Leaderboard

It does seem odd to say we can have video ref and indeed use the Match Review Panel to hand out bans, but not Captain's Challenge, based on the number or quality of the cameras. I think we have seen this season that the camera angles we have and quality of image leaves a lot to be desired.

I assume all this "Captains Call" stuff, you are actually talking about the Captains Challenge? I don't really understand what your "case" is, you want us to go back to 3 games a week on Sky rather than all games, because they don't have the same amount of cameras as the NRL does? I think we could still get the captains challenge come in over here, I believe it is a good thing that the NRL does, and it actually seems to take some pressure off the referees IMO. It's harder to do here, as yes, we have less camera angles, so we would most likely get the result of "insufficient evidence to overturn a decision" calls. But there are some clear cut errors that could be helped with it.

Would rate this as the best CC final I have ever attended. Prior to leaving the UK in 1966 I was at them all from 1948 and came from Aus to see another half dozen or so- most involving Hull. Agree on your strip comments.

Are you his accountant?

I think the idea was always to go for promotion but when you've got two big spending clubs hogging the promotion spots what do you do? If you've got investors and new sponsors on top of a solid financial base then why wouldn't you? We were unlucky to meet Oldham and Keighley in an injury crisis but there's a long way to go yet. Put the pressure on and see if they crack.

Pratt is actually useless and should be sent back on loan to York ASAP, if you ask me...

To be fair to the club we haven't had any highlights this season until Bradford !!

That is how it works.

Agree that we shouldn't throw out the VR just because it's not perfect. We should try to improve the quality of the tools we give to the VR and throw out the 'on-field call' because this stops the VR considering a decision objectively. Instead, I'd want the VR to tell the ref what he/she thinks the decision should be and their level of confidence (e.g. (a) 100% confident the ball was grounded, (b) ball appears to be grounded, but picture unclear, (c) ball not visible but no evidence it was knocked on) and give the on-field ref the final decision. On the Captain's Challenge, again I think it is inevitable that occasionally it will be a close-run thing. I marginally prefer it because it gives the referee the chance to tell a team to 'put up or shut up' when they are complaining about a decision.

Looks like he wants to stay and play so i am glad he has found another club.

Zarrin Galea Visa approved. Check out facebook/ X for a cool welcome video! UTT www.townrlfc.com for early bird offers for Sunday's Double header!

Yeah, Wales are in a decent(ish) position. They've got a good schools, Unis and clubs scene, a handful of lads have moved to SL academies, and have a fair scattering of players around the leagues. There is an issue that the generation of players who came into the game via the Crusaders have now almost all retired, but that happens. The national team needs some re-generation - and hopefully a new coach with fresh ideas - but they'll be assisted in that process by Scotland etc finally being dealt with by the IRL and consequently not coming up against teams exclusively consisting of ex-pats. They could really do with some financial assistance, but then the said could be said of everyone else.

So we're five games into the Championship season, some eyecatching scores at the weekend and perhaps a picture starting to emerge. Wakefield are perhaps about what was expected - they are steamrollering most teams like we did last year, which is what you'd expect given their reported spend is close to £1.5 million, but they don't look anywhere near as good at this stage as the 2022 Leigh team. To be honest they're almost an irrelevance to the Championship this year - they'll walk the league leadership title, may or may not win the Grand Final (they probably will but as we well know, one-off play-off games at the end of the year can be unpredictable), but either way, they'll be back in SL next year. Bradford were just staking a claim to be in pole position for second spot when they did the most Bradford thing and lost to an 0-4 team in York. I think that showed again that 2 or 3 tough, close games in a row against strong opposition can have a knock-on effect - just as we played poorly against Bradford having been in 3 brutal games with Wakefield (twice) and Leigh, Bradford had a number of very tough games, especially the last two, and presumably that told at York (not taking anything away from York who yet again have had a long injury list). Sheffield have made an impressive start to the season and will probably rack up another big score against Barrow this week, we'll know a lot more about just how good they are when they face Wakefield the week after. Halifax have a lot of injuries to key players but losing 46-0 at home is still an eyepopping scoreline. Hard to see them being a top 6 team this year unless there's a huge turnaround. Widnes competed very well against us and their improvement looks genuine at this stage. Interesting to see if they can maintain that form as they have tended to drop away after a prominsing start in previous years. Toulouse have taken a while to find their form as they sometimes do and clearly aren't the force of 2019 or 2021 but I think they'll still be a top 6 team and probably top 4 as the season progresses. With some teams (us, Halifax, Toulouse, maybe York and Batley to an extent) not looking as strong as in previous years, it's certainly a harder league to predict from week to week than in previous years, barring Wakefield.

