RP London

That and slave labour!

dont be scared.. heres a sneak preview

I am not sure how it could be a strategic review anyway, that would imply there is a strategy to review in the first place.. not seen any sign of one of them for quite a while!

It isnt, its a racial stereotype and its the type of thing that makes games/events etc less inclusive. Some people from that racial category may act like that but in no way is it all and therefore it alienates those that do not see that. What used to be seen as "jokes" is actually part of the problem of bringing different sections of society together. Like it or not THAT is the real world. To perpetuate that with comments as you did means you are part of the problem. "Tackle like girls", "Throw like girls" etc stops girls wanting to get involved, and yet when they do they add a huge amount to clubs (and how wrong could people be with "tackle like girls" BTW). Japes/Jibes about race or about sexual orientation (any number of homophobic jokes that belittle someone's effort or toughness by calling them a homosexual slur) stops those from different backgrounds thinking it could be a place for them, yet there are some very wealthy and very astute people who we should be desperately trying to get involved to bring their business acumen into the game, let alone the paying fans (its not like we couldnt do with the cash).

well this sort of emphasises the point that was made earlier about inclusivity now doesn't it.. nice bit of racial stereotyping!!

The thing is a lot of clubs etc are doing that in many sports, changing the badge to suit the training top/shirt they are wearing, you see it quite a lot in football. Along with that training tops are often different colours from the rest of the branded things, ie Sheffield Wednesday training kit is some sort of horrible green and grey... terrible.. but it seems to be the way they go.. is Oxen just following the norm but the Kangaroos, Samoa etc are an exception? I would prefer to have some form of training shirt and polo range that is very similar to the shirt as I'd rather buy those than the shirt itself but that may just be a personal thing.

I get what you are saying but it isnt 70,000 fools brainwashed in a 2 legged tie becuase there will be a good chunk of them that went to both. It a pedantic point but one worth making IMHO as its a good point you make but people will always pick holes in it if they can.. I was at wembley a few seasons back for Wednesday's successful play off final against Barnsley, I dont go to football as I dont like much of the atmosphere, and can find it quite dull, but for the occasion I went.. wasnt the best game but was tense if you had skin in the game.. it was packed... people get sucked into occasions etc, look at RU internationals and you see the same.. Yet again, on this forum, we come back to (IMHO) we are poor at making the game a spectacle.. more than just the game.. get that right and we will be able to attract more newbies who then get converted.. (dons helmet and walks away)

I don't really know Oxen from anyone else so I don't necessarily want to be "jumping to their defence".. I'm a brand owner of a couple of brands, surely the fault of the branding is on the RFL not Oxen.. If I just went to a company and said "look i don't really know what our colours are, have a crack and see what you can come up with" then that's exactly what you'd do.. we have quite a big brand guidelines book around colours, fonts, designs, the fact that certain aspects NEVER get used together etc etc.. if the RFL haven't got that then that's on them not Oxen.. and frankly if they have and Oxen aren't sticking to it then that's on the RFL not to sign it off too.. I'm not keen on the training wear with the block patterns on the chest, but you see other sports doing it so might be a "this years fashion" type thing. I quite like the ashes one with the black streaks of Ash on it (base colour aside), I don't mind swirly patters, some of the training stuff held up on here for Samoa and NZ have differing "patterns". But its that base "brand" colour pallet we are lacking and surely that comes from the RFL. You know more about this than me and these "tweaks" to designs are fashion led, or design led I assume and I 100% agree the base colours should be nailed down but the RFL cannot even decide if we should have blue in the main shirt or not etc.. the branding is surely at their door.

While not LGBTQI+ related as such Lewis Hamilton did get Mercedes to change their entire livery around the Black Lives Matter campaign.. just as a point of order.

not quite.. it was included with the information about Cheshire.. even though it was described as between the Ribble and the Mersey.

Know what you mean. Dont mind parents too much, 1 grandparent but never really visited the country/still playing aborad or living here for 3 years etc seems a stretch though.

To be fair most people that you are discussing things with on this thread so far are big supporters of expansion so that doesnt add up. Out of interest, just looking at the formatting of your posts and the language you are using are you using AI to write/spell/grammar check your posts? not a slight if you are, I do it sometimes at work, just wondering as it reads like it, the formatting of the paragraphs etc look like it and the formatting in terms of changes in fonts and spacings to the regular forum posts look like it too.

Yes I know that but that's not the point of what is being said is it? Surely doesn't need to be spelt out that it's about where the money is being spent not what the company registration number is...

so you dont think that if they had carried on funding sheffield or newcastle to the same amount as they have Huddersfield that there may (stress may as we will never know) have been more to gain than the stagnation at huddersfield?

