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I am so impressed with how much work Hull KR have put in since this match was announced. They have made several trips late last year and now they have personnel there all week. Yesterday they delivered coaching session to over 200 schoolkids. If ever there was an example of an "on the road" match being done right, then this is it.

Me and 3 mates are getting the Eurostar there on Friday for the weekend. Really looking forward to it! Its crazy that despite never having watched my men's team play in Super League, I will have watched them play in England, Wales, France, Canada and the Netherlands! (I was too young to watch them in Russia...)

50% of ticket sales so far have been to Dutch locals (I suppose that means anyone living in Netherlands) and a crowd of 2,500 is expected. Which should generate a decent atmosphere as the venue capacity is 4000. https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/hull-kr-set-break-rugby-9880336

They’re not going to the rugby chief.

Netherlands Origin match as the curtain-raiser is also a great way to include the local community. For those that are unaware, Dutch RL has over 20 years of history. There are 5 teams in the men's competition, and there are bits of women's and youth activity going on as well.

My eldest and his mate, aren't even Hull KR or York fans, are heading across for it. Jumping on the overnight ferry from North Shields tomorrow then coming back Monday.

It's relevant to our one of our other problem clubs rather than Salford but in this vein I was amused to recently see on Redvee (I know, I know) one poster attribute London Broncos' problems to Leeds refusing to go easy on them in the second half of the 1999 Cup Final, racking up 50 points rather than acting in the greater interest of the sport.

East vs West. Not sure which of the 5 clubs are considered East and West but I am sure they have found a way to split the players fairly evenly. Prior to that there is also women's origin, and Hull Legends vs Dutch Legends. Both seem to be just 20 min halves. Great to see such a full program, both Hull KR and Dutch RL are really giving this event a push! (take note, Cas vs Valencia). https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1132936261957045&set=pb.100057220459683.-2207520000

Hopefully its genuine backers with decent financial resources behind them. I have seen the term 'Overseas investment group', or similar, used to describe all manner of people taking over clubs. Sounds good but the reality can be quite different.

1684939078_salford_red_devils_-_community_share_document_-_digital_(1).pdf This is from the stuff on the crowd funder they put out. There was also a business plan doc (Microsoft Word - Salford RD Holdings CBS Business Planv2.docx) which seems to have informed this. I say this because there were some pretty ambitious attendance targets set that they missed which will be increasing the deficit. Our projection for 2023 is a further 20% increase in average attendance, taking this figure to 5434. This ended up 4705 for 2023 and 4,646 for 2024. The target for end of 2025 was to be at 6k which i doubt they'll make.

Challenge Cup Coverage London Broncos V Goole Vikings. BBC iPlayer Saturday 25th Jan (12.30pm) Royal Navy V Workington Town BFBS Forces News YouTube Channel Sunday 26th Jan (12.45pm) Keighley Cougars V York Knights The Sportsman YouTube Channel Sunday 2nd February (3pm)

It hasn't primarily been about him since the first few pages. 'London Broncos' might be a better subject name, but I think it would be useful to have the context given by that thread - which has been about how the club are moving on/looking for new ownership from very early on.

Headed by Dr Karwan Moo-cash

So basically your outraged at "Man looking for investment in Rugby League club approaches man whos know for investing in a Rugby League club" Ok.

Probably the Mongolian Yak Butter Co-operative.

Indeed - comments like the poster you reply to does sound rather like the whole Union nonsense about the game being built on corinthian spirit and such nonsense.

They just took advantage of our sloppy handling and penalties. Brennan was always gonna make a difference but all they had was enthusiasm. We scored a great try, just a pity we were stuck in our half most of the game. I'd like to think that's our shocker out of the way but although there's promising signs we haven't settled on a line up yet and won't get chance to put a marker down for a while.

Jepson will be taking the option. He has always talked about an investment group model moving forward to promote financial stability and sustainability. Worse case scenario it's free publicity for Cas, in the, albeit unlikely event something nore comes of it then great. The bile on here towards anything Cas do or any ambition shown is laughable.

