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The thing to be crystal clear on here though is that the agreement to bring in IMG was the clubs. The agreement to approve reimagining RL was the clubs. The agreement to go with grading was the clubs. And if we nip back a few years, the decision to go with licensing, was the clubs. The decision to change their mind a few years later, was the clubs. And Super 8's, the clubs. And so on. And all of the above is fine, I'm perfectly happy that the clubs get their say, but doesn't it strike you as odd that they keep changing direction every 3 years or so.

I would add to this the safety net for keeping players in the game. If you're a academy player looking at your future career prospects would you feel secure knowing if you don't make it as SL level immediately your only option is dropping into the community game? Would a semi-pro league to fall back on not be encouraging when you're deciding whether to fully commit to rugby as a career? Tyler Dupree gets released from Leeds academy and is questioning whether to continue. He takes up a semi-pro contract at Oldham for a season, is then signed by Widnes, within half a season Salford have picked him up, two years later Wigan have paid a transfer fee for him and he's an England international. What does the alternative look like where there's no decent standard semi-pro structure for him to drop into while he develops into an SL standard player? Matty Smith has a half season loan to Widnes before becoming an SL standard player, goes off to win a few trophies, and then returns to Widnes for a couple of years to wind down his career and assess his future options. If you'd asked the 20 year old Matty Smith if he would prefer that when his body starts to give out (at a point in time that he cannot predict) he would be happy retiring there and then because no SL will want him, or if he'd prefer to go back to Widnes for a few years, get paid some kind of salary and work out what it is he wants to do with the rest of his working life, which is he picking?

You've constantly told us you don't do Social Media. Maybe have a little think why you haven't seen any. With all the games being professionally filmed all the clubs and the RFL have access to quality footage to clip and use however they like, we have seen the quality of output on social media improve dramatically. We used to get dodgy film filmed on one camera by the clubs posted, it's a world away from what it was Harry. Then let's look at the output the clubs are putting out, podcasts, behind the scenes videos more interviews etc etc, this is because they have been forced to do this stuff or they will get left behind. You can kid yourself it has nothing to do with IMG, but you'd be wrong.

Just to clear a few things up. Salford have had central support, and not that long ago. Earlier this season when they couldn’t pay wages, the RFL stepped in to make sure they could fulfil fixtures paying the wages. That’s a serious intervention, and it’s more direct than anything London have received in a very long time. The idea that London have been ring-fenced or handed piles of cash doesn’t reflect reality. They’ve never been protected like Catalans were. They’ve been relegated multiple times including on points difference in 2019 with 10 wins while other clubs in financial trouble have stayed up. Yes, David Hughes was still backing the club until recently but that support faltered after the IMG grading effectively relegated London before a ball was kicked last year. Since then, they’ve been operating on limited resources, with no owned home ground and very minimal central backing. Nobody wants to see Salford pushed out of the game, but let’s not pretend they’ve never been helped - or that London have had some special treatment. If anything, they’ve usually been left out in the cold in recent decades!

fans have had a new idea to liven things up - a competition to see who can grow the longest beard during the video ref decision - Julie from castleford is the 5/4 favourite

"Why isn't IMG putting posters up in my local?!"

And in no time at all, we'll be wondering why we struggle to attract blue chip sponsors and partners. Who would seriously want to associate their brand with this bunch of clowns and it's leopard-skin clad ringmaster?

So 3 players out of 500 is a pretty feeble excuse. Without the "lower leagues" where would match officials come from? Where would all those DR players from SL get their game time and development? I remember players like Liam Hood, Brad Singleton having long loan periods at Dewsbury in the Championship at the start of their career. Where would they have played and developed without the "lower leagues"? Maybe SL clubs would have had to pay for their own Reserve Grade teams? DR has saved SL a fortune. As for ROI, exactly what have Salford, Huddersfield, Castleford delivered this season? And without "lower leagues" you'd be stuck with Salford next year as there'd be no team to promote. You could ask what have SL clubs delivered when the majority of them after 30 years of SL and Sky money are still dependent on wealthy benefactors to keep them out of insolvency? And a standard of play substantially below that of the NRL?

