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Posts posted by gingerjon
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2 minutes ago, Dave T said:
I knew you'd pop up on that point
I did think about not doing but figured it would be like an unfired Chekhov's gun.
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1 hour ago, Dave T said:
As in Hundred-type promotion big.
The RFL can't afford to lose that kind of money.
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4 minutes ago, Just Browny said:
I am a bit dense, can you explain a bit please.
I don't think the team lists thing makes an iota of difference really although it would probably help journalists if the provisional 17 was announced the day before so it could be printed in newspapers etc.
Australia is mental for gambling. Hooked on it more than any other nation. Normalised to an extent that makes the UK's relationship with booze look positively puritan.
Everything Australian sports do is structured around that - he said with a massive sweeping generalisation - therefore things like early team sheets are very useful to get people to think about their bet, the odds, what else to put some money on.
Being less cynical - Australia's number one sport is cricket and they obsess about team sheets so maybe it's more linked to that.
I'm going to go with the gambling reason though.
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31 minutes ago, Dave T said:
Headingly won't be used. It's too small for an Ashes game. I expect 'Leeds' has just been mentioned.
DW, Elland Rd and Spurs is pretty much what was announced in 2020, to almost universal praise (Bolton instead of Wigan).
Bolton is slightly larger than Wigan but, after that, you move into grounds that are much bigger.
How brave are the RFL feeling?
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Just now, gingerjon said:
Though those aren't complete.
There is also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Championship_(rugby_league)
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15 minutes ago, MatthewWoody said:
Do Yorkshire and Lancashire RL have a history as teams?
https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/teams/yorkshire/results.html
https://www.rugbyleagueproject.org/teams/lancashire/results.html
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11 hours ago, marklaspalmas said:
I'd go further. If PSG, Toulouse and a revamped Hughes-free Broncos joined a 12 team SL in 2026, it'd give that comp the biggest boost it's ever had.
It might even tempt me to start watching it again.
Not like you to fall behind three big city franchises being plonked into the top tier.
On thread, I had so many good times at Carlisle. It would be great to see them back but I think any expansion in Cumbria is further away now than ever.
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15 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:
Yeah agree Matt, it was one of the very good marketing ploys that the club entered into in the 'new era'. And as I said a combination of the old and new could also be a good winner for sales perhaps for Magic Weekend, the original Cherry and white hoops as the '71 Wembley Kit with the Leopard Crest on the Chest.
Because we disagree so much elsewhere - let me just say that I think that is exactly the right thing to do for something like Magic Weekend and would look so good.
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1 hour ago, Damien said:
I'm not even convinced that people on the Yorkshire side care that much more about this either.
Yorkshire v Lancashire means something at cricket. It's a little smirk about 'auld enemy' for anything else.
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Just now, Dave T said:
There are podcasts and stuff in Aus because there is demand, because they have large audiences. In the UK we have all these thngs for bigger sports.
It isn't that the UK needs to catch up with Australia on things, far from it - it's that we are comparing two massively different sized sports in their market.
Usual caveat, that this view doesn't absolve the RFL of any incompetence.
If you take a step back, it's quite easy to appreciate that the team list thing, in fact, quite possibly the whole structure of game week, works around what bookies want.
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5 minutes ago, Eddie said:
So are the dates of every round of the league and cups, they just haven’t drawn the teams yet.
I hadn't checked but looks like you're right.
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10 minutes ago, phiggins said:
Let's be honest, the 8s didn't remove minimum standards. The failure to enforce them throughout the summer era did that.
Agree in many ways - but they were formally lowered, and the monitoring of them reduced, with the move to Middle 8s.
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13 minutes ago, Sports Prophet said:
42% of people voting on this forum have voted to bring it back. I wouldn’t say that is good demonstration of no-one giving a toss.
This is likely to be the most pro-Roses group you could find, with the exception of the League Express mailbag.
And it's still getting trounced.
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1 minute ago, Archie Gordon said:
It's all about the game's (lack of independent) leadership - most else is a distraction.
We agree on that.
And what we're seeing now does look a lot more like leadership than we've had in the recent past - albeit that's not saying much and there are still too many weak points.
But, being blunt, everything in the game hinges on the value that the top tier can create. There will no money for development, no money for community clubs, no money for any of the myriad ideas that could make things better if properly delivered, without a top tier drawing in more broadcast money and significant sponsorship.
Saying that and acting on that does mean that the top tier needs to be as commercially strong and ready, as it is performance strong and ready.