Heard from fans who attended that haven were far the better team so well done to them. The defeat wasn’t unexpected, these games are a lottery, both sides have seen it all before. I just hope it hasn’t dampened the enthusiasm and buzz that’s been around the club these last few months. Jonty has a few weeks to put things right and we still have some quality to come in, so not too depressed at the moment. UTT

Very unlikely, the economic climate here is as poor as it’s been in my lifetime and there aren’t any signs that it might improve soon.

For the next gradings, yes. See https://www.totalrl.com/all-of-the-img-changes-revealed-from-todays-rfl-council-meeting-as-punishment-for-late-proposal-announced/

Crowds from three games at Arena '84 (sorry, Fartown) I attended during the second half of the 1980s: 6/4/86 v Blackpool 382 17/4/86 v Keighley 303 (the lowest ever for a first team home game) 31/1/88 v Whitehaven 336 Huddersfield RLFC have come a long way from that nadir!

There is merit in having a ground slightly too small rather than too big. If tickets are limited people buy season tickets and other fans want to go to games and are pleased to get one, if there is always loads of availability people are less likely to buy STs and can pick and choose their games. I’m certain that’s why most Norwich City games are still sold out, even though on pitch performances aren’t great.

Yeah the next thing on the slate is to extend the East Stand terrace, hopefully at the end of next season, but all that will do is add another 1,500 standing spaces (but only a net +500 capacity as that's where the new temporary seats are). That alone though will cost £1.5m because UK building costs have doubled since Brexit and Covid. To replace the main (West) stand and add maybe 1,500 extra seats to it you're looking at £12m plus, which is a hell of a lot of money. It's what we need to do, would give us a 13,000 ground which is probably about right, but unless there's an angle where somebody else pays for part of it (some sort of public services spin) then I don't really think any British rugby league side can do that sort of project today. Leeds fans don't know how lucky they are with Caddick and Hetherington biting the bullet at Headingley when they did, incredible foresight - they've set their ground up for the next 30 years and that build would probably be unaffordable to do now.

Yeah I’ve just bought a table in the restaurant this week so I can bring some friends with us who aren’t members, no other way of getting tickets. We’ve added 1,000 seats for this season and already sold them out as memberships… the club need to find a way to raise asset finance for a proper extension of the seated part of the stadium, as my group shows for this match with more than 90% of the capacity pre-sold for the season Rovers are now in the tricky position of making it hard to bring new people in. Nice problem to have, but it is still a problem.

More good news from Wales. https://jetsrugby.wales/west-wales-jets-to-launch

We should be wary of another banana skin, with a potential good earner in the next road. The navy lads will a y followi g(be very fit, confident after an away win and have a good home navy following. Please don't underestimate them lads, UTT.

As I say, hopefully it will never be tested. I think the idea of a points system/penalties is to try and keep them on the straight and narrow in the first place.

I think it would be better to let the Hughes thread fall off the page or even lock it. He's in the past now.

Would it be a good idea to merge this thread and the David Hughes one? @John Drake

Did they get an email asking if they would kindly deposit $12,000,000 from a Nigerian bank account?

More kids rugby coaching today... has there ever been a pro/semi-pro player anywhere with Dutch heritage?

Yes the Rijksmuseum is fascinating.

Rovers have got over 1,000 people travelling, not bad seeing as we're putting a reserve team out. Amsterdam's pretty cold at this time of year, but I guess it still has its other attractions eh!!

Games now uploaded to the official Dewsbury Rams site on YouTube, 70 new games have been uploaded over the last couple of days for your enjoyment

It seems to be flavour of the month lately to claim a rich Aussie (or consortium) is interested in buying a SL club. See: London, Salford, and now Cas. The internet rumour mill goes into overdrive for a few days, then it all fades, never to be spoken of again. Skolars too, shortly before they went bust.

