gingerjon

Bingo. You can agree that we're not exploiting those strengths enough, or that we should be stronger. But any list of RL strengths would start with the game of RL itself. So, yes, don't think that RL has any strengths at all then I'm going to have to assume you don't actually like the game itself.

Well under the home average for both coming along too. If they're not enthused enough to turn up then why would any neutrals be? (And that's not a criticism of either club - just an observation of the fact that if the committed aren't committed then how are the uncommitted going to become so)

We do. We have tens of thousands of previous ticket buyers for Challenge Cup finals and internationals in London and the south who won't be going to this game. And that's not because they've suddenly decided they hate the six again rule or that franchising really annoyed them. It's because the RFL is failing to sell this game as an event they want to go to.

It comes back to the failure to create an event. The double header exists as a way to get more club fans along - it's not any kind of strategy to engage a neutral/event goer.

So your belief is that the game in the UK has no strengths. None at all. Not that it's weaknesses outbalance the strengths but that it has no strengths. Not even the fact that it's about the most exciting sport there is. You don't even believe that.

Not really. Having been at the non league (football) finals day, it's fairly standard that double headers save money but the majority of fans don't watch both games.

Again, an issue that comes up when the focus is moved away from the elite competition.

I'll make it simple because I know you are. The idea of having a double header is to make something that is greater than the sum of its parts. It never works like that. What happens instead is that the curtain raiser event gets overlooked by pretty much everyone because it's unimportant and the main event is of no interest to the few who are there for the undercard. But the presence of both means everything gets just that bit more stretched, that bit more watered down ...

Which shows exactly the problem with diluting the Challenge Cup final.

24 week sentence and 10 year football banning order. CCTV and he admitted guilt so fast track justice.

How many have been sold away from the clubs?

You don't think rugby league in the UK has any strengths? For a sport played seriously in only a few pockets of the country, it does remarkably well whenever reports like this roll round: https://harris-interactive.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2019/10/Sports-Participation-Viewing-and-Fandom-in-the-UK-A-Harris-Interactive-Report.pdf Obviously, we could be stronger. Obviously, there are things we've done wrong. But, equally obviously, we're still standing and there are plenty of other sports/clubs that would kill to be in our position.

Given all that has gone wrong with that third series - two year delay, major character being unavailable for large chunks of filming, injury to another, covid restrictions - it is remarkable just how good it was. Yes, some major flaws in the storytelling when set against previous series but the standard was ludicrously good throughout. And that final section was something else - in amongst all the laughs, possibly Liam Neeson's finest acting performance and all he did, objectively, was look at a piece of paper and take his hat off.

Christ. A song that owed its entire success to its opening 20 seconds being used as the soundtrack to an attractive young woman selling jeans ... which meant that nobody who bought it had heard the dirge that followed.

I think what the Eagles could do without for the foreseeable future is anyone projecting anything onto them that goes beyond them existing and developing as a club for themselves. The Eagles' only responsibility is to themselves. If 'rugby league' wants more than that then it can cough up for it.

Yes, on checking, it looks like you're right. Doncaster Rovers tookover the RL side in 2013.

Assuming that Wikipedia(*) and its attendant links are correct then, in League 1, it appears to be one: Keighley. Championship, it's Barrow, Batley, Dewsbury, Fev, Whitehaven and Workington. (* factual corrections welcome)

They are tweaked every so often. The current details are here: https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/846404/how-does-the-county-championship-scoring-system-work

As I said before just say LONDON DONS out loud to know why that should never be the name.

I've not come across anyone finding the concept particularly challenging TBH. This could be because, being entirely southern based these days, people tend to come across the play offs and the Grand Final and just assume that's how things are.

"The Grand Final is like the Super Bowl" tends to sort that quite quickly. And there is nothing more complicated in sport than the Cymru Premier splitting into two groups of six and then having the bottom three teams from the top six and the top team from the bottom six play off so they can decided who is going to play in the Scottish Challenge Cup next year.

I can't remember the details but weren't they included in the number of Championship games that Sky committed to showing?

Just say it out loud, "The London Dons" and you'll work out why it will never happen. You stand more chance of getting Wimbledon Broncos. But that will only happen in the season we move to Sutton.

Sky buy a certain number of games. There is a massive negative for Sky if a sizeable number of them aren't that interesting. Incidentally, I don't actually believe the value is dependent on the structure but a mish mash of what the general rights market is doing (going down/getting tougher for everything but some football), a guarantee of compelling fixtures and being able to deliver an audience. The problem the 8s have always had for me is that it was the laser eyed focus on relegation/the mediocre clubs that those in charge had that was quite revealing about their priorities and monumental shortcomings.