gingerjon

Leaping with knees out has always been an issue - this is not new. Do Sky not know any of this?

I remember the NARL launch. Is that the one you mean?

Good to see.

Radio said they simply don’t have enough players who are fit enough to do effective rotation.

For the 56

As we're being told (by some) the driver will be global markets, an understanding of the global markets will be key.

Agreed. There is no obvious reason for the NRL to spend their money only to immediately create something that will then lose them their investment. Now, whether they will torpedo it by accident is another debate.

Years ago, it was one of the benefits sold to players when joining London: you'll get an SL wage but not have to worry about being recognised in the street. I'd definitely take that but it appears some players need the extra validation.

It is quite revealing about someone’s understanding of the world outside their suburb that they are either surprised that rugby league in France and England does not have the visibility of the NRL in Oz and/or have the endearingly quaint belief that there is any chance of it becoming an equal or close to equal of soccer.

Giving the fairest interpretation possible: people in RL positively revel in negative views but do often rail against outsiders who also have negative viewpoints because those viewpoints are often (a) wrong, or, at least, lacking any understanding context, and (b) coming from a position of unearned superiority.

Wheelchair and men's youth fixtures coming up.

There is a certain type of confident business person or politician who ends up making the fatal assumption that the thing they've superficially read must go in their favour because they have been successful in besting people before. In broad strokes, they never like consensus (someone has to lose) and they don't trust the kind of pencil pushers who read the small print that they do actually need. Now, how could one possibly believe that of the current crop of RL leaders?

"How about you work with some Australians with no knowledge of the UK market before having done any work yourselves to make yourselves decent potential partners ...?" Honestly, some people really do believe it's all white knights or one simple trick.

You can always spot a properly run organisation because they only ever have meetings with their mates, have no Chair, and fail to notify anyone of anything. Still, the RL media have NRL gossip to run so no need to worry our heads about it.

As long as he plays Jaja Ding Dong

Again, unless and until I can see a piece from home that actually interrogates (a) why there is no RFL Chair, (b) what exactly the NRL would be “buying”, and (c) a full and frank apology for ever thinking the Hearns are worth including in your argument, then I’ll just assume he’s part of the noise and needs to actually address that too.

More than happy for people to point out it's a clunky mess. A lot of it is. But "they don't get any coverage" level observations, or even, "I'm not as famous here as when I was in the NRL" reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of what life outside a select section of a mostly distinct country is like.

STOP. MERGER TIME.

I don’t find any of that Sheffield story embarrassing though. You very specifically said expansion sides are embarrassing.

This is the thing. We know there are low levels of coverage. Every sport has low coverage over here unless it is (a) the specific tournaments of a very narrow and gradually declining set of establishment sports or (b) soccer. There is no answer to the issues the game faces that starts with “get more coverage” because that coverage is not going to magically appear. There are growing sports with significant money and growing fan numbers that get zero coverage. Coverage, in of itself, is not the answer and unlikely to be a driver.

In this context: World Club Challenge.

Your point is that Sheffield Eagles are embarrassing? We disagree.

I see very little day to day “hate” from most RU people to league these days. Obviously there are variations but, as an example, I saw a piece on the new Oz RU coach that was neutral to positive about his extensive RL background and went into a fair bit about it. A lot of the time, these days, it’s the kind of in built establishment arrogance that gets directed at most things anyway.

The current owners of Major League Baseball teams in the US come close. Test cricket has its moments. But, consistently, RL really does set new standards in self loathing.