John Drake

Not on here it isn't! Half this thread is made up of people whining about the officials!! Most of the whining about refs by fans is done through club-tinted spectacles. We all do it, even me when I'm watching Bradford, it's part and parcel of watching a sporting contest, but in the cold light of day, the refs have more knowledge of the rules and how to apply them in the midst of the action than most of those baying at them from the sidelines or the sofas, or those busily tapping away at keyboards pulling their performances to bits. Sure, if a club has players who are underperforming, they can possibly switch them out for others, assuming their squad is big enough and strong enouigh to allow them to do that, but our sport is hardly blessed with a queue of fully qualified referees waiting in the wings to step up and take charge if those we already have put in a below par performance. Now, why do you think that might be...? The very fact we have to post a request in every maych thread on here not to call our officials cheats may have something to do with it, perhaps? Why on earth would anyone want to subject themselves to a stream of criticism and abuse every time they run out to do their job.

Neither are referees. Players make errors. So do officials. Always have, always will. That's sport.

Friendly warning. You're not going to last very long on this forum if you're just going to insult people you disagree with. Engage with the debate, argue as strongly as you like, but wind your neck in with calling people stupid, geriatric or suchlike. It isn't welcome on here. Thank you.

Long time TRLers will know how much I dread having to upgrade the software that runs the forum. In the olden days, it rarely went smoothly and would cause me days of headaches and stress to fix, and often lengthy periods of downtime. On one memorable occasion, we even had to have a closing down party on an old forum system, as it couldn't be upgraded, only replaced completely - to what we're still using now, funnily enough, so the chaos was worth it, and wow, what a party we had, for those who remember it!! Over the years, the nice chaps at Invision who create this lovely software have made the process a lot less scary, and sometimes, minor upgrades have even taken place without anyone noticing! However, they are in the process of releasing what they call a 'major' version upgrade and I've been putting it off for months, for obvious reasons... The clock is ticking, though, and I can't put it off forever, so brace yourselves for whatever happens next. I don't actually know too much about what the upgrade will achieve in terms of look and feel, until its done, but hopefully it'll still be recognisably TRL on the other side. I'll post a warning ahead of actually doing the upgrade. This is just an advance heads up that change is a-comin' Wish me luck!!

This was fun.

Dial it down a little in here folks, please, some of the comments are bordering on personal. Also (and one post removed for doing this) don't quote other people's posts and then change their words within the quoted post. That is not acceptable on here. Thanks

Reminder: In this thread, if you can't think of anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. It helps keep it on topic and not veering off in a hundred different discussions every time a well-known person dies. It's ok to start a new thread about a particular individual, if you so wish to comment further on their life and achievements, whether pro or anti, but if that individual happens to be a politican, please do so in the politcs sub-forum, not in AOB. Thanks

I think if the police are dealing with it, it isn't something anyone should be posting on here, it'll definitely break our T&Cs.

We don't do politics in the Rugby League forum. At all. A lesson learned the hard way over many years on here. Some folk just cannot help themselves wheeling out their soapboxes, however anodyne or rugby league related the original point may have been, and it inevitably all gets a bit nasty. As the thread you started did, after just a couple of hours. So, we just don't do it here, so people can discuss rugby league matters in relative peace. We do have a politics sub-forum, where those who want to, can argue the toss with each other all day and night if they wish, without encroaching on this otherwise 'safe' space.

Knock it off. Enough of the low key personal abuse. Not just you, everyone indulging in it in here. Just stop. Ok, thanks.

Well I had a nice time.

A quick reminder of the point of this thread. Various posts deleted. Stick to the topic. Thanks.

A few posts deleted. Some people (same people) starting to make disagreements personal (again). Play nicely, or the TRL ref will be getting the red card out.

Enjoy the game, folks. But remember... in TRL match threads: Please don't accuse match officials of deliberate bias or cheating, or your posts will be removed and your account may be banned without further warning.

Don't bring it on here, unless you want to be banned from using this forum any longer. On TRL, we respect our rugby league referees, without whom we have no game, and we do not call them cheats. Performances can be criticised, decisions can be argued over, but we draw the line on here, and always have, at calling our match officials cheats or accusing them of doing anything other than calling decisions as they see them in the heat of the moment in a game. No further warnings.

