nadera78

Does he actually have any experience of coaching RL, outside of these past few months? It really feels like a typical Hughes appointment.

You've got some nerve coming back onto a Broncos thread. Chief.

I think it's time we started to take a serious look at Serbia and see what we can do to help them out. They have a good, solid domestic scene, seniors, juniors and schools playing, and yet at international level they'e really stagnated at both seniors and juniors. This isn't meant as a criticism in any way, shape or form - it's our fault as a sort for leaving them to fend for themselves all this time. We need to find out what the blockage is (perhaps coaching expertise, opportunities to travel and play, whatever it is) and fill in the missing pieces for them. We really can't afford to waste an opportunity there, like we have in so many other places before now.

I had a very long post re the situation at the Broncos and what it would take to turn it around, but it isn't really worth it. It will never happen. The club's dead, it is long past being revivable, we're all just waiting for someone to sign the certificate.

Not just this tournament, but the entire sport. The fishing net is getting smaller and smaller. Having returned to England fairly recently I had thought I'd pick up some tickets for the RLWC, make a weekend of it I suppose and fit in 2 or 3 fixtures, but I can't say I'm enthused by it in any way. The whole game - on the field, in the stands, on TV, on here - looks and feels moribund and this tournament just seems to embody that.

In large part the discussion around this fixture is indicative of the lack of facilities in RL; at professional, semi-professional and community levels. The RLWC grants is helping some of this but it's an area in which we really fall down compared to other sports.

I wouldn't be announcing anything before the RLWC - we know how much this sport likes a public bunfight and we should be doing everything possible to avoid that before such a big and, for the whole sport, important tournament.

I don't know, most of their former colonies seem to be joining the Commonwealth, maybe they'd also like to join the fun?

"We" never put teams anywhere. What happened was people applied to the RFL for permission to enter a team into their competitions. The RFL, usually, replied "Sure, of course you can, but we won't do anything to help you. Good luck". "We" didn't do a thing.

Not at all. It is SL's job to find a French broadcaster.

Minor point, I know, but I don't see how they are 13 chevrons on that shirt, unless you're counting the white bits in between the blue chevrons. But that doesn't make sense to me because white is the colour of the actual shirt, it's the blue bits that are chevrons. It's a white shirt with blue chevrons. You wouldn't say the Kangaroos jersey has 3 chevrons, you'd describe it as a green jersey with 2 gold chevrons.

Where did you get that shirt from? I always thought the original NU shirt was red and white hoops (as worn in the replica used for the 2010 centenary test v New Zealand). You could probably do something with that colour combination - eg white shirt with a thick red and thin yellow chevrons - that would be distinctively ours and at the same time remove the "it looks like X club shirt" complaint.

They've put out some photos of the unveiling at Old Trafford - Fred Done holding the new white and blue shirt, standing alongside Shaun Wane and Ralp Rimmer holding bright red scarves. It just feels like another example of the RFL's slapdash approach to everything they do.

It looks like the Yorkshire shirt worn in Academy Origin games. Truth is, the RFL went to the discount bin when they signed up with Oxen and this is a result of that.

Mate, you are one of about three dozen people who pine for the GB team. Give it up, it's dead.

I get the geo-politics of it, but I can't help thinking that the Aussies would be better off putting a comprehensive junior development programme in PNG - building on the bones of what is already in place, utilising the 4 PNGRFL confederations, with a scheme that allows kids to play only if they continue to attend school and that builds like a pyramid to a PNG Academy that plays U18s and U20s in Queensland. Within 10 years you'd have two dozen PNGers in the NRL, similar in SL, and the remittances they'd be sending home would be considerable. Plus, those who don't make it that far would have benefitted from the enforced education programme. And, of course, the Kumuls would be a match for anyone. Besides which, in practical terms the NRL has Perth, Christchurch (even Adelaide) that need teams. The rah rahs have Pacific teams because they literally have nowhere else interested in hosting a team.

Of course you can, England (selected from SL only) v France is a meaningful game. In fact, any England game is meaningful if you want it to be. England football and cricket teams regularly adjust their squads according to which players are available due to club commitments, and the rahrah's play test matches even when all of their best players are appearing for a made up GB&I touring team. It feels like it's only RL fans who have an issue with making these types of adjustments.

Scotland should be a pub team tbh, there is virtually no rugby league played there. It's gone on too long now, and the IRL just ignore it.

But above that it says the event will take place in 2023. So, as a whole, I took that to mean that the event will take place regardless but will only serve as a qualifying event if the results of the RLWC21 make one necessary.

Dude, can't you do the work for him?

"For all of history, anyone who has grown up in Australia played for Australia, we belted everyone and there has been no international football worth serving up." Just on this one point, and I know I shouldn't take it seriously because Gus is a bloated idiot, but this just isn't true. Australia have played England/GB 161 times, winning 88, losing 72 and drawing 8. Thats a win percentage of 54%. But, you know, we can't expect one of the game's leading experts to know anything abut the game.

There isn't an issue in the world that Gus doesn't have the answer to.

Yes, absolutely. One game with an attendance better than the abysmal gates at Wimbledon, and yet still apparently lower than those at Ealing, is all the evidence needed to uproot the club once more and move to a stadium in Kent. Are you David Hughes by any chance?

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.

Wigan have taken two players from London's academy in the past two years.