RP London

WTF is wrong with you lobby... care-in-the-community style fans.. what the hell are you on about?? Batley have brought through an English only mentality whih will help with players and coaches developing, they are wanting to win things for the sake of winning things not for what that might lead to (the way amateurs do) and if they play well they personally will move up the tree arguably faster than a club would/could.. what exactly is wrong with this? how well supported relatively have Batley been in the past btw?

not that we should go down the line of leigh bashing.. but if you take away tolouse's games from last year and all the points various teams wonagainst them.. Leigh still finnished 2nd to bottom.

they were very simple and not looked at in depth but it was 1 point or 0 yes.. but that is the way to do it.. the detail will come in when you have people on equal liscences and so who is closes to the "premier standard" mark. As i am not a surveyor or anything similar i dont know what premier competition standard is.. as i say it seems to be a recognised mark and can be assesed probably with a 500 page document guiding you if it is similar to half the recognied marks we deal with is anythng to go by.. i would expect becuase they tick other boxes on the liscence application tha wakey, cas and salford do not.. (this is more than a stadium comp asyou well know as you have been told often enough) but why dont you ask the RFL..

who is saying anyone should be forced to? if clubs think that they can make it on their own then that is fine.. as wigan did.. even with P&R there are a huge swathe of the clubs who will not be able to get there or grow to the level they need to to be a sustained championship challenger.. the discussion is more about whetyher they area good idea to get 1 strong team rather than 3 weak teams, or 2 weak teams.. whether they would attract more by having a wider spread of potential support etc no one has said you force clubs to merge it is just an option, whih sometimes may be the best option IF the clubs or areas want to have the strong presence and which will sometimes open a lot more avenues up to the teams and larger catchment areas.. re the bit in bold.. there are as many idiots who would have RL retract back to the M62 and the rest can go hang and let the sport die on its ######.. there are very few who want either.. most are looking atthe best way forward in their opinion and the best way to grow the game to the best of its ability..

if you dont know the standards then how do you know there is not any of the other bits? or was thi just an excuse to have an illinformed rant? There are criteria set out as has been pointed out.. i would expect that they are quite complicated when you look at "premier stadium" and there is much within that.. all of which is no doubt given to clubs so taht they know what to get up to.. but do they really need to give us huge documents for us to poor over who have no specialist knoweledge of what does and does not count etc.. there would be even more arguments of "well this does count" or "well that doesnt count" when looking at these regs but an expert would tell you one way or another, some will agree some will not.. technicalities or leases.. standard of facilities (remember angela powers haing great difficulty deciding if something counted when she did this 2-3 years ago).. FWIW aquick google to get to the old standards as done by boots and all had 4 points fr stadium related issues: 12k plus capacity premier competiiont standard (i believe thi is a recognised set of criteria across all sports) avg crowd of 10k+ working at 40% capacity

ok so we;ll add another category of "wanting to survive" if you like but the rest doesnt change.

SL v NRL is a, quite frankly, stupid comparison on attenances and profit.. the sports are living in totally different circumstances.. the point is that warrington are building well and in an upward trend.. this is a good thing.

Walt.. with the premiership the team you support now adays very rarely equates to the area you live.. as such any of the north western teams could be pulling their support from warrington and people going to watch there. lets get it right.. thi is a great news story and their averages are fantastic compared to other teams and to what they used to have.. their aim should be to sell out the ground of course it should as should everyone elses but that doesnt mean anything else is a failure.

whats good for the goose is not always good for the gander.... one area may be great for a merger the other may not.. It depends what you are happy with as the smaller clubs. If you are happy to be that smaller club where Super League is a pipe dream quite frankly with or without P&R then that is fine. the supporters that dont want to watch the lower level can go somewhere else and support another team and thats fine no issue. But if said lower team thinks that they want to at last be a part of something bigger then a merger sometimes is the only way forward..

i'm not sure i would have magic weekend as the heritage round.. but only IF the idea is to get new people interested and give them soemthing recognisable.. otherwise it is the perfect time to do something novel.. IF it is for new people then i thikn they need to be in their kits so these new people know what is going on and whoe they are supporting.. IF it is about a great weekend away for the Rugby League fans (which i think it should be now) then heritage is great and novel and makes it a bit different.. i would love to see a rivalry round brought in.. and try to theme more rounds.

