Saint Toppy

They've never indicted that any club will be denied. What they've hinted at is that if things like your ground don't meet a certain criteria then you won't be able to achieve a certain license grade. So a team with a poor ground like Cas for instance will still be able to play in SL but its unlikely they'll be able to achieve an A grade license and get protection from SL relegation. What in reality this would me for a club like Cas is that they could quite easily get relegated even if they don't finish at or near the bottom of SL if they find themselves as the lowest placed B grade license team in SL come the end of the season.

I don't see what the issue is as long as those criteria are applied fairly & equally against every single club, no dispensations, no exemptions for anyone. Clubs either meet the criteria for a certain grade or they don't.

Can you provide any evidence where IMG or the RFL have stated there will be any sort of 'closed shop' ? By definition a close shop is where there is no further entry into that particular group - something IMG have actually stated isn't part of their plan. They've stated that any club who achieves a Grade A license will be exempt from relegation from SL, so ANY club can get themselves promoted and gain an A license - so not a closed shop at all if its open to everyone. The only thing that will stop a club from gaining an A license is the clubs themselves and their ability to meet the criteria set. That may change in the future if we ever get to a point where the number of A License clubs exceeds the number where the available funding can sustain the top flight, but lets face it, its highly unlikely thats going to happen in the next decade by the time IMG's current contract expires.

Gotta disagree about having a 'hard cap', some of the dispensations are good for both club & player. The 'club trained' dispensation rewards clubs that invest the most in their youth & develop them into full 1st team players and it also allows those players to get paid a bit more while not unduly affecting the SC of their club. The only one of these dispensation rules i'm not that taken with is the marquee rule. Its intention was to try and entice the best from the NRL but the reality is they still wont come to SL unless they're completely past it or in some sort of trouble in Aus. Personally I think the marquee rule should only be applied in order to try and keep the best British players in our game and not wasted on has been Aussies.

Obviously not in Leigh with them not having a train station

Nope - still think of cheap hookers just out topping up their dole money !!!

That whole area had already been approved in principal for residential development when the adjacent Triplex glass factory closed down. The only adjacent areas that sat outside that planning were Taylor Park and the allotments

Just to clarify Saints new stadium wasn't necessarily contingent on Tesco. The land had already been bought by Langtree and Saints had already taken the decision to build a new stadium somewhere in the town rather than redevelop KR after they had an economic assessment done. They would have built a new stadium somewhere even if the current site wasn't available. Saints had already reached an agreement with the housing developer for the KR site but actually never received the amount they initially agreed because of delays to the current site availability, which pushed it into the 2008 recession and the subsequent lowering of land values for housing. Its reported they got around £2M less than they originally agreed, so the directors just funded the extra. They funded the construction of the whole stadium anyway, they just saved some money by having the Council & Langtree do the ground remediation in advance of the stadium build on the current site. Even if they hadn't had this the directors were still prepared to pay for a new stadium somewhere. So yes Tesco building their new store on the Linkway site then made that site available for a stadium development when Saints wanted one, but it wouldn't have stopped a new stadium being built anyway, just probably somewhere else in the town.

From what i've seen of them in the NRL for me I think the jury is still out on both of them. Hoy has great pace but appears somewhat suspect under the high ball and in defence. Clifford is an interesting one. He very much burst onto the scene and looked a real prospect when he broke into the Cowboys team but within a year or so had fallen out of favor and his career has been in freefall ever since. His time at the Knights was a disaster and he looked completely out of his depth in a lot of games. I think the move to SL is pretty much make or break for him

Welsby will be starting at 1 and the first choice haves will be Lomax & Dodd. Hopoate was very much Woolf's "little pet" and I seriously doubt Wellens will be giving him the same preferential treatment. Hopoate will be just a back-up player. The vast majority of players pretty much 'pick themselves' the only real choices I think will be whether its Bennison or Ritson that starts on the wing and whether its Mata'utia or Sironen that starts in the 2nd row along side Batchelor. Lussick & Paasi will get 2 of the bench spots and it could be any 2 from about 8 for the last 2 bench spots.