The log in issue will probably be something to do with your web browser cookie and/or security settings rather than the website. If you PM me with details of what browser you are using, I may be able to offer some advice on how to resolve that problem. With regard to ‘easily ignored’ ads, that sort of defeats the object of advertising, doesn’t it? Ads want to be seen, not ignored. They want you to buy whatever it is they are selling. I get that pop ups are a bit more ‘in your face’ but the reason they exist, I would assume, is because the ‘easily ignored’ stuff isn’t working, so the industry finds new ways of bugging you to buy their stuff, and will continue to do so from now until eternity. As far as I’m aware, the pop ups on here should only appear a maximum of twice per session, so that’s only a whole minute to wait if you happen to get both of them. On the betting issue, our entire sport is sponsored by a betting company. If only Betfred wanted to sponsor TRL…

Ads are a necessary evil on here, I'm afraid. Hosting and bandwidth charges mean that without them, the forum wouldn't be here at all. On the main TotalRL.com site if you subscribe (£5 per month to get all the content of League Express and Rugby League World and more besides, a proper bargain, hint hint) you get to view that part of the site ad-free.

The Greek entry did do well. 200+ points is pretty good! Better than 1 anyway!! I’d say it was overrated beforehand. But ‘musically’ Greece and UK entries weren’t that far apart, so what caused one to get a bagful of points, and the other none? Was it just a case of the flag they were presented under? Was the Greek guy better with the media in the run up?

I think rigidly sticking to the 'douze points' voting system in this era of a vastly expanded competition with 25 countries in the final is quite ridiculous and counter-productive. It bakes in almost guaranteed humiliation for a number of countries and their artists every year, as there just aren't enough points to go around. Those leading the pack will gobble up the lion's share of points, and those at the fag end of the table are left hoping for one or two to evade the dreaded 'nul points' stigma. It's so bad that the hosts this year had to repeatedly explain that receiving 'zero points' in the public vote does not mean that nobody voted for you in the televote. When you're explaining, you're losing. There's a simple solution. Just allow the juries to rank all 25 songs in order. The top ranked sing gets 25 points, second gets 24 and so on, all the way down to the least favourite (not 'worst') song getting 1 point. Given that the jury spokesperson only appears on screen to give the top score, while the other points silently pop up on the scoreboard, it makes no difference to the time spent dispensing the votes or the overall running time of the show. Then, with the public vote, do exactly the same: in each country's televote, the song with the most votes gets 26 points, all the way down to the song with the fewest votes getting 1 point. The scores can still be revealed exactly as they are now, but no country, and more importantly no artist, is going to have to sit there and hear the doom-laded words 'you have received zero points' after they have worked so hard over several rounds of rehearsals and endless PR activities to represent their country. Eurovision loves its slogan 'United by Music'. No musician should face being humiliated on live television in front of millions of viewers and potentially harming their future career just by taking part. Just to add, I've never really thought that the UK does badly in Eurovision 'because Europe hates us', we're just not very good at picking songs that are going to finish in the top ten of other nations' musical preferences when there are 26 wildly differing songs to pick from. We could have finished eleventh in loads of places and still ended up with zero points! That said, I didn't think there was that much to choose between the UK entry and the Greek entry this year, both were broad comedic efforts, and I have to say I thought the UK's staging was far better and more inventive, yet Greece finished 10th with 220 points and the UK finished last with 1 point. If they'd swapped flags, would that have been reversed? maybe if the voting system was revamped to remove the ritual humiliation element, more prominent UK artists could be persuaded to take part? At present, the chances of that are, er, zero.

No, they aren't. Stick to discussing rugby league here. Cross-code discussions belong in the cross-code forum. Thanks.

I've deleted a load of the off topic/political stuff. Folks, this thread is about Oldham RLFC. The clue is in the title. If your comment isn't about Oldham RLFC, it doesn't really belong in this thread. Thanks.

This thread took a strange turn. Various posts deleted. Probably best to lock it now, it had drifted off topic anyway.

It is fine. Hurrah for a bit of positivity!

Various posts deleted. Stick to discussing the match, and not having a pop at each other. Thanks.

Can we keep this to match discussions. There is already a separate thread on the Crusaders situation. Thanks.