AJ had one poor game, at Doncaster, Brown has had 4 in my opinion. He cost us the first try on Sunday. For what it's worth, I think ,that looking at the opposition, Hendo will be totally focused on having our ' big guns' fully fit for the Sheffield semi final, he won't be playing anybody who is not 100% fit before then.

Brilliant we`ve got the ANZAC Day clash in New Zealand now, that will be another big event game every year. I can`t wait for tomorrow, 3 ANZAC Day matches spread across New Zealand and Australia. All we need now is an ANZAC Day eve clash in the nation`s capital Canberra every year, loads of dignitaries in Canberra at that time of year who would attend and it could be another big annual event game.

I hope it is NZ rather than Australia. Ride the Wahs wave and launch NZ2 (Christchurch) into the NRL straight after.

Isn't TNW still at Leeds, anyway, I wouldn't consider including him if he is going to keep getting recalled? I'd bring AJ back, give Brown a rest, otherwise I'd leave the team as it was on Sunday, with Ata on the bench if he is fit.

When has a full rebuild in RL took a decade? Various big clubs have done it in a fraction of that time. Obviously the money and backing has to be there, which would be the case if the investment that has been alluded to happens.

Good post as always Ox. I've found some of the posts on here to be quite disrespectful to Salford, probably unintentionally so. Well done Paul Rowley for your loyalty and professionalism. I hope Salford kick on from here (after this weekend).

It would certainly be a weird turn of events if Hull KR offered Salford compensation for this.

Im actually pleased for Salford.

It does look like Laurent Frayssinous will be able to pick his strongest side with full cooperation from Toulouse -- and it could be a great event, with a big crowd. It would be a shame to discourage supporters by talking this event down. Sylvain Houles, Toulouse coach, said: 'I have spoken to Laurent and he will take any of our players that he chooses. Of course every player wants to play for his country and I fully support that.' He he added 'We will be clear with our players that the priority is the French team.' Cedric Garcia (Director of Sport at Toulouse) and Olivier DuBois (Toulouse Chairman) see the triple header as a great way to attract media attention and to grow the sport. Dominique Baloup, FFRXIII President, has long seen this event as key in the celebration of 90 years of French rugby league and in the promotion of the sport in France. It would be great to make the Toulouse vs Featherstone match as French as possible, with Toulouse using their dual reg with Catalans to bolster their squad. This could be a very special day for French rugby league. It would also be great to build the game up as much as possible and to hear the French clubs repeat, and repeat, and repeat as early as possible and as publicly as possible that all players will be available for French and that they can't wait to get stuck into this challenge.

Doesn't need the money Gooley, and lives in a very salubrious area about 10 mins from the AJ Bell. I would be very surprised if he took it.

I just don’t think it adds anything and is a bit of a long winded talking shop or committee meeting

Jett that is…Nathans younger brother

It would be easy enough having a clause within the captains challenge that if there is insufficient coverage such as an incident being off camera or too obscured for the VR to make an assessment, you lose the challenge but keep your review. It's basically the same as an 'umpires call' in cricket DRS reviews.

Can't see an existing thread for this. A couple of games have already been played Vardar Skopje 12 Partizan 62 (in N. Macedonia) Arsenal Tivat 16 Red Star 44 (in Montenegro) Radnički Niš 24 Dorcol Tigers 28 (in Serbia) Partizan 80 Arsenal Tivat 20 (played in Mionica, in Western Serbia) Mad Squirrels Vrchlabi are playing Red Star Belgrade at home this weekend. They'll be bolstered by a few players from Slavia Hradec Králové and Krupka Dragons to try to even up the standard. It will be interesting to see how they get on - they've played Sroki Łódź (Poland) Skane Stags (Sweden) and Exeter Uni in the past couple of years and those have been reasonably matched games.