My view, is that the standard of referring is relatively high. But then again, I accept that officials will make mistakes. But it is far, far easier to criticise the ref than a player. Great example over the weekend is that Jordan Rapana had an absolute shocker, but we all know that he will be playing next week. Imagine if a ref made so many howlers. People would be marching with pitchforks!!

It can't work like that. What happens if next time somebody has a broken neck and the tackler decides to just lift them like a rag doll because they can't control their discipline?

It’s laughable to think referees are being directed to influence the result of a match in the favour of one side against another. Anyone claiming so, has at the very least, slipped into ‘moron’ status and I wish for their benefit, they climb back out quickly.

I know it will annoy some Fax fans but I likely won't go and watch a single game that we play at Odsal, its not because of some weird hatred of Bradford that some Fax fans have but just because its a really bad place to watch rugby. The stadium itself is pretty bad and food and drink prices are ridiculous but the pitch been so narrow just makes for really poor quality games. If you are paying a fortune to watch what is basically just a step up from amateur rugby then you want to at least have a chance of enjoying it.

"As you know, we don't usually comment on individual decisions, but in this case Padge was making such a t1t of himself on TotalRL that we felt obliged to make an exception."

This can't be right, Padge says so

Stop it.

There's a good reason why you thought that!!! Of course the man that matters said there was nothing in it. Unfortunately the man that matters was dead set wrong. Forgiveable when making a split second decision in a fast moving game. No excuse whatsoever when watching a slow motion replay.

I'd love to see North Wales Crusaders back at the Racecourse, in Wrexham....thus saving a 90 mile round trip for a home game!

Currently, I'd quite like to see RL played at the Totally Wicked Stadium rather than the ###### that I've been watching recently.

The mental gymnastics by the IMG haters when this new mob completely ignore p&r and just cherry pick a few clubs to go in on the back of no metrics and just "vibes" is going to be hilarious.

Are you new to rugby? Good to have you on board.

I'd also add, don't underestimate the massive impact Jordan Thompson has on the rest of your forwards. Each team has to get 240 combined minutes out of its middles (ie the 8, 10 and 13), but if one can can do regularly do 80 minutes, as Thompson does, then the other 5 know that they are only going to average around 30 minutes each, and with Thompson saving them an interchange too, that has to make a psychological difference if you come onto the field knowing you can give your all with a guaranteed break coming up. Harris seems to get most of the headlines and he's having a very good season but for me Thompson is the best player in the league and has been for a while.

No point booking anything this soon. There might be a terrorist incident on a different continent. Or a pandemic that stops RL players from traveling but not cricket, soccer or rugby union players. Or someone's cousin might be getting married.

This is the "the value of your investment can go down as well as up" warning that comes with any sort of investment. There's a scenario in all of this where the work we do pays off with a brilliant TV deal. There's also a scenario where we do all of this work and, largely due to externalities outside the game's control, the TV deal remains the same. In that scenario, there are two ways to look at that - either the investment has failed, or the result would have been even worse with out it. But the point I'd make is that simply doing the same, not looking at how we add value to broadcasters and commercial partners and hoping that another broadcaster comes along to start a bidding war, or that Fred Done stays friendly with us, is a much higher-risk strategy than doing the sorts of things we're doing at, let's be honest here, not a particularly massive cost. You're right in that we need to ensure that we're pulling in audiences that broadcasters and sponsors want to pay to access, but that was never going to happen without this sort of activity. We need a more diverse audience across as many different mediums and touchpoints as possible and it's perfectly fine for our YouTube and TikTok audiences to be different from the ones that buy our season tickets. I think we need to look at this from the mindset that RL needs to see itself as an entertainment business that is selling content, not as an events business selling tickets.

I notice posts stating video refs should never get it wrong. That's not entirely true. They do have a far better chance of getting it right. However every weekend of games there will be an incident where the VR is involved . Posters on here who will be watching the same constantly repeated pictures that the VR will see, will be split 50/50 . So even with technology some incidents are still far from clear cut.

