Amber Avenger

No that was Geoff Toovey. Smith was well thought of by a lot of players who played under him and quite a few fans, but he essentially took us backwards. My lasting memory of him will be the last match of the regular season in 2016 was a must win to get us in the middle 8s and we ended up losing 20-0 to Fev in one of the worst tactical decisions I've seen by a head coach including dropping Adam O Brian for no particular reason. The last realistic chance of us getting back to SL and the club never really recovered (for way more reasons than Smith). I liked him, but that Fev game really tainted my view. Will be interesting to see how he goes.

Yeah I do get that and at the end of the day, I thought it was worth if before we went, however I do wonder if two price hikes over the past two finals is put the casual off especially if times are tough post covid. I'm not sure what anyone could have done differently about that - obviously money has to be made. Im sure for people who don't go to RL a lot that price is great, but we need a mix of RL die hards and neutrals and there aren't many RL matches where 40 quid is the second cheapest option. You've always been able to spend a lot on GF tickets if you've wanted to as well! It was just an observation anyway, I do wonder if it would have been on the low side whoever was in the final.

Haven't read the whole thread, so sorry if this has been mentioned before. Anyway I usually go with a similar, non RL crazy group who like the occasion and we tend to get the second cheapest tickets. Like getting a wine in a restaurant cos we are so classy like that. Anyway this year they couldn't believe that that option was 40 quid. Last GF in 2019 it was 35, before that it was 30. Quite a hike over the course of 3 finals and I suspect took its toll on the crowd as much as Catalans getting there. Im not complaining, we were there at the end of the day and I'm sure it's been budgeted by the people that know how. However I was surprised at how much it's gone up looking back now and surely it's a factor along with Catalans and Covid At the end of the day, they enjoyed the game so almost 'nuff said, except gotta convince people who weren't there. A toughie.

It's possible the clash FIFA world cup might actually help in that regard. The Premier League winter break will probably start around 10th November-ish, which should mean the Emirates, Anfield and Old Trafford are all available for the latter stages of the tournament.

Well not all Bradford fans would be so quick to give him an award. Interestingly the official club press release today says Nigel has been "at the forefront" of the clubs actions to try and come back to Bradford since 2019, despite insisting previously he was very hands off until a couple of months ago. Anyway, I'm sure it's all above board and fine and that's all I'll say about that.

I don't think that would be the case, Sky would describe the Catalans games they have now as exclusively live, it think it just means in this country. EDIT - In fact the press release on the SL website does say Sky is the broadcast partner for the UK and Ireland

Sky's freeview channels I believe are Sky News, Sky Arts, Pick TV and Challenge. Not really a natural home for SL anywhere there, although the two channels with (very mild) sporting history are Pick TV and Challenge. Pick last year simulcast Premier League coverage when basically they were under pressure to due to Covid restrictions when the season returned last summer. They haven't repeated that trick in the 2021/2022 season I don't think. Challenge as mentioned in this thread has a history showing wrestling and MMA but hasn't done for a long time. I think it has shown a Premier League game in the past, but only as overspill when all the games were on the last day of the season and Sky ran out of channels. I think it's probably more likely to be Mix, or YouTube, as I don't think any of the Freeview channels available from Sky fit the bill with what the RFL are looking to achieve. Sky One would actually be a big deal, and whilst not truly Free to Air like the BBC, it would reach a bigger audience than Mix, even though generally Sky One customers will have access to Mix.

I wouldn't expect you to suggest your own content was anything except justifiable. I know what you are getting at with the rants but of course one man's rant, could be another's justifiable comment and for that reason I can't completely agree and don't expect we'll concede any middle ground here. I totally agree there is a book in the Bulls situation. Not posted about it here properly in years - and don't intend to start now - but it's hopefully reflected in my posting history that I've also believed for a long time it hasnt been clear. To sound like a broken record, the report in Forty 20 made it clear as it could without straying into those legal issues that the blame lay at the door of dozens of different stakeholders. Anyway its clearly a conversation for another day.

