gingerjon

Oh god, the "but there are hundreds of thousands of Aussies in London" argument is back. Jesus. Nobody has a clue, do they?

Looking at that, I'm not convinced the RFL of a month ago would necessarily pass with flying colours. I am convinced that the latest shenanigans don't improve that situation.

Like I say, thirty years … The crowd doesn’t look too bad except for the empty terrace TBH.

Understood.

Cup crowds are low. Have been for 30 years now. In that context, the numbers there seem to be in the ballpark of the expected.

Anonymous defences are fine.

These are people who believe that nobody in other sports work hard to take advantage of their opportunities. They think it's all down to one simple trick.

Don’t ever change, Martyn.

Nobody else in their right mind should come within a country mile of rugby league.

Honestly, those now with their hands on the tiller will not remotely care.

Or by having someone resign a post for a few weeks whilst they do some work for the people who make the decisions, get the decisions agreed, and then return to their post. If this was union, there'd be no debate about whether it's fishy.

In any vaguely serious sport, this would be worthy of sanction. But we’re run by people who think the game needs characters to be successful.

I'm getting strong Imperial Japan vibes.

I very much do not mind that.

They are the ones who change their minds every two years and then wonder where all the outside investment has gone. So, yes.

Pretty much this. I would be sad to see the name London Broncos go but I was still there during the Quins days and will be behind whatever comes next, assuming something does come next as it appears to be doing. A relaunch has to be a clean break and a proper fresh start.

The numbers are all wrong because he made them up. It is a waste of your time.

It doesn’t even really matter now but it should be obvious that a key issue we have is that we juggle everything around every two years. You can’t build relationships with sponsors like that and you don’t build fanbases that way either.

All the clubs will need to have been promised is “you know that hard thing, you won’t need to do that now”. The game did it when reducing minimum standards at the end of licensing - with the results of so many weakened clubs we now see. So this is likely to lead to more going to the wall and, somehow, even less investment in community and women’s.

And they would have put: new stadium deal, sponsorship arrangements, increased ticket sales, future investment. With some fancy numbers and realistic sounding schedules next to them. So nothing would actually be different, although they might have scored better.

Hadn't seen that. The contents are not remotely surprising, are they?

I genuinely wasn’t sure. A lot of online RL fans lean nostalgic. It’s interesting if that group is not in favour of yet more needless shake up.

I assume in a positive sense?

Given that one of the things (some of) the club chairman have been indulged in by their press fluffers is the belief that they have been blindsided by things like having to pay IMG. If that's true, and given that the partnership is 12 years, which of the two sides - IMG on the one side, the canny businessmen of the SL chairman grouping on the other - is more likely to have a watertight contract that means they will hoover up money in the event of one party attempting to derail it?

Well, they're in charge now so all their great ideas which will now be implemented flawlessly will have immediate benefits for the good of the whole game.