Firstly Employer's National Insurance is excluded from the salary cap so add that on to their squad spend. But then there is the off-field team including the coaches, physios etc, back office staff for admin, finance functions, ticket office (unless covered by the rent). Salford employed an average of 64 people last year, which is probably the fewest in the league, but is still a large chunk of payroll on top of the playing squad. Then costs of training locations, transport costs, utility costs, all the other things associated with running a business. Only the largest clubs in the league give any useful indication of breakdown of spend in their financial statements and most of those are distorted by the costs of running their stadia. But just as an indication, and obviously the scale of operation is very different, but if we look at the one big club that rents a stadium Wigan's total payroll was £5m for 119 employees. Aside from their playing squad I really don't think there is any spending black hole waiting to be exposed at Salford, they almost certainly run the skinniest set of overheads in the league. For them it's a revenue problem.

I can remember when positions in Rugby League were decided by what players did on the pitch? Aaaah yes, the good old days. They seem like a distant memory now. Glad I'm not so involved now.

Have you ever considered a career in motivational speaking?

Ankara for this. Interesting reading. Not a lot of metres made beyond clean breaks but that was inevitable given the opposition and the early time of the season. It’s the not always noticed hard tackling stuff that is impressive. As you say, Moran and JC were excellent, particularly Pat Moran. Elijah Taylor always gives 100% in defence, too. He’s all about work, work, work and a real leader. Respect is due.

I’m assuming it would require some form of dissolution of the entity as a CBS so that it can go back to being a Ltd company. Shares in a CBS are non transferable and are strictly on a ‘one share, one vote’ regardless of the amount invested (they got around this in the crowdfunded by issuing £1 of ordinary shares to everyone and the rest in community shares). Wrexhams takeover from being a CBS had to be approved by the FCA which won’t be a quick process. Maybe the new owners could get approval for the takeover in principle and release funds early to the club like what happened for Wrexham.

Stats- Johnson-7 tackles. 2 misses. one offload. 8 carries=57m Sambou-9 tackles. 4 misses. one offload. 4 tackle breaks. one clean break. 12 carries=111m Thornley-one tackle. one miss. one tackle break. one clean break. 4 carries=33m Turner-5 tackles. one offload. 5 carries=34m Dixon-one tackle. one miss. 2 tackle breaks. one clean break. 9 carries=45m Craven-13 tackles. one miss. one tackle break. 3 carries=6m Drinkwater-11 tackles. one miss. one try assist. 2 carries=7m Dudson-13 tackles. 4 carries=32m Wildie-30 tackles. 2 misses. Baxter-24 tackles. one tackle break. 6 carries=22m Ashurst-26 tackles.2 misses. 3 carries=13m Taylor-33 tackles. 2 misses. one clean break. 2 carries=30m Milner-13 tackles. 2 misses. 3 carries=9m subs Aldridge-22 tackles. one miss. one carry=4m J Chapelhow-30 tackles. one miss. one tackle break. one clean break. 9 carries=75m T Chapelhow-15 tackles. 2 misses. 5 carries=46m Moran-41 tackles. 2 misses. one offload. one tackle break. 10 carries=66m O'Keefe-6 tackles. 4 carries=24m Tyrer-3 tackles. 3 tackle breaks. 5 carries=41m Farnworth-20 tackles. 2 misses. 6 carries=43m Forster-13 tackles. 2 misses. 2 carries=8m Agoro-3 tackles. 4 carries=36m Dean-7 tackles. one miss. one offload. one tackle break. 2 try assists. 5 carries=28m Astley-6 tackles. 2 misses. one offload. 3 tackle breaks. one clean break. 5 carries=39m Kopzcak-7 tackles. 2 misses. 3 carries=21m Obviously a massive caveat on the stats because of the huge amount of subs but still some interesting stats. Moran and Jay were superb of the bench.

That's no slight against Locky, by the way, who has been such an fabulous player for Fev over the seasons and it was a big gesture last season to come back and help out.