A fair question, and I did think perhaps it wasn't quite the right choice of words. I'm not suggesting - as some might if they see something they like on the wrong Monday morning - that it's an RFL propaganda sheet, so in that sense perhaps I can see why you might think me saying LE being part of the establishment is unfair criticism. Perhaps "part of the furniture" is more appropriate? It's the market leader and you know where you stand certainly and it's a comfortable read but any criticism of the game is more muted than both of the main rivals mentioned in the Guardian article. To be clear, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it's clearly different. Nothing wrong with that, and there is a place for that and it clearly works very well. I would certainly agree LE has more clout than League Weekly ever had - the old joke was any news that was in Weekly but not Express might be of dubious quality, but to me looking at the Elstone example are you just greasing wheels already in motion? I genuinely don't know. I think because LE has that clout I always think it can do more - eg The Bulls/Forty-20 example I posted above, was very critical of many people still in the game and plenty who aren't and I can't imagine anything similar appearing in LE (and I have read everything about the subject going) but I realise they are separate periodicals with separate resources. I'm sure I'm leaving myself open to accusations of bias, and it's really not about that one issue, but it comes easily to mind for me. I'm not saying LE isn't an enjoyable or worthy publication I hope you understand, but I couldn't particularly describe it as consistently hard hitting and maybe you wouldn't either. Not everything has to be. To ask a question you'd be well within your rights not to answer - how do you feel about the demise of "the other paper"? Whilst I'm sure some extra sales have come your way, it's hard times for everyone. Did the competition keep you sharp?

For the want of a better phrase, to me LE is more part of the establishment, especially now it's the only (weekly) game in town. Nothing wrong with that but the more voices analysing the game professionally, the better. LE claiming the scalp of Elstone when every man and his dog had it in for him is not how I'd interpret it, but then I don't have any skin in the game. Will be interested to hear Elstone's thoughts on who he might blame when he is as far away from the job as Wood is now. I mean lets be honest we haven't ever really heard from him when he was in the job so I guess we'll never know. Each publication has their own merits, for me Forty 20's damning analysis of the whole Bradford Bulls saga (where I do have skin in the game) towards the end of 2019 is far more critical than anything on the matter I have ever read in the pages of an LPL publication, but then it has the breathing room to do so.

I really admire the efforts of Reach to tap into the RL market, plenty of hard work has gone in to get good coverage in The Mirror in recent years and this seems to be an extension of that. I agree there are confusing elements to it, being linked to the regional papers sort of makes sense, except in the regions where a team's local paper isnt owned by Reach. How many fans of Bradford and Halifax are going to log on to the Huddersfield Examiner website to read the scoops about their teams, I'm not sure. The email newsletter seems to be a halfway house to try and resolve that but seems a little old hat to me but I'm sure they've done their research. The positives are in the bigger regions, pooled resources might pay dividends. A story about Wigan was the main story on the back page of the Manchester Evening News this week.

Depends what you mean, Social Media is a broad term, and the main publications all have Facebook and Twitter accounts. TRL are putting LE content on their site as a premium, have tried doing Facebook Live events. Forty 20 have lots of YouTube content that isn't podcasted. They're all trying their hand and some stuff will work and some won't. Some journos are going it alone with their own premium content on their own sites or Patreon. There is plenty of graft being put in that's for sure. Social media is an easy catch all but there is so much of it, loads of it will sadly go undiscovered.

Hmm, I think those figures are overegging the pudding - to mix the food analogies slightly. I doubt giving away 100 pizzas a week results in thousands of pounds of loss to the accounts of international pizza business of Pappa Johns. Perhaps thats what they might cost Joe Public to buy the pizzas from them if you bought them at shop prices - even then, like Dominos, the abundence of voucher codes and coupons means that you should never really be paying full price for a pizza at their gaff. I'm not sure what the cost of the ingredients per pizza are to PJ - I suspect it is considerably less than 20 quid. I know labour costs etc, but there is a healthy amount of profit in those prices even when they slash them in half.

I think a point worth highlighting is that of the KFC one being noticable as well - the link (apart from food) being is that they are recognisable international brands. I have noticed Pappa Johns at pitchside long before the announcement - I was surprised that the announcement seemed to come about two weeks after the deal was underway. I think this is largely because I already knew the brand - if it was Joe Bloggs Pizza who were a brand new company looking to get off the ground, I'd have probably taken a lot longer to notice. I think football can be the same, if you watched a game in the premier league you'd end up naming the brands you know, rather than the odd firms that don't even operate in this country but are for the international TV audience. Similarly KFC in the NRL is one you know, Telstra, Sportsbet, Bundaberg are all over the coverage but wash over us here because they aren't hugely relevant to a UK audience.

