nadera78

Not only is the RFL logo from that era a beautiful thing, as others have commented, but the England RL badge with lion rampant is also better than the current England logo.

I was over in the Vaucluse last week - beautiful cycling (and wine!) through the Luberon and surrounds - and was very pleasantly surprised by the number of towns and villages that have a RL presence. I knew about Avignon, Carpentras, Cavaillon obviously, but lots of other places with clubs, or at lease junior sections. As ever with rugby league, the issue is finding a way to maximise that interest.

The idea that Sky saving £5m on rugby league will have any bearing on their £Billion PL contract is a bit far fetched. All they're doing is pushing down the price because they know we have no alternatives, same as any other business would. As to where the sport goes from here, assuming the rumours are correct, well it looks pretty bleak tbh. A version of WatchNRL might fill some funding gaps but only if it is done alongside Sky's continued broadcast of 2 games pw, it could never replace that funding in full. I'd also question how much more the BBC would pay for Challenge Cup group games if that is the plan.

This is so far off the mark it's almost unbelievable.

We'll be having the same conversation after the England v Tonga series doesn't sell out 3 games in the "heartlands".

Wait, are the Broncos still going? Thought they'd packed up a few years ago.

They definitely did around the turn of the century. Great Britain, Wigan, Leeds and maybe a few others

Pretty sure the Bears also said they wanted to own the NRL licence, which would mean they could do to Perth what Manly did to them. That alone would be an outright now from me, never mind the number of games they want at NS Oval, control over kit, etc, etc.

Yes, including the Bears and their ludicrous demands would be a terrible mistake - so it's likely V'landys is pushing for that to happen.

To be honest, this will be the second RLWC in a row where Scotland have participated despite not meeting the IRL's membership criteria. It should be the last. If they can't find 4 teams to play a domestic competition that lasts a minimum of 1 round of fixtures (the - frankly pathetic - minimum requirement for an affiliate member, their current status) then they shouldn't be playing in the World Cup. There really does have to be a minimum standard enforced.

Wondered what had happened to him. He was announced as signing pro terms with London but then disappeared and was never mentioned again. It happens so often with the club that you end up just shrugging your shoulders. Good luck to him, yet another one off the conveyor belt that will disappear when the club finally turns up its toes.

I'm a 4th generation QPR fan so, hands up, I'm wildly biased on this issue...but...I'm old enough to remember the National Front at Stamford Bridge, their fans attempting to 'take' the family stand at Loftus Rd, the awful way Ken Bates treated away fans, and a dozen other issues which the club and its flutters conveniently downplay/ignore (it's still the case that they hiss to imitate the sound of gas being released when they play Tottenham FFS!). And I've sat and watched for 20 years as a man everyone knew was connected to villainy (he went from a market trader financially reliant on his air hostess wife to a billionaire in just a handful of years!) use the wealth he had plundered to buy trophies, destabilise English football in a way we are still learning about and essentially invent sport washing. So, yes, I am going to laugh at this turn of events. And yes, I am going to say this club deserves it. As do the fans, both longstanding and newbies, who were happy to spend his blood money. I only hope the bloody club goes bust.

I've spent the last hour laughing so hard my stomach actually hurts. If you find a few spare minutes over your lunchtime panini take a look at the Chelsea forums, they're hilarious. A fully-fledged meltdown taking place.

Ran the ball in well, made a couple of errors in defence. Looked exactly what he is: a young lad, with potential, making his debut. Assuming the injured players return soon he can go back to reserve grade for a bit, work on the things he needs to, and slowly progress. The Knights know what they're doing with him.

One of the all-time greats and, even in recent years, a fantastic live performer. Full of energy and brio, and still had that soulful voice. So glad I got to see him live, there are so many ska/rocksteady/reggae greats that I missed out on. RIP Toots

No gym today, instead a nice walk along the Thames with the sun on my back. 3 hours in total (not including a couple of pub stops).

Wednesday's always a heavy day for me as it's my day off. Yesterday, like some kind of maniac, I decided to go to an early spin class in the morning, right before I went to the boxing club. One of those spin classes that involves press ups and dumb bells whilst cycling, and where the instructor regularly comes around to turn up your resistance for you, laughing while doing so. Finished that with a bare 10 minutes to get to boxing for a heavy session. All told, it wasn't exactly an easy, gentle start to the day! And then vinyasa yoga again in the evening. I'm as flexible as a brick, but I can now at least vaguely get into the positions without having to watch and copy the people around me. 1 more week before I allow myself to check out my weight, etc change. I'm doing it at monthly intervals rather than weekly.

HIIT Strength class last night, with a pocket battleship of a woman repeatedly telling us "you're gonna hate me" - which we did! Perhaps not a typical Friday night out. Followed that with a 1km run and some fartleks this morning when coaching my nephew's football team. I let the boys do the other sprints, etc on their own. Time for a nice long bath.

Boxing this morning, and then my first ever vinyasa yoga session tonight. Full of women and hippies, the yoga not the boxing, but it was actually a nice way to wind the day down.

I haven't been to the gym for over 3 months, mainly due to taking on new studies alongside work, but was convinced by the Mrs to join one of her spin classes last night. That was not fun! I hadn't really appreciated how much of damage 3 months without exercise had done. Anyway, I've got a few weeks away from the studies so will be getting back into the gym properly in the meantime. See how much of an improvement I can make in that time.

It seems like far more trouble than it's worth tbh.

It's a very long time since Scotland produced even one good player. A very long time.

There was a noticeable gulf in ability. One reasonable team, one poor.

The focus of this decision is the 18-21 year olds who move from the Academy team (U18s) to the Elite Development Squad (U21s with 3 overage players allowed) and there is clearly a problem because the EDS games are virtually non-contact and seem to serve little purpose other than keeping players out of trouble one afternoon a week. The big problem for me though is the development bottle-neck caused by a handful of teams signing every single young player they can get their hands on solely so that no-one else can sign them. Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool and the Manchester teams are probably the worst offenders for this and it means that each year a group of players come through and find themselves with nowhere to go and no decent standard of football to play. A few years years back Chelsea signed two players from the academy of every club in the south of England - none of them have come through. If those lads were still at Luton or Wycombe then they'd have been playing first team football at 18/19 instead of wasting their time in EDS. One suggestion I've seen elsewhere is that the FA should put a ban on anyone under 21 being transfered from one club to another unless they've played 50 first team games. That would stop this nonsense. But the deeper issue, and I say this as someone involved in coaching youth football, is that the quality of coaching is still poor, and the attitude is still about playing games instead of training. I still see 18 year olds at pro clubs who lack basic skills like opening their body position when receiving the ball, and tbh it drives me nuts. It's a very simple thing to change and it opens up all sorts of benefits to the player in terms of what he can then do with the ball but if you get the first step wrong (ie receiving the ball) then everything you do after that will be a struggle.

London are gone, Wales is gone, the midlands never started, France has been blocked.