to lose, or win, a match" I would usually support that statement BSJ ...... But Gareth Hewer came VERY close on a few occasions ...... or so it seemed at the time ......

A few months ago I saw quite a few posts on social media from fans of other Championship clubs who thought we were going to go bust and how they should make an immediate move for Connor Jones, Caleb Aekins etc. I thought that was poor and I think it's poor if our fans are saying the same, especially literally on the day their current plight has been revealed.

Really sad news .. Nobody wants to see any club with money problems it's only a few years ago that we weren't that far from going under . Players taking wage cuts, bills to pay. Its only with the foresight of Gary Murdock Graeme Peers and the rest of the board that the club has pulled it round . With all the good things that are happening around the club . So a massive thank you .that we still have a club to support .

Good news....

Or we could win it at Keighley

Totally agree. still can’t see how he fits in at HKR, they are well covered with good players in his positions

Hopefully Longy can work on him with his when to pass and when to run game. Think sometimes he holds on rather than making the pass

No doubt the naysayers will mock this, but I find it exciting to see an untapped area showing genuine intent in growing the game. If they do manage to make it to league 1 then I shall follow their progress with interest and hope for promising crowds and good performances