gingerjon

That seems fair. The Xmas specials are sleb ones so losing them is no big deal - even if they are blocked from repeats, the actual contestants in this series deserve to have their efforts shown.

Maybe some clubs are good at this (Wigan?, Leigh fans seems to like what they get from the club by way of communication) but I see more good content from Hastings United than I do from pretty much any RL team. There's no point saying we'll do it all in house if you then don't produce anything to keep people interested.

Blackbrook isn't that wild a name.

It's obvious, isn't it? Nothing that applies to Tonga and Samoa applies to Scotland and Ireland, or, indeed, anywhere else. And that's if we take it at face value that the ARLC/NRL has done anything proactively and strategically in the first place, as opposed to reacting, belatedly, to some very good fortune around demographics in New South Wales, Queensland and New Zealand. A real organisation would be responding to the numbers put up in the European Rugby League report and talking about what they mean, and what might be possible to take each country in that list to the next stage. But it's not a real organisation and nobody actually cares.

Because Penrith never wanted to play the game.

It is not good enough for the sport that the only way to have sides from London and Cardiff in its upper tiers is to play within an other sport’s off season.

Despite being very pleased to see London moving up, this is simply not good enough.

Have fun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eligible_receiver

Highest paid CFL player - $600k pa Lowest paid MLB player - $740k

He's a snake oil salesman whose cart has run out of snake oil. There's nothing there that's not been said before and no ideas and plans that make any sense when put against what they're meant to achieve. He thrives on the fact that so many folk in RL have the memories of goldfish and a view of other sports that hasn't moved since 1985.

It is by gridiron standards.

https://x.com/LatinHeatRL/status/1863434636640325809

I'd trust the players to know what's best for themselves as players - I'd not be asking them how to sustainably grow a new market, secure sponsors etc. That's not their role. And, as ever, the difference between what players say when playing and what they reveal afterwards is often quite wide. We had a load of England women's cricketers talking up international double headers and co-tours a while back. Now they're in the commentary box, they tend to say they hated being second fiddle.

The women's game is still in its C B Fry era. It won't be for much longer.

This is a useful corrective to the flights of fancy we can all fall prey to.

New one for me: asked to pick the official player of the match in my role as club photographer. It was Rosie Muggeridge, since you ask.

AFLW is doing pretty well for stand alone attendance and participation - it's just very obviously at the (being kind) embryonic stage in terms of having enough quality players on the field. The recent season was a bit of a car crash but seems to have done okay for attendances considering. NRLW is a real success and shows that when you have competitive RL, it's an almost unbeatable sport to watch. Double headers are a sign of cowardice in taking it further.

The difference between, say, the ongoing NRL plans which balances the league's own strategy, that of the local governments, the resources the people involved in each consortium, with the limited number of places available versus "there's some blokes who can get on that new pitch in Goole". It's not the same.

The Copa Libertadores on BBC Three is not disappointing so far. Ten man Botafogo leading 2-0 heading to half time.

Right now, on Sky, you can watch South Carolina at Clemson which has 81,500 people in the stands.

About that ... was listening to Five Live earlier ... someone lamenting that for the Champions League they don't put the big screen on. "UEFA standard" right there.

Why do we want to appeal to families in Yeovil? I'm just not seeing any real difference between a speculative "we need to develop across the UK" and a speculative "we should develop outside the UK", or even, "we need to develop in these random towns nearish the M62 that have never shown any interest in RL before".

Again, why? That's just repeating the same idea but with more words.

20 years ago?

It was 30+ years ago?