Exiled Wiganer

It’s a cracking sentence. My point being that IMG’s failure to protect its client from themselves will make their own job very much more difficult. Unless you have seen all of the papers I mention, you are as in the dark as I am, as to how hard they fought for this issue, how the recommendations were presented to the clubs and what took place at the debate around the scoring system. By all means conclude that the fault lies 100% with the clubs. You may be right. Or not. If you want help drafting elegant emails, by the way, then I am at your disposal.

Or, with the good ones, to persuade their clients not to do stupid things. I would love to see the minutes of that meeting, the grading report which was prepared and the minutes of the clubs’ deliberations. Indeed, given the weekly traducing of the game they have inflicted upon the competition IMG will be tasked with selling to the world, as those papers and discussions have directly lead to where we are today with Salford. Like many others, I will be fascinated to see what the game does to do next time round.

One thing that makes Lam a coach worth employing is his overseas player address book. It seems to be full of numbers of players who will thrive in SL. That centre makes them very watchable indeed. And to think supporters of a small, unfashionable club like Leigh get that treat. It’s the against the odds uplifting tale the nation needs after the Salt Path lot went all Greggggg Wallace. For HKR, there was always a risk they would run out of steam. Collectively, they look to be tailing off. Which is no surprise after what they have asked of that group of players already this year.

Phew! Those advisers are worth every penny!

It would indeed be foolish for the rules to have been designed in such a way as to allow a zombie club to carry on, especially as everything they got points for was paid for by money they did not have. To be clear, though, if that arises it is entirely the clubs’ fault and nothing to do with IMG.

As indeed does Trump, by his Putin.

Keighran was really good at 6 last year, and will be fine again. Being at home after an eternity away will make a massive positive difference for us. The season starts tomorrow.

So, it turns out that if Dodd is given a chance, Dodd will thrive down under.

And some Rovers fans would kick our heads in if given the opportunity. It was a shocking decision. But we would have hit the ball back at some point and only needed one break to win the game. If Cas could have stopped Field they would have at least ended up level at full time.

Ok first glance I didn’t see any names that looked out of place in there, which shows that we have a good depth of talent at the moment. Sam Walters’ injury came at a bad time. Great to see Ashton and Welsh named, as they are inked into our strongest 13.

NRL = GODS!!!

Am looking forward to this. Our performances tend to dip this time of year - which may be a consequence of training patterns - but we are still string side. It’ll be great to see Havard and Thompson back together. Wigan can certainly win this, but it would not surprise me to see Trinity take us. They often beat us at their place, have an excellent coach and a strong side. Should be a cracker.

Though of course you will then be a Halifax team, rather than a Huddersfield one. It’s good to know Sheffield didn’t die in vain.

Might it possibly be the case that being the place to be in that part of the world is not a massive hurdle to clear?

Which might be because 2 of the clubs are looking to or have downsized their grounds. They look better, and likely give a more enjoyable experience for the people who are there but… smaller grounds reflect a club’s relative failure rather than being brilliant news.

We used to aspire for clubs to be getting 5 figure crowds. For years we had average crowds of 10k or thereabouts. We now have clubs looking to down size so that their maximum capacity is lower than that. I do not see that as a sign of progress for the game, or the competition. I can see that it suits those clubs unable to grow their support, and that, say, the 7k today looked good on the BBC in a way that the same figure would have looked rubbish at Wigan. I can also see that you stand far more chance of growing crowds if newbies come along and find the atmosphere to be buzzing, rather than feeling empty.

Is this now the direction of travel - the Wakefield model - where we aim to shrink grounds until they are eventually small enough for SL teams? I can see why the Giants want to do this, but we have gone from a Framing the Future in which we aspired to have a top division with at least 10k capacities to being delighted that we can find grounds small enough for them under Framing the Future 2…

I agree with much of that, but, while the Giants’ pack was dominant, I thought Wigan’s halves and backs generally were better throughout. The atmosphere did come across well sound wise, but I hope you will have a ground which has 4 sides because unsurprisingly the empty end made it look like we were playing in a park. I am amazed the Giants have only 1 win. They must be by some distance the best side to be in that position in the SL’s history. The wins are certain to come.

? He has a lovely smile, which he does a lot. I have never seen him cry at a defeat. I can see why people relentlessly Wigan, especially Leigh people, but this seems a bizarre road to go down.

I thought he was replying to a question about what he did to improve his players, and he was modestly deflecting the point towards its being a collective endeavour. But I may have been listening through cherry and white ears.

Are you sure Salford will be in the championship? I thought the scoring system gave them a good chance of still being a zombie SL club next year?

Interestingly, they have adopted a very different approach from Super League as far as Vegas is concerned. If I understood the Super League “record crowds” announced, Wigan’s home attendance for that game was 50 odd k. Which might look good, but it masks somewhat the true picture of how 2025 is actually panning out.

I was at all of those games, as well as the games against NZ and Samoa. I recall well the circumstances around each of them. I would argue that by far the best comparisons we have are to the big events in the 90s and the World Cup semi final. I would argue that we have never seen a more professional approach to marketing an Ashes series as we have had this year, and that we are in a unique position in being able to focus solely on this one game for the next 4 plus months. I can do very little aside from rounding up as many locals to go as I can, but everything I have seen so far makes me confident the organisers - Moran’s team - knows what they are doing. I would though like to make another point about my original post. It was unnecessarily patronising of me to end it the way I did. It is perfectly fine for people - motivated by love of TGG - to be anxious and fear the worst, having got a lot of experience to draw upon. I was guilty of over stating my case, and that is something I am working on reining in. In another context on here I have been guilty of over forcibly expressing what is simply my opinion, and have resolved to be more respectful in the way I do so. Indeed, i would welcome people calling me out on the occasions that I over emphasise what is, after all, an expression of opinion, and attack others’ genuinely held and argued views. Back on topic, I am personally thrilled by what I have seen so far and am confident Moran and co know what they’re doing, and that the crowd will be the best it can be.

I do wonder whether there are some posters on here who don’t have calendars. We are in June, and the game is in October. We sell 40k grand final tickets in a week. Our group approach was to nab Headingley and Everton tickets as soon as possible (phew) but wait and see the maximum size group for Wembley. The size of the ground and the huge length of time before the game allows us to make sure we have the biggest possible group of people going to the match. I would be astonished if there weren’t thousands of people in the same boat. i genuinely worry about anyone who is genuinely worried about the potential crowd size for Wembley.

It’s good news that they are making the tickets available many months before the game. It shows their confidence of a massive crowd. The price makes perfect sense, as these are clearly worse than the £30 seats. If anything it makes me keener to get our act together and buy ours in case they sell out, as the lower seats are far better than these ones. The south will once again stand tall for TGG.