To add further to this point, these comments are from Matt Dwyer (IMG) from his interview with Martyn Sadler 3 years ago: "What is particularly attractive here is that there is a real willingness to want to bring in a partner to help them drive the next stage of growth in the game. That was probably a large part of the attraction for us, as was the strong realignment. We feel that the with the expertise of IMG and Endeavor, we are in an excellent position to be able to help the game grow." "They have been down the path of private equity before and that is an incredibly topical conversation at the moment. But what they want from us is the skills and expertise that we bring in growing sports and growing revenue streams." “IMG Media, where I sit, this is the part where we will look at the competition structure. We have our digital agency called Seven League, who will be doing the digital transformation of the league. Then we have the brand and marketing agency 160over90, which will be doing a lot of the re-imagining of the sport. What is unique to a company like IMG and the broader Endeavor is that we can bring that wide range of expertise to the table." “In terms of the immediate needs, private equity funds is not what the game needs. They need the expertise to grow the game. Like any business, you want to sell your business when you can get the appropriate value for it. Super League flirted with the idea (of private equity) previously but they then realised that they don’t need funds to do what they need to do, but they do need expertise. Whether that will change going forward, I don’t know. We could have had an equity element like those examples, but that wasn’t what was needed. What the sport needs now is the biggest sports and entertainment company in the world providing its expertise."

No. Refereeing is hard and the sport makes it harder every year by introducing an endless array of new pointless rules. Referees train to an extremely high standard and have every decision analysed to the nth degree. A referee is for some reason judged to have a had a bad game if they get 100 decisions right but 1 wrong (if its a crucial moment), yet if a player had this sort of success rate, they'd be lauded as POTM. Thank goodness that weve got enough people daft enough to enter a world of scrutiny, criticism and abuse for doing THE most important job on the pitch.

Refs are no worse than his playing days, when he used to throw himself on the floor, feigning injury to win a penalty. Difference being he's no longer at a top club, where they tend to get the bounce on these calls.

It absolutely was not that. Visit here.

You must have watched a different game, it was a collision. Of course because its Wigan it is a terrible attack by a Wigan player dragging the opposition around the field and trying to kill him, as opposed to the reality of two players colliding and interacting as happens time and time again.

You piled in questioning a bloke qualifications, someone who has done amazing things for rl players. You then threw some random accusation towards the RLcares organisation, I pointed out I don't think you know what that organisation does. Now you claim i made it personal? Ok.

Tell me you haven’t a clue about the wider sports market at the time nor about the value of decent production sellable streaming without telling me etc etc

But I've been told that games against French clubs are bad because we can't sell tickets because no away fans, or something. Are you saying that it is possible to attract a good crowd against a French club by, perhaps, trying?

Clubs will scramble to get in, promise the world and that they can survive with limited money, then plead poverty and say they can't afford it. 2 clubs on less money just isn't a long term, sustainable plan.

Yes. A club who’ve played half a season of Championship rugby so far are a safer bet than a club who’ve been consistently in the Championship play off places since 2019 and have built off the back of that, increasing crowds x5 in 8 years, turnover is now into the £Ms, winning at Wembley, full youth structure in place etc etc. I know Oldham are making the right noises and it’s great to see, but other than the rumoured signings of aged SL players, they’ve achieved nothing yet.

I dont understand anyone who finds these punishments harsh, it literally could mean the difference between life and death in the most extreme situations, in others it could impact an injured players life forever. All the players know the rules and the level of punishment, so dont do it, its that simple.

The clubs don't get to decide which rules they can be bothered to follow.

no need- its easy to find hotels the same day for groups of around 30 young men who have just arrived from another country - we are experts at it

This is a more general point, but sometimes I wish RL in this country realised highlights doesn't mean "only tries" There are so many more highlights in a game than just the person putting the ball down

They've created a boogeyman in IMG. Its not coincidence that grading is always referred to as IMG Grading, whereas the really positive streaming platform is never badged as IMG's streaming platform. The branding on Grading is RFL and RLCom, as it should be.

Thought it would be much closer today. York wanted it more: great in defence and attack. The Rovers seemed to lack that extra edge I know they have. Best squad I've seen at York in a long while. Championship leaders here we come. Sad to see Liam Harris take a cheap shot dropping a goal when behind the sticks. Others too. Need to rise above the school playground antics. I've watched York for the last 26 years. Our fans are not without sin and we shouldn't be calling out others. I've seen plenty of antics that I am not proud of as a kneets fan. Don't want to get into a slanging match. Fans can get aggrieved when the game doesn't go their way. Looking forward to being in the top one at the end of the season. Ps. Well done Barrow; made my day

1,228 at Robin Park today for Wigan v Saints in the womens SL. I think that is a record home crowd for Wigan (the previous record was set last week v Leigh) and it was a very entertaining 22-22 draw.