what about those without a link to break, what about those who just want to watch top flight rugby league? what about those that dont go now to some of these clubs becuase they are not linked to them.. give them a club they feel a part of.. ie not Rochdale but north manchester, South Yorkshire not Sheffield.. maybe they will want to be involved then.. with the larger catchment area maybe more will come.. you say all the above and yet it has worked in some places with mergers in football, it has worked in RL in aus, it CAN work.. each merger needs to be taken on its own merits.. you and your mates may not want to go.. but if 3,000 more people do and we lose you and your mates then that is a price that is worth paying.. its about NEW people to the game as well as the old people... it is the old supporters that support the club due to the link and the whole point of mergers is that there are not enough of these old supporters with the link to make the clubs viable entities at the top level.. if there were (ie Saints, Bradford, Leeds, Wigan) the merger talk does not appear (unless we go back to 1995 at which point it was the whole "new era" idea) its only where one, two or three clubs in the same area are struggling that it gets mentioned.. you have a link fantastic, but that link and bond is not enough for enough people to make a viable top 2-3 teams in that one area.. sever the link, new team representing everyone and all of a sudden MAYBE there is a chance of the club being strong enough. as i say i am not saying that all mergers will work or that all are viable but just becuase some people say "i wont go every again" is not a good enough reason to not do them.. its about long term good and that is about new supporters surely, and so mergers are all about will it attract new supporters and whether looking to the future the clubs as seperate entities will be viable at the top level in the future and if the top level is impotant to them.

and AS I SAY that is fine.. (i dont understand the relevance of "its a leisure activity").. but how many will be attracted to these new clubs compared to those that are lost.. as long as the numbers new outwiegh the numbers lost then go for it.. if not then dont... what it is/isnt is irrelevant... wha you go and do afterwards is irrelevant.. the key is.. how many people in the area will stop watching a merged club vs how many people in the area will go to watch a merged club.. if the latter is bigger then it should be a merged club.. again as i have said (i really dont think you read any of my posts) as i say it can be a vocal minority but it can still be a minority... the point is as i have said that mergers per se are not necessarily a bad thing.

i dont know what that has to do with the bit of my post you quoted to be honest.. especialy when put in with the rest of the post which said: so you may be one of those lost.. but how many will be attracted.. if the attracted does not outweigh the lost then fair enough THAT merger is not a goer.. it doesnt mean all arent and if the attracted does outweigh the lost then maybe its worth doing.

Hope you dont mind but gonna be devils advocate a bit on this and pick a few holes.. great idea but how are the football clubs going to feel using the satdiums in one of hte busier periods of their season when the pitch is normally at its worst with poor weather only just finnishing and the fear of it being churned up by 2 games on the weeknd.. plus all the teams chosen need to be away etc.. plus its very cold to be sitting around for 2 matches.. one issue IMO withhe magic weekend in edinburgh in may was it wastoo cold IIRC one of the reason for the move to August was to avoid the FA cup final and play offs.. also if it starts in May then the first round and prelim rounds would need to be played much earlier which puts some of the amateur clubs at a disadvantage.. the summer ones.. becuase it is outside of their season but right slap bang in the iddle of the winter clubs.. with the possible move of all amateur comps to the summer then you wont be able to start these rounds in jan/feb whih you would need to do.. one of hte bonuses at the moment is that it is on a bank holiay weekend so you can get away with going for all of the 2 days and not hae to race home on the sunday for family/go to work on monday morning.. it gives you the extra day for family time (which is very useful to use as a bargaining tool) to get home, to have in mgic city with the family etc.. would it be so good to have on a weekend without the bank holiday? i love the idea of themed rounds i think it is great in australia and i agree it needs a refresh just thouh i would chuck some of the spanners in that will get thrown in by all sorts of people when they start thinking about these types of things.

"man sits with mates watching game of Rugby" shock... He may well be on his way to Australia but the "proof" that he is is tenious at best.. he spent a good while at manly, he has freinds there, he is spending time with his mates while recovering from an op hardly enough to convict him of wanting to leave to go to any aussie club. As i say he may well do, he may well go in the winter but none of this makes any difference and none of it is proof in anyway shape or form and none of it will be convincing him one way or the other.. its not like he doesnt know what its like to live in aus or what te clubs are like FFS! 4 days and no word from your friends? me thinks the "made up" guess of who the friends are may be accurate.

but surely the thing is that that is aboslutely fine.. and you may find that Rochdale attracts those p*ssed off fans that a"North Manchester Titans" creates.. however, three will be a good number that feel the same way as Sleeper and would go and watch the NMTs and beyond those already interested in teams a more general North Manchester Titans side may well attract a brand new bread and set of speccies from areas that before hand would not have been interested due to the parochialism of some of the teams and names even. For all those that are Rochdale through and through how many people int he surrounding area wouold not go and watch Rochdale unless it were on fire? how many dont go to watch their "local" team becuase to them it is not local to them? This can then be encompassed in these merged entities. For example: When Sheffield "merged" with Huddersfield and the Sheffield fans pulled away from the game how many went to Doncaster? if it happened again and Sheffield were no more how many would go to Doncaster? how many from DOncaster would go to sheffield? not many i would hazard a guess.. yet a merged entity between the two that didnt have Doncaster or Sheffield in the name necessarily would attract a large number of these speccies for super league, not only that but it would stand a chance of bringng in fans from all over the area, those in Rotherham who may not want to go and watch a "sheffield" side etc.. I dont really know which is right the above is just another way to look at it IMO.. in the same way as you should not measure everything by the SL you should not go ahead with things due to a minority, very vocal that it can be it may well be the minority of that larger area your trying to hit and enourage through the door.