Avignon hit 15/17000 I did the sponsorship for both Toulouse and Paris they were both good events main sponsor for them was Eurostar. P

The last mid-season international between these teams in Toulouse (2008) got 8.3k. A year later in Paris it got 7.6k. The crowds don't tend to be horrendous considering the organisation.

Agreed. You only need to look at Wigan's demise in the mid-00s. Nearly relegated in 06. They got a new coach and signed one player (on the face of it). Seemed to make a huge difference! *I'll ignore the fact they also broke the salary cap...* And again, a few years later they changed owner, head coach and suddenly became the blue print! With the right people and investment, the change can be pretty quick. By the looks of it, we're willing to fork out some money (which we weren't sure about before) to get the right people. That's a relief at least because the feeling was we were skint and doing it all on the cheap. Turns out, we're just doing it really really really badly!

I think there are two main issues: (a) squads won't be announced until the week of the game (I believe) so who knows what kind of game we're looking at, (b) no tickets are on sale. (b) will obviously get sorted eventually but it kinda indicates how hard the FFR intend to push the event. It's precisely the event I would have loved to go to - I've done Toulouse several times - but there's just too much uncertainty surrounding it for me to be bothered this time.

I have been saying this for a few weeks now, Haven given a load of home games in March and April when crowds are lower due to clashing with big Premier League games and the weather being poor, exactly like what happened to us in our disastrous Championship season when we had 7 of our 11 home games within the first 8 games of the season. The cynic in me would wonder if it was done in purpose to make the clubs to run out of money and push for a merger!

I dunno what people seem to have against Holmes, always plays well for us, has great pace still for a forward and our win % with him in the squad is much higher than without. He'd always be in my 17, whether it's 2nd row or prop.

I doubt that there will be a vacancy at Huddersfield so you should be ok on that score

By being part time with far less training and games at a far lower intensity.

Not getting too excited. Our last coach also turned down Hull, claimed he was staying next season then promptly left for Huddersfield

That's a pretty big fall from grace for the Skolars. Last year they had an A team in the London and South East division as well as their semi-pro firsts. So they have lost their firsts and also the group who maybe would have relished a crack at the Southern Conference who played London and South East last year. As you say, there is a vibrant amateur scene in and around Chiswick, Hammersmith and Acton with Chargers and Wests turning out a first team in the Conference and seconds in the London League and Hammersmith in the Conference. I know there is historically a lot of Aussies and Kiwis in West London which will help these teams but I hope Skolars can build up a competitive side soon.

Yes very enjoyable , never come across Cristin Milioti the female lead before , really good actress.

After watching the game back I thought tanner when fit will be great for us. So will be good to give him the time. Bussey slotted straight back in and did a stint. Mo for me should be on the teamsheet consistently. He's looked at home from the NCL step up

Taufua did it as well - just looked like hesitancy (and good kicking by Liam Harris) rather than a deliberate ploy to me.

Maybe they need to be reminded of one of the key arguments people use for including French teams in SL despite no French RL fans paying for a SKY subscription

We play Keighley 3 times. Very much doubt it will come down to points difference. If we come out on top against them, I'd suggest we will be difficult to catch.

They 100% did - they were warned though. The major USP’s they had were Semi pro league and paying players, ex SL player as coach etc With those all gone - why would players travel to Wood Green to play for Skolars when they have West’s, Hoists, Chargers et al geographically closer to them in the same league?!

Hints are that IRL will announce the RLWC 2026 location this week. The thinking seems to be that at their IRL board meeting last week they decided (unsurprisingly) that it'll be in NZ. https://twitter.com/NoHelmetsReq/status/1782326102603468851 https://twitter.com/HeCanPlayFor/status/1782473728992960885 Will be interesting to see the level of Pacific island nation involvement in hosting.

It was a non contact event it said on the video

Round 7 Awards Congratulations to BARNEY, our champion tipster this week. Well done our other top scorers (7/8) and award winners.