The 4 of Us

And that my dear is the very reason why RL has been a far worse enemy to itself than by any combination of undermining by other sports or organisations. From the Welsh clubs being cut adrift in the early 1900’s to date, our sport has little vision beyond the confines of the hard shoulder of a well known road reaching East to West. Sadly we deserve it.

H Agreed. Super League Pontefract has a far better ring to it.

I’ll wager same sponsor for half the money or same money and twice the length of contract.

Not sure if this is deliberately intended to hook a fish but I’ll bite. You’d have the same reaction if a helpful suggestion were made that Widnes move to Warrington or indeed Warrington to St Helen’s. Quite apart from the the fact Leythers definitely don’t consider themselves Wiganers or vice versa, the distance of the LSV from Wigan’s traditional home is further than the 6 or so miles from the Bolton Wanderers stadium that was briefly flirted with when Central Park was sold. Ownership of ground has nothing to do with it. 12,000 capacity would certainly be enough as only the players would bother going.

Taking Wigan as a comparison, I’d say there is a lot more football fans that RL. For all the profile of Wigan RL and teams that St Pats and the like put out, local amateur football clubs have multiple teams at multiple levels. There’s a reason why football is the national sport and that the average weekly RL fee paying crowd could be accommodated within one premiership football ground.

As above

Absolutely don’t disagree with that but it’s symptomatic of our sport and things like this can prove fatal. Claire Balding currently on prime time BBC Breakfast talking about it. It feels like typical back of the fag packet decision making from the sport. The reality is that other countries generally think we’re all a bit bonkers in this country, especially at this time, and perhaps the sport here should have been a little more open to a postponement rather than forcing the decision last week against obvious opposition. I wonder if they have issues with costs and lack of insurance for this October. If so, the problems become even worse. As I said on another thread, the NRL provides most of the players for most of the other teams, including NH ones. I suspect that their clubs will also now be turning the screw and it won’t be long before the other teams fall in line.

They were. But if COVID suddenly switched off on Monday there’d be no problems with the Olympics would there. The reality is that the NRL have done a very good job so far isolating their players from the wider community. That just doesn’t happen here and SL would not have the income to do what the NRL has. There have been stories this week that there is a risk that SL may have problems seeing the season through as more players contact COVID and team risk not getting to the 18 game threshold. At the moment, I think 2022 has to be the right option.

And does anyone think any of the other nations reliant upon most of the players being released by their NRL are going to travel?

This is not a surprise and I don’t actually blame them. Our own government appear to have made a decision to open up just as the rest of the world are making decisions to lock down harder and there’s even talk about the Olympics being cancelled at this late stage. what concerns me is that this decision comes so close to the announcement that the competition was going ahead. It’s almost as though their concerns were ignored, and an announcement made to crack on regardless in an effort to force their hand. But that would never happen in RL would it. Some much bigger sporting competitions that the RL World Cup have been postponed by COVID. I see no embarrassment or concern in RL doing so until next year and that should have been decided months ago, rather than waiting on decision making which is looking increasingly shaky.

Why would community clubs want to play in the 1895 cup?

Ratchford’s nose though. Does it get its own image rights.

Have Sale actually said they want Salford out?

The cross code thread has been running coming up to 2 weeks. Surprised that the Beeb have taken so long. Must be contract negotiation season.

It depends. North Kabul or South Kabul?