London were Wigan Highfield previously.. about to go bust so bought by the White City Stadium company to play games on a Wednesday night under lights.. players trained in the north and travelled down to play. Funnily enough they didnt last more than a season and moved back north to become Liverpool Stanley. Streatham & Mitcham and Action & Willesden then came around owned by Sydney Parkes who wanted to start a league of 6 teams in the south. asked the RFL for help, there was quite a lot of interest in the local areas but the RFL didnt help them out, expected him to sort out everything and hence it eventually fell away after 1 season (for A&W) and 1.5 season (for S&M). A trick was well and truly missed at that point, to have had a "Southern Rugby League" as it was called in the Daily Express, Mail and Telegraph at the time would have been an excellent expansion tool. They had got some good union players across (including George Nepia who was brought over by S&M) and could hold their own, finishing mid table.. so it was possible. But teams up and down what would become the M1 or M40/M6 could have joined that league or the precedent could have been set and a "midlands" league could have been formed.. the whole picture would have been so different. The fact major papers were covering this potential is something we wouldnt see now. The RFL not grasping the opportunities is a very long historical story and issue.

You dont remember the battle Sheffield had to get back in?? it wasnt a given that was going to happen. Plus the fact that we are able to be in the league with no money etc and look at the state of Huddersfield with all the money that has gone into them.. do you really believe that that money wouldn't have been better spent in Sheffield or Newcastle??? Hull have at least moved forward. Before anyone says it I know its Ken Davey's money and he wouldnt have spent it in Sheffield but there is also RFL money etc that went there that could have gone to Sheffield or Newcastle instead and potentially brought in a Ken Davey or better to one of those etc... Butterfly effect... the point being was saving Huddersfield at the expense of a Sheffield or Newcastle really in the long term interest of the game if it wanted to grow.. surely the answer is a massive no..

But how can it be that someone called "Anita Bath" is talking to a "Hallucinating Goose" and doesn't get the fact that maybe, just maybe, everything isn't 100% literal.

Actually the original post I responded too on here did not say "advisors", the word didnt appear in the post at all, it said "experts" which is a word you have constantly used on this thread to refer to IMG in a sarcastic way. Therefore it was hardly a "leap of faith" to assume you were having another pop at them. again I ask "How is what is happening at Salford anything to do with IMG if they have nothing to do with the licensing process anymore?"

check out clause 5.1 of the directors code of conduct, it can be found on the "board of directors" (the huge 3 man [yes just men] board) page as a pdf.. if only they'd read that 1 clause first!

How is what is happening at Salford anything to do with IMG if they have nothing to do with the licensing process anymore? Salford arguably wouldn't be in super league if the original criteria set out by IMG and the original weightings had been agreed to. Or are you saying that IMG should have stepped in and said "you know they're a basket case don't you? can you just kick them out otherwise our job or marketing this league is going to be much harder?" I mean I could understand that position a lot more as what you would like to happen, even though it would massivly overstep their remit.

Exactly, who'd have thunk it, specialists being used for the specialisms.

IIRC IMG do an initial "sanity check" of the data for the social media and, I think, the other interweb stuff so that there is one common reporting set up using data that is equal across the board. That is then submitted to the audit team. The Audit team, which I think is independent, then audits all the data that is sent to them to make sure it is correct and therefore the scores are correct at the end. This is an absolute box tick, they do not have influence on anything they are just checking that 25m clicks which equals 1 point (for example, cant remember what the actual points are awarded for) is actually what is on the spreadsheet etc.. (a bit like votes on britains got talent are independently audited).. they are just following the criteria that is given to them by the RFL and the clubs who voted for them (and changed them from the initial IMG ones).

I've been in plenty of these types of meetings with advisors and no matter the advice that is given, no matter the information that is given not everyone follows the sensible advice.. If you think they do you need to give your head a wobble. IMG came out with a set of proposals that were sensible and worked. These were changed by the clubs.. those are the facts.. the fact there was already a good set of grading criteria that did a better job than this does, including the grade demotion for financial issues (something you want) shows that they had a better grasp of this... then the clubs changed it.. it wasnt at that stage about advice, they gave them the criteria which the clubs then changed! IMG can only work with what the clubs give them at any moment.. the CLUBS gave them this issue with Salford becuase the CLUBS changed the criteria and then the RFL marked to that criteria. I am not defending the people that gave the reports on SRD... I dont understand where on earth you can get that picture from... for the 1 millionth time.. IMG ARE NOT THE PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE THEY DID NOT DO THE ASSESMENT. Those that are responsible are the RFL FFS! If we are here again next year its because the clubs and the RFL watered down the penalties that IMG PUT IN PLACE for financial misconduct. However many times you want to attack IMG for preparing the reports on SRD, you will always be wrong.

The experts did, even had a rule which catered for chucking a team out for financial issues (automatically a grade lower)... guess what THE GAME changed it. You can berate IMG all you want, you can hold the opinion that they don't know what they are doing, but you would be wrong. They set up a system, the clubs voted for changes that made the system unbalanced and toothless, that is on them no matter how many times you want to say "the experts don't know what they're doing" its the clubs that changed it to be like this.

I like that Leeds shirt.. more for what it is than the aesthetics. The Huddersfield one is a really nice shirt even without the great story behind it.