Saint Toppy

No surprise there is there, when have Catalans ever prioritised the french game & french players. If thre RFL are that bothered about giving the game an international flavour, might as well just rebrand Wigan a "Le Wigan" and give em all cheese baguettes to eat instead of pies. They'd be doing just as much for the game in France as Catalans do

But that Ranking criteria now appears to have been removed from the latest guidelines that have just been released. Wasn't that the whole point, that document in March was the initial consultation document and the one released now is the final one to be voted on based on feedback from the consultation period ? I'll have to try and find it but i'm sure IMG said they would take those concerns on board and they would be reflected in the final document issued, hence why that Ranking table is now gone.

Another criteria that nobody seems to have picked up on yet is the Stadium Primacy. As I read it clubs like Wigan, Hull, Huddersfield & possibly even Salford & Leigh wont score anything under the primacy guidelines ? As an aside it was also good to see that if you want a Cat A then you MUST run a womens team as well. What I can't seem to find though is a copy of the RFL's current "Talent & Pathway" guidelines which it also says Cat A & B clubs must comply with. Presumably this means they must run teams at all the junior grades ? Does it also mean having a Reserve grade team ??

Where have IMG said that one B grade club can only replace another B grade club if their overall points are higher within the B banding ? I thought that guy from Keighly claimed that when he voted against the proposals, but IMG then clarified that it wasn't how it would operate ?

Not sure that 1 shiny new stand is going to score all the much more for Wakey TBH. While it may then satisfy some of the criteria for corporate, media etc. the increase in seat numbers then means they have to fill them otherwise they start losing out on the utilisation scoring.

Err yes there is. IMG have clearly stated that the lowest placed Grade B SL club will be replaced by the highest placed Grade B Championship club. Consistently finishing at or near the top of the Championship, being financially stable, having a decent stadium and investing in their social media should be enough to secure a championship a B grading and permit them promotion.

I guess they have to draw the line somewhere but the current criteria does seem a bit arbitary and there's room for some tweaks. St.Helens population size is 183K so that firmly puts them in category score of 1, but I know quite a few Saints fans, many of them season ticket holders who live out of the borough, with quite a few of them in Knowsley (who's population size is listed at 148K). While they are 2 independent councils from a political POV, St.Helens & Knowsley currently have a combined healthcare authority and they use shared frameworks for the provision of other services. The Saints Foundation also counts Knowsley as within their "catchment" area, regularly holding events at clubs & in schools within Knowsley for junior development. Yet under the IMG guidelines as they stand this counts for nothing under this criteria. One of the other posters mentioned it but I do think there should be an additional scoring criteria based on where the fans come from, not just on the local population. Clubs have the addresses of fans who buy tickets so they know exactly how many fans they are attracting from outside the local authority area. And there should also be some sort of scoring incentive to clubs who target "expansion" areas outside their own immediate catchment area where there are currently no other Tier 1, 2 or 3 clubs.

But you also have to remember while it may not mean much from the grading score POV you will still get relegated if you finish 12th and not if you finish 11th so there's still a massive incentive not to finish bottom (assuming there's another Grade B club in the Championship to replace them). Looking at all the other criteria relegation will seriously damage many of your other scores in future years.

I see Connor Wynne is being let go by Hull, thought he looked a really good prospect before his injury. I'd take a chance on him at Saints as a back-up to Percival & Hurrell for next year as a direct replacement for Hopoate.

I'm sure Catalans would then just ask for a similar dispensation for English players. Very few teenage French players are going to come over to England, i'm sure they'd much prefer to stay in France and play for a French team. Maybe a better solution would be to have English players count on the French Quota, thus forcing Catalans, TO etc. to have more French playing spots available in their 1st team squad. Look at the current Catalans squad they have 6 overseas players and 6 Brits in their Top 25, so they only have 13 French players, and the majority of those don't get to play most weeks. So if Brits counted on their quota then we would have at least 10 French players playing SL every week where as at the moment we probably have 5.

I thought it had already been confirmed Norman was going to Leigh next year (or maybe it was just the confirmation that Saints hadn't offered him a new deal and he was leaving the club) ?

I believe Leigh are signing a LF from Swinton, Louis Brogan. He was offered to Saints first as part of the DR arrangement but Saints said no apparently as they already have quite a few players in that position in Knowles, Bell & Wingfield so he's been having talks with Leigh about a move there for 2024.

Be interesting to see whether Saints let Norman play against them in the cup in a few weeks time given its not a season long loan, so its up to them. Either way he was never going to have a long term future at Saints as he's been poor every time he's had his chance and even when he's gone on loan to Swinton he's been poor for them as well. I think the writing was on the wall for him even last year when Woolf decided to pick teenager George Delaney even though Norman was fit & available.

