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I'm not sure what benefit there is to gloating that you always said it would fail. They were paid central funding for the years they participated, which helped them with a fraction of their costs. Spending that money there was as valid as anywhere else. You aren't getting much above coach fees for your central funding. As long as people want to give these kind of ventures a go we should support them. It's always gonna be a huge challenge based on lack of funding to support, but we should always have open arms. We shouldn't be afraid of failing. If you're not failing, you aren't trying enough.

Not wishing to open the whole Headingley debate but a sub 20k venue selling out in a few days doesn't indicate a perfect choice of venues.

It's a really interesting demonstration of customer behaviour here and how behaviour can be changed by marketing/sales. There are a couplenof prominent posters here who would have you believe that people will go if they are interested and really can't be influenced, and that is being demonstrated as untrue here. We obviously knew this anyway, as we see it for other events, but now we are seeing it in RL. Ultimately, we may end up with similar numbers to previous series, but I expect many people who have bought tickets would never normally buy them in advance of them going on general sale. Behaviours have been changed here, with what is a relatively minor tweak and one that has clearly been adopted from concert sales. This now allows marketing to be concentrated where it's needed, and to be based around this being a must-see series based on the huge demand so far. Whenever people are dismissive of markering/sales approach being important, we should point to this thread.

So a thread about us losing another expansion team has naturally turned to Keighley being shafted by the original expansion team. 30 years ago. Go outside and get over it.

It does make you wonder though where we would be without Covid. If the cancelled 2020 Ashes tour had happened and we had the sales this one appears to be getting, then that all flowing into a RLWC2021 that had great sales pre postponement, we could well have been looking at a cashed up RFL (relatively speaking) and the game in a very different position than we see now. That is before you get to casualties like Toronto and the whole Ottawa etc.

As you say, the organisers had to weigh up the risk too. They could’ve played it ultra safe and gone with Wigan, Hudds and Hull FC like last time. I think the 3 venues are a good mix: Wembley is a slight risk as Challenge Cup finals crowds haven’t been great there for a while, however the last time England played there (2013 World Cup unless I’m mistaken) the crowd was 67,545 which isn’t a bad effort. Everton a slightly bigger risk, yes it’s a new venue and not exactly in the back end of nowhere but likewise it’s not slap bang in the heartlands either. The magic weekend in Liverpool was the 3rd lowest attendance since it began in 2007 (only Murrayfield and Elland Road got lower). The 2016 final in Liverpool (Anfield) was 73% of capacity, admittedly England weren’t involved. Headingley is the safe bet (a sellout regardless). Personally I don’t think there’d be the same buzz or FOMO if the 3rd test was at Elland Road or St James or Old Trafford etc. Like you say, a blinder has been played.

I agree. Plus, they simply didn’t know what the appetite would be for tickets of course. Sitting here and seeing the tickets flying out the door we can assert they should have had even bidder stadia and maybe more expensive tickets, but there was some guesswork and risk management at stake. Against that background, a blinder has been played.

And that system worked very well for years, Anita.

It's a good question and hard to give a straight answer.. At the end of last season I thought Liam and Ata were excellent. There wasn't even an argument for leaving one of them out. Liam as captain ran the show and Ata was allowed to play off the cuff and destroyed teams. It worked very well. This was helped by having Jubb and Daley at hooker. Who both worked hard, tackled and allowed them to run the game. The difference this season is Mcshane. He's a vastly experienced creative player who can also take control, kick a team to death, organise and run the game. This is brilliant to have but also causes problems as there are now to many cooks as such. There has been confusion when all 3 are playing as the other players aren't always sure on the plays and who's kicking where. Great to have that creativity but also a problem. Liam and Mcshane have looked better together this season with Ata missing simply because in my opinion there are only 2 of the 3 playing. For me though it's a case of you have to play all 3 because they are all too good to leave out. They all just need time working together and to make it clear who's doing what. When it clicks it's going to be very very good and the question of leaving Ata out won't even be a question.

The central funding Cornwall received probably wouldn’t even cover a weeks worth of interest on Salfords loan payments.

We've only sold 100 tickets and they've counted each one 600 times. It's 2021 all over again.