There are a million things a referee can miss in a game and I can't blame them for that; there's a lot that goes on on a rugby field and sometimes decisions are genuinely 50/50. But Moore had, and looked at, three angles that showed Smith grabbing Simm and chose to gaslight everyone watching their TV by pretending nothing had happened. McGuire should blow off, I expect he will.

How can he say there's no pull back there That's incredible when we are all seeing Smith do it.

Got to give Widnes some credit though,done the double over TO and you can only beat what's in front of you.

Hard agree. Wood hasn't been taken hostage here; he's leveraging the weird cabal to advance his own agenda too. Like others I didnt have a massive problem with Wood when he was around the first time; I think I probably defended him a fair bit. This episode is utterly rancid.

Or Run it Rectangle where you have two teams on a rectangular playing field. The goal is to touch a ball down in a zone whilst the other players try and stop them by running at them from 10 metres away. Each team gets 6 attempts at getting it in the zone before the other team gets a go.

Well, Featherstone's pitch is actually full length - unlike a number of others, notably Oldham's... Before anyone gets hot under the collar about this - that's not the same as saying Oldham's pitch is not long enough for pro RL, because the RFL Operational Manual states that the pitch must be between 88m and 100m long, and between 55m and 68m wide (Toulouse must have special dispensation if their pitch is indeed 70m - perhaps it's a corprorate stadium where they aren't allowed to change the markings). This is a fairly sore subject for Featherstone fans, because our pitch did indeed use to be less than 100m long but about a dozen years ago the club invested a lot of money in extending it to the maximum length, whilst also reducing the slope significantly and building two new stands with the help of fan volunteers known locally as the "Stand Gang". None of this counts for any IMG points whatsoever! You can imagine how Fev fans feel about the fact that other clubs have done nothing about their own sub-optimal playing surfaces. Personally I don't mind about the pitches that are less than 100m long (such as Castleford's, which measures about 90m from posts to posts), because that doesn't have such a huge impact on gameplay, but width is a totally different matter - it really sticks in the throat that Bradford are allowed to play on a 55m wide pitch (and for one season were allowed to play on an even narrower one, around 52m I believe), yet are still considered to meet minimum standards for SL, because that massively impacts on the quality of the game as the original poster states. So you are right Tim, the farce of IMG rules DOES ignore pitch dimension, albeit it's because of the RFL's ridiculous rule that decrees a 55m pitch is just as ok as a full-width 68m one.

If the New Old Kids on the Block are going to try to get more money out of Sky, or to try to get a new TV partner, then they'll have to have enough cards in their hands. Sky will know exactly the value they are getting from their SuperLeague rights and if that value is trivial (subscriptions and ad revenue minus costs?) then they can just walk away from any quit threats from Wood . Of course, we don't know what money Sky make from SuperLeague so work needs doing there. So the RFL needs to work on a value proposition and although Wood is an accountant, maybe he needs help in creating the value proposition to put before Sky and it's competitors. If only I could find one to suggest. One that has a long term track record of success in multiple sports, across the whole world. I Must Get looking for one.

Paul King should be banned from RL involvement after this saga. Rowley, as we have been informed by those who know him, is financially secure because of his wife. Clearly the lads he has playing for him aren't all so fortunate.

It just feels like bad governance, which is an ongoing issue with RL that is never resolved. Why on earth would you have two boards with the same chair? The RFL was judged to be not fit for purpose around commercial activities, so why are we now ultimately putting RLCom back under RFL.control by stealth? Why not just have an RFL commercial department if you are going this way? Its the same old nonsense. We run a few years, decide we are performing poorly, blame the RFL (defo not the clubs!), stage a breakaway, then decide its a bit hard and there's no silver bullet so give up and let the RFL take over again. And then repeat again in a few years. The owners are clueless and out of control. But, they have money so we should bow to their knowledge.