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3 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:
I would regard these as scraps offered from the high table.
You'd regard restructuring the league and moving its entire focus from the top of the table to the middle 8s as being scraps?
The deliberately unbalanced funding in the Championship, meaning a handful of the same clubs had budgets, from central funding alone, of double or triple the amount of other clubs in the same division. Scraps?
Removing minimum standards so there was no need to even pretend to do anything to their grounds?
Thankfully, we do seem to be moving on from it all. It's just a shame we have a lost decade of investment and massive contraction to show for it.
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3 minutes ago, Archie Gordon said:
I agree with just about all of that but I find the idea that we are held back by a rump of clubs - who are simultaneously both rubbish and powerful - to not be true. These clubs aren't powerful and they aren't really catered for. The failure to achieve a vibrant elite league with growing revenues isn't really about sidelining the demands of some also-rans, it's about a lack of vision.
If you're talking about the middle block of 4-5 (max) clubs currently outside Super League but with possible aspirations to be Super League then they absolutely have been catered for. From unbalanced Championship funding to the dropping of minimum SL standards, to the entire focus of a league restructure being around the 'promotion to SL 8s' at the expense of the actual title end of the division.
The same meat raffle and nostalgia approach that gave us the lack of development of the women's game as independent, the 2019 Lions Tour, the Challenge Cup final day as 'stack em high and sell em cheap', and a complete loss of sponsors.
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2 minutes ago, Jim from Oz said:
Later on in the article it has RLPA Boss Clint Newton saying they are looking at a 22 game season… Which is an odd number of games to play when there are 20 teams
It's 24 games from 17 teams now so just a different variation of odd, I guess.
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1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:
the next contract negotiations after another couple of years of IMG involvement in the game from the last contract negotiations will surely raise the next contract substantially, don't you think?
A lot will depend on whether there is any interest from non Sky broadcasters and/or if a deal can be done for different slots as the Premier League manages to do.
Cricket recently couldn't find a buyer for its secondary internationals package, deals are not rising quickly away from soccer for most sports.
A few pages back, the rising offer for the women's football top division was used a stick to beat IMG. Their amount is smaller than ours, and the headline figure includes the costs for Sky producing every game as part of the deal. But, they are likely in a stronger position because there is a whole suite of commercial support coming in.
That's where we need to get to. A strong TV deal - or deals - aligned with a much more diverse commercial portfolio. I think we're doing the right things but there's still a lot of hard work, and probably a bit of luck, to get there.
So you keep trying to knock it down, or make it all about you, I'll keep hoping that the game moves forward.
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1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:
Just a thought.
Indeed - and until anything comes along to say that was the case, one that can be ignored.
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4 minutes ago, Dave T said:
I wouldn't leave you in charge of the marketing tbh
I've already done a deal to give away a family ticket with each purchase of a small tub of garlic and herb soft cheese at Lidl.
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2 minutes ago, Eddie said:
Yeah maybe an ashes warm up but not a regular non negotiable grand finale to the season. How many people went when we played them in Toulouse as a curtain raiser to the Fev game, it doesn’t seem to spark much interest over there either.
It wouldn't be a grand finale to the season - I think you're misreading the idea. England play France the week after the Grand Final, the week after that, they both go off and play their real opponents having had a warm up.
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3 minutes ago, Eddie said:
You’d get about 5,000 people there, it wouldn’t wash its own face financially.
You'd play it in France as a warm up game for both countries. It would serve a purpose without the pressure of being *the* game. I'd definitely want one before the Ashes next year.
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1 minute ago, NRLandSL said:
England have only beaten France by 40 points or more once in the past 9 years. They are not awful completely one sided games.
Stop pretending that one side winning by more than four tries when barely breaking sweat is a competitive game.
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Just now, Damien said:
Yep, I'm not a fan of Lancashire v Yorkshire but stuff like Greater Manchester is even more ridiculous.
The only good thing to come out the Hundred - and even then it was sort of borrowed from the regional women's game - is that when Manchester Originals play Northern Superchargers, the commentators call it a 'Rose-ish' match.
Vegas Again/2025 and WCC
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Oh look:
The NRL needs Vegas to make financial sense quickly. That means selling all 65,000 seats and an uptick in viewing figures to outweigh the travel costs, stadium hire and hassle. With TV deals already in place to cover every game, these events need to be added to the calendar or severely souped up to make money.
Also - don't think I've seen it put on here - Matthew Shaw reporting there will be no WCC next year.