nadera78

Pearson's monthly rant is only ever designed to cover up for his own shortcomings as an owner. Perhaps spending more time on improving his club and less calling for short-term 'cures' might be a good idea?

I don't know the Cooke incident, but the bit highlighted essentially sums up acceptance by performance. Contract formed.

I was going to laugh at this comment, but it's too sad to do that. And yet I don't feel a great sadness, I think I'm passed that point. A bit angry, perhaps, but even then...

There's absolutely no point whatsoever including London Broncos in this conversation, their attendances have nothing to do with covid or any wider issues in the sport. That horse is dead, it's just waiting for someone to find the bolt gun.

Avignon ticks all the boxes; a good size city, with name recognition, additional population centres very close by, strong history of RL in both the city and surrounding area, has had excellent crowds for internationals, and there are no rival pro sports teams in the city. Plus, if we're smart, we could use the 2025 RLWC as a vehicle to get the stadium rebuilt to a SL standard.

Seriously, give up on London. That club's a dead donkey.

Brisbane Broncos have so many deep-seated issues I don't think it's really possible to accurately judge individual players. The club is just a mess from top to bottom, and has been for a while. But I do like the way Ian Blease goes about recruiting players - always has an eye on a player's potential upside, trusts the club can help them find that, and then a potential sale down the line.

I think there's only ever been very minimal union played in Lebanon, I think for a period they only had 1 team. All of the players would have come through the University and schools comps that used to run. Delighted to see the game back up and running though, whatever the standard, the country at large has had a terrible few years and RL has been a victim of that.

I think it's really hard to tell what's going on right now, for us looking in and for clubs in all sports. My football team, QPR, had pre-season friendlies with Man Utd and Leicester, neither of which sold out to the surprise of the club. Yesterday's first game of the regular season, however, against Millwall did sell out. As on here there are various theories; older fans not wanting to risk it, people with reduced incomes, getting out of the habit, the usual suggestions. I think, as others have said, it's best for the clubs to ride out the remainder of this season as best they can and then really go for it in the new year.

We've known for some time, and recent events have only emphasised, that we really need to build up some local rivals. It's imperative to be honest. Realistically, that means France and Wales - they're much more sustainable than Ireland or Scotland. France is closer to being a consistent rival than Wales, but we need to work hard to assist both of them to develop and improve. That means playing them regularly, beginning with this season. If we decide to leave our NRL players out of the squad, and maybe one or two over 30s, just to even the odds a little then so be it. Every other sport does it without fans complaining and death riding the fixtures - rather they see it as an opportunity to blood younger players, to experiment with line ups, to rest ageing bones. So let's get a tournament on, playing each other once. France v Wales (Toulouse would be good) to start with, so neither of them go in cold against England. Then England v Wales (Newcastle/Middlesborough given the RLWC next year), finally France v England (Perpignan or Avignon). Three weeks, done and dusted, not too long so the players get some rest before 2022.

I mean, just a couple of days ago Kristian Woolf said he had wanted the RLWC to go ahead but, given everything that had happened with Australia and New Zealand, it was probably best to postpone it and let the players have a break. If you seriously think he's going to be getting a Tonga squad together to travel over to England then you're very much mistaken.

It's not worth engaging with anyone who thinks TV revenue is a handout.

Still? What do you mean still? The club was averaging over 4,000 when Mr Hughes took over. He's driven it down to less than 400.

Fairly obvious this is a penny pinching idea from a club who can't afford the players needed to run a reserve squad.

Continually asserting that Sky are going to pay money for the second tier (whatever name you give it) just ignores 25 years of history. No-one, and I mean no-one, has ever paid for tier 2 RL broadcast rights. They're not worth a penny.

If you played England v France at Brentford (brand new, 17K, pitch big enough for RL, huge French population in London, and London always buying into RL internationals) I think you'd sell it out, it would look good on TV, and everyone would have a great time. You'd have the issue of getting the French to be consistently competitive, but at some point we have to bite the bullet on that one and just get the games on. We could do things on our end like picking an experimental squad, younger players ("We're giving the senior guys a rest after a long season"), leaving the NRL-based guys out of it, that sort of thing. And the thing is if we do that when playing outside of the heartlands the locals won't really be too aware or even concerned by it.

No-one has never paid a penny for the broadcast rights for tier 2 RL going right the way back to the old Northern Ford Premiership reverting to a winter season in the late 90s. They were ignored for years, then Sky took them at a cost basis, followed by Premier Sports, then back to Sky again. They're worthless, always have been always will be. Honestly, the broadcast rights for our flagship competition have just fallen by 25% so why anybody in their right mind thinks tier 2 RL is worth anything is beyond me.

So, essentially the proposal is that to deal with the reduced TV income the money (not to mention players, sponsors, investors, etc) we do generate will be spread around 20 teams instead of 12? And that's supposed to be an intelligent use of greatly reduced resources?

£10m of it was for the 'Funded By' programme which has put money into facilities and equipment for community clubs. Most if not all of that has already been spent.

The problem with inviting Serbia is that they would be completely reliant on the dozen or so dual nationals to be competitive. Without them, and I don't say this to knock Serbia who I have a lot of admiration for, they would really struggle. They struggled in the qualifiers to be fair. The only way you could do it is if they were guaranteed to have the dual nationals available.

Absolutely. France is more important than ever.

Quite possible.

There's nothing the players can do about this, even though the majority would clearly love to play in this tournament. It's out of their hands. The NRL made the announcement, they and their compliant media are now stifling discussion of it, and no doubt behind the scenes placing lots of pressure on the pacific nations to pull out - which I am fairly sure at least one of them will do in the next few days. Then the others will follow - because what's the point of continuing - and it'll be game over. What comes after that is anybody's guess.

I see the pig ignorant Phil Gould is now claiming that the rise of Tonga is down to the NRL. Funny that, I thought it was Jason Taumalolo choosing to represent them and a dozen talented youngsters following him. Getting angrier by the day here.

I'm afraid there's definitely more chance of the tournament being postponed than of it taking place. The NRL and its member clubs are just going to put so much pressure on the pacific nations that one of them will crack and pull out. At that point continuing becomes untenable. There is apparently a meeting of the Asia Pacific RL next week, to decide on a position to take, but I think it'll all be stitched up before then. In the unlikely event that it goes ahead, I certainly see the appeal in having Indigenous and Maori teams taking part. They'd be very competitive teams, it would have a real 'f you' to the NRL feel to it and I think the optics would be quite good, it's certainly a story to sell to the media. That said, logistically I'm not sure how you'd do it - who would even pick the squads, coaches, etc? There's a Maori RL but they're affiliated to NZRL so would be pressured not to take part, but I don't think there's a comparable body for Indigenous RL. The safest bet would be to invite the USA and Serbia (as next best losers in qualifying) to take part. Like I say, in the unlikely event it takes place at all.