gingerjon

Let's see what the next stage brings. We can do no more.

Merely is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Calling the process into question does rather mean that nobody involved in the evidence assessing or sentence giving stage so far can be called independent or fair.

There's either a smoking gun which basically does show the RFL have somehow distorted what happened, and Aston can produce this, or there's a lot of people keen to downplay what happened and hurl the kitchen sink to defend a mate.

Has the appeal gone in?

Belatedly, and rather revealingly, I've twigged that this means there won't be any attempt made for a women's international to be played.

"It’s all very well having the Challenge Cup Finals and internationals as double-headers..." It's actually not, and it would be the worst of all worlds to have the Women's SL Grand Final yet another curtain raiser. I agree that it should move to a neutral venue. It's going to be between two M62 teams for the foreseeable so it's not like anyone is going to be expected to make an impossible journey at short notice.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it's an RL Commercial call as well. For better or worse. Make the whole international focus the series against Australia. Don't allow anything underwhelming (and likely loss making) to get in the way.

Tonga v Samoa would be highly likely to be played in either Australia or New Zealand. It creates no more logistical problem than any other game involving people who ordinarily play in Australia or New Zealand.

Perfect is the enemy of good. Just play the dang internationals.

Possibly it's just timing. Licensing, especially by the second go round, was really, really, really badly done and built in complacency. The 'stick' element being here this time appears to be essential to things happening. Also, I think the fact that clubs have to be more visible - this is not just RL, it's what sports in a social media age look like - means they do actually have to visibly do things. There's a fair bit that needs tweaking and fixing, and we have a long way to go, but it still looks like the right direction to me. And it still looks a lot better than licencing.

Understand without necessarily agreeing with your concerns - except this. Licensing was the poorer version of licensing. Nothing really changed. This time we are seeing clubs take steps to address their scores. That simply did not happen last time, at all.

I don't think I knew that one.

Good to know. But it's what Beaumont will be pushing for - a closed shop. And that will be factoring in to why he's gone back on his word to leave the club altogether.

Your hero with his five year plan has stated his desire for a 2x10 that would jettison clubs 21 onwards. The only thing he disagrees with the closed shop SL wanters (I'm not one of those, by the way) is he sets the closed shop under club 20 rather than 12 or 16.

Indeed, remember it well. It was also 30 years ago. Where we are now, is that the sport is essentially bankrupt in any meaningful sense of being able to do much beyond managed decline. The only way we can see to address this is to bring more money into the game. We have the entire history of the sport to show that the only way we get money in is by selling the **** out of the top tier of the game. The media, entertainment and eyeballs market now means that that top tier has to be as able to take what few opportunities we have as ruthlessly commercially as possible. I'm not in favour on continuing the game's decline therefore I accept we need to do things to get the more money in in that ruthlessly commercial way. There are no alternatives that anyone has put forward that offer any hope of improving things for the whole game. Some proposed alternatives do seem to make life a little better for the top of the Championship though. So, in essence, more of the same failed thinking that has left the game in the state it's in.

I suspect it's a holding page and/or someone has seen that there is a real London RL Cooperative being set up and believes there is value in disrupting. It came up via a google search though - so it's clearly findable and there to be seen.

The list then goes: (1) Cricket (2) Football (3) Rugby union (=) Darts None of the "others" (I think) hit the same giddy heights achieved by those.

Going on past experience, Brewdog could have secured that simply by providing a venue for a few post game drinks. Broncos (pre Hughes) quite famously had Bartercard sponsorship that turned out to be worth less than the cost of eating out at Pizza Hut.

It's the only one that's real. You can't change the past and we can't know the future.

Isn't it? It's like a fever dream.

Have they run before they can walk? https://londonrlcooperative.co.uk/

They really are hammering home the shorter season. That's the key messaging going on across all of these. It's almost like it's a done deal.

So, it's the 12 in Super League now plus Featherstone Rovers, Bradford (but only if they're solvent), London (but only if they sort themselves out), Toulouse (but only if they put a bit of effort in) and ... anyone else? In the here and now.

Is that, effectively, every game sold out?

A fair point. At this moment in time, and being honest, are there any clubs outside Super League who are, in the here and now, stronger than those inside it?