Regarding spend & losses I don't expect Saints to be recording a profit anytime soon as they've recently announced a couple of new big investments they're going to make. This week they put in a planning application to site over 800 solar panels on the roof of the South stand. Huge initial capital investment but gives them a year round future income generation and zero electricity running costs for the stadium going forward. They also announce that they're partnering with the Council to develop the currently derelict Parr Leisure centre to turn it into a new state of the art training facility for the club and new public leisure facilities. Again massive initial investment but its needed to keep the club at the top given they've outgrown their current training facilities now they have the womens team. It will be the board of directors funding this, which in raw numbers terms won't look good on the clubs accounts but is a positive investment for the club going forward.

You wont find much about Mike Coleman, his main RCMA Group offices are in Singapore & Zurich

There's a reason people should be sceptical about McGuire and his comments. While he was a director of Saints he tried to take full control of the club and force McManus out. Luckily all the other directors backed McManus and it was McGuire who was forced out. A few years later he tried to buy the club again with the backing of a consortium from Ireland, but again the board rejected him. McGuire is probably still bitter from all this and has an axe to grind, particularly with Saints & Eamon McManus, so any comments made from the guy shouldn't necessarily be taken as fact

For some clubs that could be more problematic than others. I remember reading some years ago Eamon McManus commenting along these lines and that his business model for the club was that they wouldn't be reliant on just 1 benefactor. To that end all of the Saints Board are multi-millionaires in their own right. Even McManus himself isn't the main benefactor even though he's the Chairman, that honour goes to Mike Coleman who's business is said to be worth well in excess of £1Bn (though his exact wealth is hard to know as its registered overseas and not subject to publishing accounts with Companies Hse)

Its just a warm up / pre-season friendly match to allow both teams to get their players up to speed ready for the games that matter. Saints have the WCC a week later and the Dragons the Charity shield. Neither coach will be at all bothered about this games result as long as it gives them the prep they need for their big games the week later.

Saints will probably doing similar to the Dragons regarding team selection, probably start with a 1st choice starting 13 as least for the first quarter and then we'll see lots of chopping & changing to give everyone some game time. I'm not sure either team will be that bothered about the result, they'll both be more interested in getting the right prep for their respective games the following week. For Saints in particular the focus will be on getting certain key players like Dodd, Walmsley, Lomax & Percival match ready who will have had disrupted off season through injury recovery.

Most professional sports clubs run at a loss, its not that much of an issue as long as they have owners / directors who can cover those losses year on year. The likes of Saints, Leeds, Wigan, Wire, Hudds all have wealthy owners & boards of directors capable of covering these losses, at least in the short term while everyone recovers from the Covid shutdowns and the current financial climate. I'd be more worried about the clubs without these wealthy owners who are making big losses and have to borrow money to survive

As far as I know the 'recovery day' is the day after a match. Players get a medical assessment to determine if they need any individual treatments during the coming week or whether they're passed fully fit to undertake the regular weeks training. Most of that day is spent with the medical team, physio's and conditioning staff. The next day is the usually a 'day off' / light training' and then back to a full training session the day after.

Who needs 'leaked' meeting minutes when we can just have SC's comedy list.

Unless there was one party (or more) who have some sort of agenda of their own and want to use social media to push their own alternative ideas, then why would any of the parties who attended want to 'leak' any information from what was a 'private' meeting ? Its probably more likely that all the clubs want some time to fully review the latest information that was given and there's been a deadline set for them to give feedback to IMG, wherin some form of public statement will then be made on both the detail of the plans and the level of support for them from the clubs.

Pryce had a stunning start to his SL career but the majority of last season was wiped out by injury and suspension. In the games he played, for me, he showed a hell of a lot of promise with some great individual contributions. So many young players fail to kick on, even when given the opportunity, so for me a lot depends on how much opportunity Pryce gets regularly in the 1st team over the next few years. He's certainly shown he has a lot of natural ability

Welsby will probably remain as Saints No 1 for the next few years (until Lomax retires when he may well then switch to 6), so assuming he maintains form he'll most likely be the first choice to replace Tomkins as FB

Based on local population size and competition from other major sports clubs nearby (the town has large numbers of Liverpool & Everton fans) there is probably still some more potential fans to go at, but being realistic getting to 13K-14k would be a good target. I know quite a few Saints fans who have given up their season tickets in the last season or so, not because they don't want to attend, purely for personal financial reasons. They're limited to picking & choosing their games to attend. Its probably the same for all clubs and is just a sign of the times. Where I live is probably fairly typical of the town as a whole. We live in a small cul-de-sac with 17 houses. 2 of us are Saints season ticket holders, one other goes to some Saints games, there are 2 Liverpool season ticket holders, 2 who go to some Liverpool games, 1 who goes regularly to Man Utd and the rest (as far as I know) don't go to any spots at all.

