gingerjon

We should do that thing of getting someone to tell them their sport’s really boring and ours is much better and harder. They’ll love that.

Because that’s how deals are negotiated

This appears to be your lot.

It's either dodgy, which is always possible, or some poor sod who's in charge of doing the updates has the app on his phone, it's in his pocket, and he keeps unknowingly adding tries and kicks.

6,700 watching on the BBC Sport website, not sure if iPlayer gives you the numbers. But that's not bad at all for a pretty hidden game on the same time as higher profile competitions.

He's a poor lad.

KICK. TO. COME.

Flashscore is saying it's 22-0 after 16 minutes. Clearly some kind of glitch or scam going on there, then.

Not really, as it implies we get some balance the other way. We do not. We have an absence of positive viewpoints because our entire groupthink small world RL media fall over themselves to be cynics and to tell it like it is. Reporting the truth would be that after a tough off season, the top tier has never actually looked stronger in terms of clubs on an upward trajectory. Reporting the truth would be reporting the very, very, very many positives and compelling stories to have come out of this round of the Cup. Bower has chosen to do neither.

Yes. This is their excuse every time they write this article.

Fair. Their old name was an abomination though and rightly consigned to the history books.

It's not a real group. It's not a real discussion.

It's decent enough, I think. That said, does anyone play there over the winter cos that pitch is looking ... interesting.

To be fair, it didn't until about 15 minutes before kick off.

Now on the main Sport Featured page. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/l0056y4m/rugby-league-challenge-cup-2025-bradford-bulls-v-castleford-tigers

There won't be. The iPlayer is genuinely appalling for finding sport, particularly live sport. That goes across all sports.

It does sound quite fun, doesn’t it?

BBC are showing Bradford v Castleford on the iPlayer and Sport website.

It didn’t work. The idea that journalism pays the bills by clickbait and/or rage shares has long ago been somewhat disproved by those who pedal it consistently losing money.

It's probably the double whammy of his recent pre-written, "This Challenge Cup format has failed" before a game in the round had even kicked off, followed by this, that got me. I'd probably normally let it slide. But, yes, RFL/SL need to be a lot better at leading the narrative.

We've had quite a tough off season after a few difficult years. But the start of this Super League season actually hits at an optimistic time in the sense that the clubs within it look stronger than they have been for a while, we've just had/are having a surprisingly lovely Challenge Cup round, and we've got rid one of the problems of previous years, that of overlapping kick off times. All that *and a trip to Vegas*.

We get so few media articles. If this was one out of a bunch then I'd barely notice it. Football, even RU, have their dour columns, after all. Cricket practically revels in misery. But this will likely be the only real article for several days.

Not me. Well, not on this occasion. The doomladen groupthink in the RL media gets another airing: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/feb/08/bright-lights-of-las-vegas-cannot-dim-the-dark-clouds-over-super-league Comments on the original bowel movement are sadly closed.

I'm sure we will get another page about how the Challenge Cup is dying but, going on experience, that will be based on pretending that there has been some time in past forty years when a non semi final/final game was a bigger draw between two sides who will play each other in Super League. If the draw is made next weekend, that's still four weeks before the games.

Obvious astroturf group is obvious