We really should have been looking to go for the League 1 level as regionalised to some extent. Funding realities are here now and until that changes we're stuck. I would now, on a short to medium term, try make two conferences (north and south) with H/A vs your conference and 1 game vs every other interconference team. To some extent that lowers the initial cost of entry which makes it easier to bring clubs in. A southern Conference of any of Cornwall, London Skolars, All Golds, Oxford, Hemel, Bedford, Anglia - all clubs that have existed/applied in the past 10/15 years. And that isn't including the South/West Welsh club and Coventry/Midlands. I think hypothetically Midlands and/or Coventry could go either way, and I think Wales as a whole would have to go with the the Crusaders if they were in the same division. Do we even see a revived Kent going back further? Even in the North, its an opportunity for clubs which couldn't survive in previous formats to reform or step up. A West Lancashire club, perhaps even a lower level Liverpool or Manchester club, a revived Mansfield, all would be more suited to a more cost effective League 1 than currently. And cost is clearly a huge factor, it's ridiculous to have so much money spent by any club for travel at this level to the extent that the club itself becomes unviable. In that light it seems that minimising such costs should be a reasonable aim. Especially when funding has been slashed from £75k to barely £15k in recent times. The Championship clubs I have far less sympathy for. These are clubs aspiring to be in Super League, they should play in a fully national competition. Any complaints with that should see them demoted to a regional 3rd tier where they belong. I hope a League 1 review comes to the conclusion that the costs of travel should be balanced with the benefits of playing traditional clubs. As such, local H/A to keep costs down, with alternate H or A matches vs further away teams to maintain both competitive edge, along with a sense of authenticity and interest.* *there is the added benefit that it also means clubs are less likely to have mismatches every week. Even at the lowest level, its easier to build an audience when you win. Its happened for Ice Hockey in Leeds!

Phenomenal Game by Nicholson, 80 metres, 6 tackle breaks, 46 tackles with 0 missed. And a terrific try aswell, he’s having one hell of a season so far. Probably one of the most in form back rowers in the comp right now.

Imagine how much better attended the Samoa and Tonga tours would have been if they could have sold access to priority ashes tickets with them.

Ata is mint, absolutely no question. Does some daft stuff occasionally and his game management could be better but he's probably the most entertaining player we've had since Tawera Nikau.

May have been mentioned already but hourly news grabs of the take up in ticket sales for these Ashes has been on radio here in Brisbane. At least on the station I listen too ! ( 60s, 70's and 80s music mainly) As much as I would love to get over for what I think will be a historic series I don't think it will happen this year. Was always treated respectfully by locals in the bars and stadiums I frequented during 2013, 2016 and 2018 visits.

Central funding for League One has been reported as £20,000 pa. That's barely enough to cover one development officer salary, let alone the other costs of having an employee and the budget they'd need to promote activity (equipment, travel etc).

Thirty plus years ago and irrelevant to today

https://treizemondial.fr/bevan-french-choisit-lequipe-de-france/ Looks like Bevan French is going to playing France, representing his French grandfather. Absolutely extraordinary news. Edit- I’m an idiot, April fools.

I can see Mikey getting squeezed out. I think Wane will start with Brad O'Neill and have Danny Walker off the bench. Then probably Knowles, KPP (covers centre) and whichever impact front rower is hitting form towards the end of the season. I'm so excited for this series and also ashamed of myself for knowing that I'm gonna be cheering for England.

‘Go elsewhere’ is going to be tough when really there might be more that would go and watch semi-pro than have got the bug and want to watch amateur. Broncos or Hurricanes are probably the ‘closest’ semi-pro alternatives so draw your own conclusions. i had a season ticket at Oxford and then going under didn’t make me decide to suddenly watch Oxford Cavaliers instead.

If that Everton number is right then that is nothing short of incredible. And all without a single stupid discount or double header/pile em high approach.

For the very reason you then go on to highlight is probably why they don't. It would be very complex and controversial if this round always had the subplot of who the NRL send money to. I also don'y think it's box-ticking - I think it adds to one of the many ways the NRL want to be perceived as a global brand, with players from a global community.

I'd go with Kaiser Chiefs but bin off the music. Just have Ricky Wilson coordinating a Mexican wave again.

Excellent. Imagine being able to throw the whole marketing campaign down in London.

I'd like to see Wakey win.

Taken in absolute terms, the game has wasted £20k on Cornwall? Any more money the game has wasted on Cornwall? That is, money that the game would have deployed elsewhere if Cornwall had not existed? In relative terms, and just picking a club at random, how much has the sport incurred (wasted?) on Bradford Northern/ Bulls over the years?

Once they get used to playing together - Mcshane is still a relative newcomer, they will be unplayable, like Harris and Hingano were lastseason.

I do think the purchase windows could have been explained a touch better. I was part of the first window (so highest priority), however still working out who is coming, so not bought yet. However that code (that I haven't used) isn't eligible for this window, so despite being in the highest loyalty group, I now have to wait until the 14th for General Sale. I could easily have this wrong, but the links to purchase or register that I have now no longer work.

I think there's probably a mutual element of this. We've got 2 Hull Derbies in the cup and League with some real FOMO attached. Plus the Wigan vs Leigh opener Good Friday Derby game vs Saints selling well. Hull KR generally seem to have a real FOMO around their tickets at the moment. Wakey have had a sellout already too. Its not huge amounts and clearly everything is not rosy elsewhere, but there's some real positivity around the sport and the FOMO is something we've not had consistently in ages. That translates on social media and the like. Headingley practically selling out in a day is fantastic. Its a ticket buying culture I've rarely seen in RL in my lifetime.

