RP London

dont disagree i wouldnt have sykes in myself.. its a more general point when people say they will "never support england again while mcnamara is incharge becuase he is rubbish" what if he isnt rubbish there will be some people who love their RL who will miss out on world cup wins etc potentially,.

But that is the thing.. they were wrong to do that they were wrong to apply the rule to those looking for promotion they have changed that hence the mad dash for stadiums that is now happening in Super League.. so they are fixing this.. then after it will be a case of those outside needing to be up to the standards of those within.. Football cannot be compared in that way.. the money in the lower leagues is there to build new stadiums to update etc and so they do have the grounds.. you cannot have both without the money being much higher.. looks at some of the grounds in league 1 RU and such like.. they cannot do it and it is those sports that are also looking at lisencing..

all were lucky... wonder if he does he lottery

actually there was quite a bit going on behind the scenes with the WRL at the time about different possibilities and talking to different people.. Lewis to a certain extent lucky but he also knew the right people were in place in the WRL to make sure that Super League had a presence in Wales. To be fair Lewis also knew that it was a risk having a Welsh team and all the issues with it.. Personally i get the feeling Lewis couldnt give a toss about his reputation at all. If he did then he wouldnt take the risks that he has taken. Being outspoken about Quins' necessity to exist (or a london franchise), Franchising being needed and putting it into practice, getting Catalans in, Getting the welsh in. All of these were a massive massive risk, all of which could have made him look very very silly. The safest thing to do if he was that worried about his reputation was to do ###### all, pull the rug from under London and settle the game in the M62 corridor. He has taken massive risks that could make him look stupid and quite honestly we need that. these decisions are high risk but if they work (ie Wales gets a huge presence, London at last kicks on, the Championship clubs pull their socks up etc) the game will grow immeasurably and its that which we need.

Is that another one of your "exclusives" and insider knwoledge even though Lee posted that on this thread on the 7th at 2.48pm??

what if (and its a big IF) he actually proves you wrong, that he can bring the best out of these players?? that he can actually coach and that he has learnt from his mistakes at Bradford.. There is an argument that a good national coach is not necesasrily the same thing as a good club coach, you are dealing with different qualities of players and you have your pick of whoever you want (even more so in league where you can switch someones nationality like it was a light bulb!) so if there is an injury you dont have to worry about the salary cap or transfers or who you have in the squad in the academy etc you jut pick somene better.. also it is about massaging egos and gelling the team together from different squads rather than sorting out your club etc.. getting shot of a trouble maker is easier than at club level.. etc etc etc.. its an argument that i think applies to league as it does to every other sport.. i dont necessarily think Mcnamamanamayrmamarm will prove this to be correct in his case as i dont think he has the attributes to be a good national coach but what if he does... and proves you wrong?

spot on.

when a club goes bust it is historical it isnt the last year per se.. it is poor management for a long time.. liscencing has not caused this. umpteen sports are talking about this..l it has been spoken about in RU for some time, Northern Irish football did a similar thing last year in a different way granted but still its a liscencing.. The problem is the jump from semi pro to pro on all levels on field and off field that causes issues dropping down AND stepping up, liscening is there to try and ease this a little and to concentrate the champ clubs' minds on getting the businesses up to the level where by they can close this gap and reopen p&r or expand the Super League to incorporate all who can be involved.

so paragraph 1 we'll have crowds "not much more than 1k" then second paragraph "these sub-1k crowds" which is it ffs? second paragraph answer.. the way we do now?? Get your marketing right, get the comp marketed right and people will still come.. mabe not the droves that you seem to think came before (that actually didnt) but still they will come.. give liscencing a chance you havent even given it a round yet..

as per form.. the bit in bold is just not true is it.. as the last 3 years have proved and you have said earlier.. you have to win something to be able to apply (or at least get to a grand final) if you cant do that then you cant apply.. as such there is something to play for.. but rather than that being youir sole concern you also need to get other things sorted off the field to make sure that you are viable when you get up... (BTW you also lost out last time round.. sympathy goes to Widnes becuase of the way as a club they did and continued to respond to this. rather than Leigh's moneing and then continued on with the relegation last year of moqaning that they shouldnt have goen due to Tolouse etc etc.. and yet you put forward again the idea of clubs being ringfenced so that this can contiunue to happen yet fans of your own club could not cope with tis in champ one.. how the hell would they cope with it if a 14 team league had 3 ringfenced and you went down in 11th.. )

couldnt agree with this more.. in relation to sheffield with the rest of this thread.. i have said my peice often enough on it (as has lobby surely!)

