nadera78

Yeah, Wales are in a decent(ish) position. They've got a good schools, Unis and clubs scene, a handful of lads have moved to SL academies, and have a fair scattering of players around the leagues. There is an issue that the generation of players who came into the game via the Crusaders have now almost all retired, but that happens. The national team needs some re-generation - and hopefully a new coach with fresh ideas - but they'll be assisted in that process by Scotland etc finally being dealt with by the IRL and consequently not coming up against teams exclusively consisting of ex-pats. They could really do with some financial assistance, but then the said could be said of everyone else.

Bookies paying for content is quite rare. In the UK they pay a set fee for horse and greyhound racing, but that is only so that the events actually take place because, frankly, who goes to watch horse racing on a Tuesday afternoon? Bookies do not pay for the rights to offer bets on any other sport. I know this is not the case in Australia, where bookies do pay for content, but getting any money out of the US is going to be very difficult. In fact, I think the British bookmakers have entered the US market pretty hard since the laws were liberalised and them not have a history of paying fees will make it harder still for the NRL.

I think the 2021 PNG season was still disrupted by covid, so that might explain why 2022's figures show such a huge leap. The wider issue in PNG, or one of them anyway, has always been that leagues had to pay an affiliation fee to the PNGRFL in order to join. However, in a country where 80% of the population are subsistence farmers, the vast majority of players don't have that sort of money to spend. So, there have always been lots of leagues all over the country which are not affiliated to the PNGRFL, which means participation numbers are very misleading. That said, the new development systems coming online should see a big uptick in official schoolboys competitions, which will see another big rise in official playing numbers.

Just had a look at the Broncos website for the first time in a very long while. How long has Jack Hughes, the owner's son, been listed in the squad? Wasn't he a union player?

Given the focus on high tackles, he'll likely spend more time banned than playing

Delusions, same as ever

It might have been, it's near enough30 years ago now(!). In my head, that chapter was entitled something along the lines of "The Season of the Win" and included the description "a losing team, not a team of losers" but I may be confusing them with another chapter.

I was going to mention Tameside Borough because they were featured in Dave Hadfield's XIII Winters book, which I read many times over when it came out. Being a Londoner, and new to the game, it served as my introduction to some of the teams, towns, players and fans of the game and forged a little connection to them for a youngster in a RL outpost.

There are no sleeping giants in RL. There are, however, a few clubs who, with the right conditions, could replicate the smaller clubs in SL. That's part of the problem the sport faces.

If anything describes the, perhaps irreversible, shift in power in RL it's the RFL being rejected by Samoa and then asking the NRL-run IRL to ask the Samoans to change their mind. Even the sternest critics of the RFL failed to see this coming.

Offering salary cap dispensation for union players isn't really about bringing in a star name, although it will offer a sprinkling of additional NRL-standard players. It's really about sticking the knife into a rival sport that is on life support in Australia.

It's good to see clubs have someone else to blame for their mistakes, it's a fine RL tradition.

Did you know about David Hughes' latest insane decision when you were telling everyone how positive it was looking...*checks diary*...3 days ago?

Just going to leave this here...

Wow! Even I didn't think they'd shut down their academy. Might as well call it quits at this point.

I don't expect the RFL to grow the game anywhere, I've been watching RL long enough to have given up on that. But perhaps they could try to be less of an impediment? Greece are unlikely to be allowed to take part in the RLWC qualifiers, while Scotland will be involved despite not meeting any of the criteria. I'd say the RFL has a pretty big role in that, given they are the main driving force behind the IRL (until the NRL recently took control, I guess). Whether the RFL is directly responsible or only tangentially, I think it's pretty obvious we're about to miss the boat on Greece just like we did the other places I mentioned.

The introduction of SL gave us an opportunity to really develop France and Wales (London too). We didn't take it. The early 00s gave us an opportunity to really develop Lebanon and Serbia. We didn't take it. We currently have an opportunity to develop Greece. I think we all know what's going to happen there. We're paying the price for never really taking the bull by the horns and doing what was necessary to develop the sport outside of the M62 corridor and now suddenly everyone's panicking. If this doesn't make a few people sit up and re-assess where we are as a sport then nothing will.

No offence, but every couple of years you post something on here about having seen a new set of plans, how exciting it all is, there's going to be this that and the other...and the club just continues to deteriorate in every conceivable way.

So, it's going to be a northern clubs' cup?

There's a huge difference between 5 teams playing one another home and away, and 3 teams playing odd fixtures when they can find enough players.

If you didn't know the IRL criteria then you should have said so when joining the thread.

Well, they clearly are because Scotland doesn't have a domestic competition - 3 scratch teams playing each other when they can find enough players to make a side does not count.

Gareth Kear, Wales RL's former CEO and father of Elliot, was recently very critical of the current Wales staff for not organising any fixtures for the men's team this year, and he's 100% correct. If they think they can go 2 years without playing any games and still have any realistic chance of winning the qualifiers then they're being very silly. And it's a shame, because the only realistic options for developing local rivals for England are Wales and France and one of them is taking themselves out of the running. Ireland, I don't know too much about their domestic situation but a few years back they wanted to adjust their selection policy only for the English players and staff to throw a strop and the RLI backtracked. Scotland is a ridiculous situation tbh. I don't think they've met the Full Members criteria for about 10 years now and everyone just ignores it and allows them to play in competitions ahead of countries that do meet the criteria. We should forget them, in terms of big events, until the SRL can show they've turned things around.

Sky making the decision not to show live sport they own the rights to. Again. And they wonder why people are leaving.

Anyone wondering about London's score might do well to ask themselves why the club still hasn't responded to this announcement, and yet London Skolars - who no longer play in the professional ranks - have managed to put out something.