no it wasnt.. it was the same as anyone playing younger players agianst older players.. remember the NL3 was not the standard it is today.. when we played them we knew the age and treated it as such..

you misunderstand/i didntmake it clear.. its not playing for one then the other iunderstand that dont like it but understand it.. its about when you can change.. there was some rule about world cup cycles.. you couldnt change within a world cup cycle.. as such qualification re started at the final whistle of the last world cup, after that you played for one you couldn play for another until the final whistle of the 2013 world cup final.. stupidy you could play in that world cup final for one team then turn out for another the next day.. as such playing in 2009 would rule him out.. (i have no issue with people qualifying to play, justnot when they have played for anyone else ever IMO)

many of those people are not on this board to defend themselves and i for one will not speak on their behalf as i only know their bit of the story... however, you have made some quite disparagine remarks with limited knoweldge yourself and these people do not deserve that.. being called #### for instance is not on.

i agree with that but as the OP said he did in the 2008 world cup

if he played in 2009 then he cannot change oversurely.. is it no longe the case that if you play for somoen in an world cup cycle you cant play for anyone else?

nigel wood will be after them

how much of this is down to things that happened pre nigel wood though... how many are due to chasing P and avoiding R?

franchising has only been around for less than 3 years now.. so i thikn that is a harsh call.. what we can see happning is the teams in super league having their focus changed to the stadiums (this would not have happened without it) and on youth set ups.. Championship clubs setting up youth teams that they did not have before. yes there are better stadiums but as is alwasy said it isnt a stadium contest there is more to it.. Huddersfield... what happens if many benefactors die.. its not a valid argument around franchisisng. Thy may rather spend it on aussies but this is where the quotas come in as well they spend money on better aussies.. youth get more of a chnce (some of hte youth academies are still in their infancy so you cant expect them to churn these players out in the same way but the move towards it is there) At the moment there is movement in these areas that was not and would not hae been there before.. ad that is all you can expect in such a short space of time. i know a lot of people that like it.. whos the better side the one that wins loads of matches but gets humped in just as many or the team that wins a few less but is in contention in all the matches they play?? debatable surely.. not only that but you play to the system you have featherstone could have done the same if htey hadn got humped in a couple of games.. you ply to the system.. but the system has generated ome fantastic games in the past couple of years that would have trailed off with 10 to go without it.. IMO it works but in your it doesnt.. no problem but the job of hte governing board is if the split is 50-50 ish, to chose the best option, he has to make the decision rightly or wrongly and then deal with the issues of fans being annoyed.. i am sure you would notwant to make that decision knowing you are going p*ss off half the fans and have to deal with the ramificatons of moanng clubs day and night (he will be called at night by plenty of people and on the weekends etc).. and that is partly where the wage is based. the RFL may think "the visa might not be right" but as long as the paperwork is sent to them is ok then surely innocent till proven guilty? i am sure people do hate the way crusaders were treated.. but it doesnt mean that for the good of the gae in the long term it wasnt perhaps the right thing to do to get a team in wales and develop the game there.. they gave them a massive advantage in a way.. but htey were also at a huge disadvantage becuase they ahve to attract players to bridgened from their home towns, they have no real local kids to pick (that arent contracted some how to the biggest game in their area RU) and they dont have the resources that ost heartland clubs have.. the lee way is given while these things get put in place.. otherwise expansion clubs are at a huge disadvantage meaning the growth in that area is less.. look at melbourne (yes they broke the rules horrifically) but the game in the area is now growing hugely becuase of that success.. success normally breads interest (though i am not saying they should all do a melbourne but that a bit of leeway is not neceesarily a bad thing for hte game as a whole) yes that was an ###### up of hte highest proportions IMO and that is a fair comment, i think he is doing a good jo, whether he is the right man i dont know, who else is there that is prepared to do it.. maybe he is the right man from the options available.

the funding that is being cut is the funding that has been ringfenced for the move to Saford and the Digital switchover.. as such once done they will look at it and say.. right you dont need that cash.. it wont affect anything if we take it off you as that is purely what the cash was for.. so apparently it would not change anything in the service offered.. apparently.