Not great for entertainment value but Saints played the perfect wet weather game. At the end of the day their first priority is to win not to entertain and they executed a wet weather plan perfectly. Probably 90% of Cas sets were started inside their own 20m through a great kicking game and they rarely then got over half way. In fact i'd say the majority of their sets they were kicking on tackle 5 from well within their own 30m meaning the Saints backs were able to make easy yards on tackle 1. So while I agree it was boring to watch you can't help but admire how well they executed Wellens plan for the game.

If thats Lam's strategy its going to hurt Leigh come the end of the season. Very few forwards can manage that many minutes week in week out, particularly in the front row without suffering from fatigue at the back end of the year

Given Wire fans hopes of a title always go up in smoke the Vaughan Williams signature piece "Fantasia" seem appropriate

Awful decision by Powell to put him in the halves where he has to defend in the line. Everyone (bar Powell) can see Dufty defends like a 3Yr old girl and tries everything he can to get out of the way of making tackles so why on earth would you put him in such a key position in the defensive line. Its no wonder Leeds were strolling through every time down that Wire right edge. It took Dufy over 70mins to realise he had to try and make it look like he had to put in a tackle, and even then he got it wrong

More like a Rasher - he just looked like a fat, lazy pig all night

One more added to the list for accuracy

I think his ACL injury last year probably made him re-evaluate his career and realise it can be taken away from you at any time by injury. It already looks like that injury has taken some of his pace as this year its noticeable how little he runs the ball than before the injury. Can't blame him for wanting some cash in the bank early just incase.

Looks like Leigh are signing a second reserve prop from Saints. On top of Dan Norman they're signing Lewis Baxter. He's still young and has a lot of improvement in him but he's already fallen behind George Delaney in the pecking order who's 3 years younger then him and then a year behind Delaney Saints have an outstanding prospect in Noah Stephens coming through pushing Baxter even further down the list. Good luck to the lad at Leigh, he'll get a lot more opportunities to develop.

He probably knows that, just like Thompson did when he joined the Bulldogs. But given how short a RL career is you can't blame anyone for taking a step down in clubs but quadrupling your wages.

While it is just a rumour the person who told me is generally fairly accurate. Whether it transpires or not remains to be seen (largely down to Fages wage demands and the fact he's still under contract at Hudds) but it would appear though that Saints are planning for if Dodd does leave at the end of the year and exploring options.

I know its been discussed many times on this forum of how to revitalize the cup but lets face it as a competition its been in decline for a long time. Not just Finals use to be packed out, so did the semi's, including lots of neutral fans going (I count myself in that as I used to go to lots of cup games regardless of whether Saints were in them or not). Now they're lucky if clubs can get their ground 1/4 full for the earlier round games and even 1/2 full stadia for semi's. I rarely go to any cup games these days, even if Saints are at home, and it looks like there are an awful lot of other fans doing the same. Don't know what other similar fans see as the reason but for me it started to lose its appeal with the growth in the GF. That's now seen at the premier event in the calendar not the cup final and if neutrals have to pick one to go to they tend to choose the GF. I'm sure there's a whole range of reasons - Is that because the GF is easy to get to being in the north, i'm sure its a factor (I certainly can't be bothered spending 5Hrs+ to get to London for 1 match anymore), is it due to people reigning in their spending, probably. Maybe its just that younger fans today who have grown up with the GF just don't have any real memories of the cup of how it was in the past ? Whatever the reasons we can't keep on ignoring the fact that the cup is quickly becoming a millstone around the neck of the RFL and clubs. I think there's lots of fans who would love to see a resurgence in the cup, but for me I think its had its day, and its time for a rethink on our season's structure if were going to continue with the GF as the premier cup to win. Having said that for me personally i'd rather ditch the GF and see the CC come back as the top cup to win. I know its never going to happen now but i'd rather have the league champions decided by whoever finishes top, leaving the CC as the main prestigious trophy to win in the year. Then just to maintain some end of year interest for clubs i'd bring back the Premiership trophy - straight knockout between the top 8 in the league played over 3 consecutive weeks with highest playing the remaining lowest each week.

Heard an interesting one yesterday. The SGI Dragons have stepped up their interest in Lewis Dodd and want him for 2024 to replace Ben Hunt even though Dodd is under contract for next year. Saints are considering releasing him if they can find a replacement and that's rumoured to be Theo Fages who wants out of the Giants under Watson even though like Dodd he's under contract for next year as well.