Confirmed in the latest League Express that Pappa John's are paying nothing except Pizza. As someone else said to me, the one sector of advertising that is thriving at the moment is food delivery.

Now TV is owned by Sky

Finally I have the body of a superhero!

If you are precious about spoilers then don't look, but the synopsis for the next episode sounds like a brilliant scenario to set up some classic Partridge. I really enjoyed it, it's kind of cherry picked the best of things like Knowing Me, Knowing You, Day Today, Mid Morning Matters and the recent "documentaries" on Sky and yet created something new with it. It started off slow, but there is lots of potential there. I listened to a podcast with the writers the other day and they said they are already working on the next Partridge project for the BBC so I wonder if this series is only intended to be a one-off.

There was a documentary a few years ago where Joanna Lumley went to live with Will.I.Am for a week, it was actually pretty good tv.

I thought Bradley was pretty good, as was the new Doctor. Some of the Yorkshire accents were absolutely criminal though.

Fair enough. They aren't everybody's bag. I find it odd though that superhero films get singled out. Generally nobody ever seems to ask if cinema needs another RomCom, another spy film, another war film etc. There are plenty of sub genres within, Ant-Man is basically a heist movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming a high school comedy, The Dark Knight Trilogy is as polar opposite from the first two as you can get. And if you don't like 'em then fine, but they may well be paying for films you do - Inception wouldn't exist if the Dark Knight hadn't done great guns at the box office.

And then the final episode of Car Share following the cliffhanger of series 2 is on a few weeks later, on the late may bank holiday

I thought Annihilation was a load of old tripe - albeit visually stunning tripe. Really don't get all the fuss. Not a bad film by any means, but maybe I'd read too much of the hype.

The Generation Game is a sort of damned if you do, damned if you don’t sort of format. Change it too much and people complain, don’t change it enough and it’s stuck in the past and just doing a load of greatest hits, apparently like what happened on Sunday. It’s obviously been through production hell, it was originally supposed to be four episodes and has been cut to just two. It’s really easy to knock light entertainment (see plenty of posts in this thread for examples) and plenty of the complaints about the latest Gen Game could have been written to the letter before a second had even been recorded. When light entertainment is done right there really is nothing like it. In this day and age, shows that can be enjoyed in equal measure by people of all ages from 5 to 105 are in short supply. For me I think the hosts are key – for me Mel and Sue aren’t prime time bankers, they are a cult hit who enjoyed a bit of good fortune presenting the Bake Off (and did it very well, even if their presenting style isn’t to my taste) and shows of varying fortune before and after. I think the Generation Game is probably doomed to failure in any reboot as there are too many things working against it, as too many people think it should be different things. That doesn’t mean light entertainment elements can’t be taken by other shows. In fact many have – it’s fingerprints are all over Saturday Night Takeaway for example. What I think will probably happen in reality is that people will deem the latest Generation Game a failure and that will hinder any future light entertainment programmes trying anything similar for a while. It did rate reasonably well though, will be interesting to see if many people go back for episode two.

There is a decent chance Ant could lose his job(s). It'll certainly financially hit him long term - reports in the paper today is that a £20m contract to front Sazuki ads will be canned (I'm surprised it's taken this long for them to comment). At the moment, we don't have any real evidence either way he won't be treated like any other drunk driver (as indeed, he should be). Unless of course you mean the treatment and support network he will have to aid his recovery, which is a slightly different argument along with how much mud will stick to him in the long term? On the "he could afford a taxi" point, well yeah of course. However, I don't think people who are covering up addiction always think as logically as you or I. Doesn't excuse it, but I'd be surprised if that crossed his mind. Whilst we don't know the full details of the case (and it's probably dangerous to whilst the case is live), I'd be surprised if his "justification" was he was driving drunk to save a couple of quid given the context of his other recent well-publicised troubles.