It wasn't meant as a personal offence, I asked that question as some of your previous posts suggest that you've already convinced yourself that this is just a sham exercise designed to please certain top SL clubs and has nothing to do with an overall improvement of the game. Some of your previous comments have been; "I have a feeling that the standards argument is a front for dumping some clubs". "I am convinced that the endgame of the restucturing is about getting rid of certain clubs under the guise of improving standards". "I don't know who's involved in the criteria for giving out status but I am more or less certain who will be given which category. I am also pretty sure that certain clubs will be a shoe-in which convinces me of its real purpose" While your perfectly entitled to your opinion it isn't based on any actual evidence from anything the RFL of IMG have stated. Would so many of the clubs backed their proposals if this really was their aim ? I doubt it. You've also posted questions relating to clubs; how can we get everyone to improve? who will be asked to improve, is there anyone who won't be and why ? what will be in place to ensure that every member can achieve that grade ? Again none of those are relevant to IMG 's role with the RFL. They've made it clear that their role is with the structure of the game and in changing that to maximise the commercial potential of the game. They recognize that within our game there are clubs that are really struggling both on and off the field whether that be having poor stadium, poor junior development, poor revenue streams, constantly being on the verge of going bust from oner season to the next. In such a competitive sports marketplace its not enough these days to just have a good product on the pitch if you want to bring in big TV deals, sponsorships, advertising etc. You need both the product, the game as a whole and the clubs who make up the leagues to be as marketable & commercially attractive as possible. If you were a big blue-chip company looking to put your money into sponsoring a sport, how attractive is RL right now with a SL within only a handful of clubs who are commercially viable and able to realistically compete year after year. Wouldn't you be far more interested in investing in one where you had a SL made up of 12, 14 or 16 strong, viable clubs, all spending to the SC limit, all with a fairly even chance of lifting silverware each year, all playing in nice modern stadiums with top class facilities.

IMG are onboard to help the RFL grow, develop & improve the game as a whole NOT to help individual clubs. I'm not sure what part of that you don't understand. They won't give 2 hoots as to who those individual clubs are as long as they can implement the changes they believe are necessary to grow the game and for them to get a decent return on their investment. IMG's objective is to have a SL consisting of Cat A license clubs, Championship of Cat B's etc. If they can get a SL of 14 or 16 Cat A clubs and similar Cat B's then that makes the game as a whole more valuable and saleable to 3rd parties such as TV companies, sponsors & advertisers. More money coming into the game means a bigger return for them. The restructure & license criteria are designed to force clubs to improve, to make them more stable, viable and ultimately more valuable. The more clubs improve the higher the likelihood they will be able to attract bigger & better sponsors & advertisers to them, which then in turn improves the league and the game as a whole. As I said previously IMG will undoubtedly offer advice to clubs on how they think they can improve their businesses and meet the various licensing criteria but they certainly won't be holding their hand to ensure they get there. They won't be doing business plans for them, they won't be arranging sponsorship deals for them or anything like that. Ultimately it will be down to the individual clubs to decide where they want to be in the new structure and how they can get there. The licensing criteria will tell them what they need to achieve and IMG (and the RFL no doubt) will offer advice to clubs on how to achieve it. You talk like we're living in some socialist dystopia where everyone should be equal, everyone should have the same, those that currently don't have should be given more help to ensure they become equal. This is the real world, there are have's and have not's, not everyone is equal and probably never will be. Where a club ends up in the new structure will be down to what they choose to do on and off the field in line with the criteria set. Some existing SL clubs will grow, improve and maybe even easily meet the various criteria set for an A license. Some will probably never achieve it and will ultimately find themselves never playing in SL again. Over time i'm sure we'll see some current Championship clubs grow & improve and replace those current SL clubs who can't achieve an A license. I just don't know what it is that you don't understand about this business model the RFL have decided to go with in bringing IMG onboard ? Its not a model built on sentiment or preference for one individual club over another. Its a business model & structure that clubs have to decide where they realistically want to sit within it.