to be fair if we didnt do that we would all have the same opinion and it would be very boring.. i could accuse you of exactly the same. I agree with some of that and some not so much.. you pick a couple f examples to prove your point yet thats a couple in a lot of matches.. IMO we dont win matches becuase we cant score the points.. thats not down to not having parity in the forwards but the forwards have to get you to positions to allow the play makers to get you into scoring positions.. ie.. the pack can dominate but our kciking game is sh*t at which point the pack can dominate within our 40 meters but becuase we kick down billy slaters throat he gets them back to starting a set onthe halfway line.. they arent so strong in the pack but still make 20-30 meters meaning their kick with their superior wingers etc is a much better attacking kick forcing us to drop out, or to concede, our pack pick it up on our line ad make 40-50 meters and agin our kick is shocking and so we repeat.. this has happened for the last 5 years or so when our kciking game has been terrible.. our centres dont make the breaks to get the pack into positions where the dominance turns into points.. dominance of forwards is not the same as field position etc. Our backs and half backs especially need to be able to control the rest ofthe game and at last it looks like we have half backs who can do this. our backs need to make breaks, need to be bossed around the pitch etc and this is starting to happen. enlgand losing their dominance for the last 20 conisistently which is fair does not mean they havent dominated.. as a pack the dominance in your own half the driving without much help etc wears you down more so than in a bouyant aussie side. with the help of scores on the back of good drives and breaks from the backs, and good kicking the forwards tend to perform better towards the end/keep on going longer. As far as i remember most aussie and kiwi breaks come in the backs (or hookers but we do that too) ver few are down the middle forward bashes.. our defence and attack in the backs has been a major issue over the past.. i dont believe our forwards have been (i may well be proved wrong this time out) but our backs have been the big issue

what if Wire put out a full team and beat saints.. saints then lose to a Hull side on a roll then Wire dont have to face them again anyway.. or they win, Saitns pick up a couple of injuries in their next match making them even weaker and letting wire win.. Huddersfield IIRC took the "doenst matter if we lose" view last year and look how far that got them!

let me just quote my "poor post" if you notice i said "dominated" not beaten.. that is very different.. we have not been dominated by another team.. you can get beaten without being trampled upon.. plus we were beaten for 20 minutes not for the whole game.. for the other 60 we were are least on a par in the pack, we were not dominated. bar that which is open to debate which other bits of it are poor?? in games where we have been equal with the other forwards our problem has always laid in the backs as i point out in other posts.. in the one you believe is a "poor post" i have pointed out how this is changing and how i can see that we are getting stronger in the positions. The aussies' backs are so dominant (and i use that term again deliberatly) that they destroy us when their forwards get on the front foot.. even if only for 1/4 of the game when our forwards are on the front foot we cannot do this and we struggle to score even with a dominant pack or just a good pack. our forwards not being dominated means that we are on an even keel, the game ebs and flows but to be winningt he arm wrestle for 60 minutes you should win the game, the reason we dont is the backs not completling the sets of 6 in the same fashion as the forwards start it. The point being we have the forwards and have done for a while, we are now starting to get the backs.

IIRC Eagles werent doing that badly (the crowd averages printed in RLW this week were quite interesting) until the owner (not really a sugar daddy but he had a bit of cash) was offered silly money for merging with Huddersfield.

can i please applaud this.. i love the idea of conferences, this helps expansion and you can always have cross division matches if you want the derbies etc.. the less derbies there are in the season the bigger that match becomes.. cross division matches which are derbies in two "magic" venues on one weekend (warm one!) would be great.

id also like to know how flanagan is nowhere near the england squad when you look at the others in there.

considering the financial climate i think its pretty good.. major shifts can be put down to form etc rather than every dropping etc.. i would say this is all quite good.. the drops (bar perhaps huddersfield) can be righted by sorting out the on field issues rather than sitting there thinking, #### no one has any money and no one is turning up.. (saints and hull kr are 2-3% which could just be fluctuations or actually a recession based drop but 2 from 14 down to that is good)

wouldnt disagree with that.. sam tomkins is an interesting one as you could pick him at both 6 and 1 as he has been the stand out at both.. be interesting if widdop starts at 6 for melbourne next season which way round they play at international level!

With regards to the dream team.. Jones Bishop would have been a fine shout without the injury i think.. and agree wellens shows we have an issue there.. the fact our full back could come of the reserve grade in aus is a worry.. why arent we producing full backs??

what the hell just happened thats 4!

triple post

dp

on any pitch it is hard to do anything if your forwards are being knocked backwards and you have no platform. If your forwards are going forwards and getting quick play the balls you get to control the pace of the game.. Like Dave i dont think we have done this right i the past and IMO taken the extra drive rather than releasing the backs as the aussies or kiwis would do. We dominate for periods but never make teams pay.. but without the forwards giving you that platfrom even the aussies would struggle to build much off it.