Maximus Decimus

I do think there has been an increase in profile of the WCC especially after the Hull KR victory. They appreciate the passion, the crowd and see it as a challenge to go down to England in February. Over here, we've had a few years of sellouts or at least as near as sellouts. It's had years of an on and off nature, and I think it's carved itself out a niche over here. I wouldn't mess with it too much IMO.

Yeh like a super group of 4 teams (Aus, NZ, Eng and PNG) with the top 3 going through . Or stick us in the Aus group instead of NZ!

Obviously, if it is the only place I can watch, I'll be getting Premier Sports for the WC. As there is a game early on Thursday, is it best recording or can I watch when I like on some sort of a portal like I would the iplayer or something like DAZN?

I actually think it makes more sense to do the H2H when you've played different teams. By any metric, Tonga have a tougher run in than we do. It wouldn't be fair for us to get the benefit of only having to play France and PNG instead of PNG and Samoa. It's very telling to me. There was a time (very recently) when they would have given us every advantage to make the knockouts. It genuinely feels like they're not that bothered if it's us or Tonga.

I asked Gemini, and to give sources:

There was a time when they would have fiddled the numbers on purpose to ensure we made the semi-final because of the numbers we can bring. Now, I'm not sure they're bothered. The pacific nations are just as capable as we are of drawing a crowd over there. Edit: I have just read that Group A is PD, but Group B and C would be Head to Head first.

How long have they been known as showing the rights for? Either way it is amateurish. I haven't been on their website, but I have been getting plastered with it in adverts probably because I went the GF.

I think it is worse than this. Let's say it goes with form, which in all likelihood it is going to. If England lose to Tonga, then we will probably win 2 and lose 1 (to Tonga). Tonga will almost certainly beat Lebanon. Samoa will almost certainly beat France and PNG. This leaves the Samoa-Tonga game where we would need Tonga to win, and then we would have to rely on PD. If Samoa win, we're cooked because of head to head. As I said earlier, the most likely scenario with the bookies is that we go out in the groups. We are slight underdogs against Tonga so it is basically because of that. Hopefully, like last time with Samoa, our greater resources mean we are better prepared than Tonga at this stage of the tournament.

This much is true. Looking at the bookies, they only have Aus as -3, which I suspect is helping.

Oh yeh I get that, but if we lose realistically we're in trouble right? I suppose the only spanner in the works is how the Tonga Vs Samoa game goes. Is it purely PD or if we lose to Tonga would that mean we're below them because we lost. It was only because I was looking at the odds and was shocked to see the shortest odds for our exit are the group stages.

I've just been looking at the schedule and realise I'm late to the party. Am I right in thinking if we lose to Tonga we're almost certainly out?

Of course, but we also shouldn't pretend things are true that aren't either. I didn't set out to denigrate the SL clubs, I was actually defending the notion that holding it in Barnsley was a decent idea. In doing so, I genuinely didn't think anybody thought it proved the British clubs were better than the Australian ones. I'm not the sort of person who is going to pretend it does. As I've said about 10 times, it doesn't mean it isn't a good achievement.

We're probably not that far away, I don't dispute that SL teams would win games. RL might be a sport where the better team usually wins but it isn't 100% predictable. 1997 is a useful one to look at. I know it's 30 years ago and I don't think the gap is as big as it was then. It exposed some fundamental issues around fitness and professionalism, many of which have been addressed. That said, SL sides did win games despite the chasm in quality. More interesting is how the big clubs did. Bradford won the league in 1997, and their first two games were tight 16-20 losses showing that a trip to one of our best teams mid-season could be a challenge even then. However, they got some beatings too. Their third home game was a heavy loss. The Auckland Warriors put 70 and 64 on our current champions Saints and next champions in consecutive weeks. These weren't experimental sides. Saints had Newlove, Long, Cunningham, Hunte, Prescott, Hammond etc playing. They were one of the sides that Bradford had lost 20-16 to at home. We've tightened up but I see little to see that we've fundamentally closed the gap. They have all the advantages: money, player numbers, quality of athlete, standard of competition week on week etc and they've grown bigger in those years. Internationally, it's much the same except we now haven't beaten them for 20 years. Looking at the WCC, I see much the same pattern. We get a mixture of close games and NRL blowouts. I think we've had a good few years that have made people forget about the blowouts.

I was once watching a late night top of the pops rerun and a song came on called 'John Wayne is Big Leggy'. I was pretty convinced it was the worst song ever written. However, in showing people the song started getting stuck in my head. I had a horrendous night's sleep with it going round and round my head all night. As a result, I'm actively trying to forget the song altogether although as I'm typing this I'm having to fight it...

Looks to be full again for NFL London. It seems we've had this for a few years now where ticket prices are queried, low ticket sales are speculated and then it is full. The Texans-Jaguars game at Wembley probably has the lowest appeal, so I suppose we'll see next week.