Gobsmacked ! Is anyone else worried that we might get fined and docked points for playing a ringer!??

Starting new teams in places with no history of rl or very little, with next to no community/amateur teams and without access to the best/most experienced players is doomed to fail and pointless. The weaker Heartland clubs struggle and that's with access to all of the above. Its Madness that we repeat the same thing over and over again.

If you're always failing, you're also probably doing something wrong. If we keep having clubs failing in League One I don't see how that's not going to devalue the competition and put people off from putting money into new clubs at that level. We need to support them and that's almost certainly going to need to be financially, otherwise every new club is going to fall by the wayside. League One is a set up for failure and it would be nice if the people who are willing to give these ventures a go (and those who put their time and effort into them, no doubt many of them unpaid) didn't end up with nothing to show for it at after a few years. It seems aside from Midlands Hurricanes the only relatively new clubs still around are those who are essentially offshoots of teams that were thrust into Super League, failed, then were reborn (North Wales and Newcastle Thunder). I'm not sure a litany of failures is actually a good thing. There's nothing stopping amateur clubs from starting up, but when it comes to the semi-professional game there needs to be an actual strategy. It can't be good for the players at Cornwall being in this situation and repeated failures shouldn't be treated with a shrug.

The good thing about the level of sales we have seen so far is that provides the cash to ramp up the Wembley marketing beyond what the RFL normally deems it can afford.

Crouching?

Thank you Les, those were always the facts that made a nonsense of Keighley’s complaint.

Its never been one division where you play each other once. Pre two divisions the Lancs/cumberland teams played each other h & a and the yorksher teams played each other H&A. Then each Lancs/cumb team played four yorky teams H&A and vice versa. Because of uneven numbers across the pennines one yorkshire team was placed in the Lancs/cumbria group. No idea how they decided which one but it always seemed to be a lower ranked team from West riding. The cross pennines match ups were determined by previous seasons finishing position. So the likes of Rochdale and Blackpool tended to play the likes of bramley, dewsbury, york and batley. It was almost like a two conference system but there was only one league table and play offs were the top four teams ( or from the mid sixties, the top 16 teams) regardless of which side of the hills they came from.

Very true. We're quick to do the game down here and the Aussies seem quick to say we're at deaths door but quite a few clubs are in as positive a position as I can remember for a while. It's being propped up to a degree but in terms of crowds, feel good factor and overall progress, it's not as grim as can be made out. The league is producing some really good fixtures each week..

I agree with the framing of what you're saying but it does need pointing out that the released pre-postponement sales are open to some degree of caution owing to the later admission about double-counting.

Not a terrible idea, but I think that ship has sailed now 2 of the stadiums are circa 80% full. Luckily it'll happen pretty organically. Does lead me onto a huge advantage we have in levelling the playing field, somewhat. Whilst many of the Kangaroos squad that will be picked have played in the UK before, none of them will have played England in England. They can play all the origin they want and I know that does get feverish, especially up in QLD - but 50K+ English fans and the atmosphere they're used to creating week in week out is something quite different. Some really could buckle under that hostile tinderbox pressure.

Or indeed, the same expectation that, uniquely, they should be allowed to wallow decades on.

Where is Scubby these days? He would be loving this.

Try not to confuse the idea lacking integrity with the person suggesting it lacking integrity.

With due respect Gav, the focus is on SL clubs.

Tbh, I agree. If we are struggling for a winger Tyrer would get my shout.

It's the only way Forward pal 1 championship league and get rid of the Micky Mouse cup games.

There is/was absolutely zero publicity value to Cornwall in either their creation or demise. Nobody outside the game noticed them, plenty inside the game didn't even notice them. That in itself is one of the issues.

The biggest derby in the city for a very long time. Rovers will be strong favourites as they are the form SL team but it's a Hull derby so who knows. The atmosphere will be incredible and I know both sets of fans will be nervous. In spite of our turnaround this season, I think they'll probably have too much for us. Will the "Son of Leon" play? It's a very big gamble if he does but it could be a master stroke. I've every faith in John Cartwright to make the correct decision. We shall see, just happy to be looking forward to a derby rather than the resignation that an impending shellacking brings. Fingers crossed it's a great day, great game, and nothing off the pitch spoils it.

I don't think it's unreasonable to move the goalposts for future new entrants. "If you want to be in, this is the fee" is perfectly fair, everyone knows the decision they're making. Just as the NRL has done with PNG and is trying to do with Perth. I just don't think it's right to retrospectively tax clubs when you've suckered them in under false pretences. There are individuals and taxpayers in Perpignan who have spent millions building us an elite rugby league club. To just turn round to those partners and say, "we've got you over a barrel now, we're going to take another £1m away from you", is absolutely disgusting behaviour. It's unethical, and I hold in contempt anyone who would even entertain the idea. You get to decide what sort of person, or business, you want to be in life. Values matter to me, and I think they should to us as a sport.