nadera78

Parochial, backwater, inter-village sports competition here we come!

The changes will make it more interesting for the small number of fans at a handful of clubs who dream of seeing their team get spanked by WIgan or Leeds once every two or three seasons. Well done, you've re-created the past. In the real world, however, sport is changing. Hmm, play in a watered down, inter-village, provincial RL competition? Or play in the glamourous NRL or union internationals? What a choice! The current trickle will become a flood.

Don't be ridiculos. Why would we be interested in what's happening out in the rest of the sporting landscape? Or even look back at our own history to learn from our previous mistakes? Everything will be fine. There's is absolutely no chance whatsoever of these proposals leading to RL in this country becoming a small, parochial, provincial training ground for the NRL and rugby union. No chance of it.

That is absolutely not true in any way, shape or form. When the original SL contract with Sky was re-negotiated in around about 1998, the NFP clubs demanded not to be included. They received a pay off from the RFL and were then able to find their own sponsors, TV deals, etc. This was when they moved back to a Christmas start date. Guess what? No-one was interested, apart from a couple of years when Yorkshire TV covered the play offs. A few years later, the NFP clubs came back under the RFL's leadership, but still had their own TV deal. And guess what? They still couldn't find anyone to show it. When it became known that the RFL were negotiating with Eurosport - a deal that would have seen the RFL pay for the coverage! - Sky decided to start broadcasting Championship games. They paid the costs but not a single penny for the rights. Which, as usually, led to much anger from the mouthy supporters of certain Championship clubs. What on earth makes you think things will be any different this time?

So instead of focussing our finite resources on a genuinely elite competition (which would bring other benefits re internationals, etc) we're going to dilute them further by paying money into the second tier? Genius.

We have Wood and Rimmer playing to the gallery in an attempt to secure their positions. If they can get enough support from the teams ranked 9-15 by giving them P&R and reduced costs, and at the same time get some more money each year to the top 8 clubs, then they'll secure enough support to keep their jobs. Unfortunately, what they're proposing is not in the best interests of the game.

What were the TV rights for CC worth prior to the introduction of licencing? Nothing, that's what. In fact you couldn't give them away. Some broadcasters wanted paying to show them.

12 is the right number because that's what we have the resources for. But P&R has never worked in RL. In fact, it was so bad that people were determined to get rid of it and move to licencing. Now, after just four and a half years we're running back to something we know doesn't work. Brilliant. This is slated to start in 2015. Absolutely guaranteed that half way through 2017 we'll be having this discussion again. Only at that point we'll have no London and quite possibly have missed the boat on Toulouse as well.

Because we don't have the money, the players, the fans or the investors for that!

edited because I can't be bothered having this argument again.

Hear hear!

Anyone who questions Richard Lewis' time at the RFL need only look at the current incumbents and they'll find those queries demolished in seconds.

There's an episode in the first season where a very important character, who also owns a brothel, is giving us an insight into his background and why he's such an untrustworthy scoundrel. But, no matter how many times I watched that 3 minutes of that episode, I learned nothing. All I could see were the two girls finger banging one another.

Brisbane talked a good game but they had no idea what sort of challenges they wold face in London. When I say the game was invisible, I genuinely mean it. It was impossible to find out anything about the club. I've lived here all my life and I was watching RL on BSB and then Sky for around two years before I found out there was a team in London, and even then I only discovered them because one of my teachers was playing for them on an amateur basis. I'm absolutely certain in my mind that if the club drops down into the second tier again then they will suffer the same fate. There's so much going on in London, and there are so many sports/events ingrained into the culture that for anything 'new' or 'different' to stand out it simply has to be conducted at the top level. Anything else will simply be ignored by the media, and if they decide to dismiss you like that then how will anyone know you exist? A club in the second tier that can barely afford to run a team is going to spend significantly on publicity? Of course not. Out of sight, out of mind.

It's what needs to happen if we really do want London to be a realistic player in SL. But it won't, we all know that.

I was around when they made Old Trafford and it was after the Closes had relinquished control. That season the RFL had been running the Crusaders until around Easter time when Brisbane Broncos bought the club. And I remember the game well, one sunday afternoon as a curtain raiser. It still didn't do anything for the club or its profile. Nor did the Brisbane ownership. The club finally started to gain some attention when SL was announced and London were allotted a place. Go back to the second tier and the club will completely disappear from the public eye.

The Closes were before my time, but from what I know if them they were basically just keeping the club afloat. Once the club has dropped down into the Championship they will become completely invisible, just like they were before SL started. The pitiful coverage they get now will disappear at the flick of a switch. Then it will be utterly impossible to find investors because no-one will even know they exist.

True enough, but it's also true to say that Broncos in the Championship would never be able to build a business strong enough to gain entry to SL. The club would be ignored - by the press, sponsors, investors, fans - even more than they are now. They'd also see the best academy players go up north or to union and be left with the middling players, and combining this with the lack of northerners coming down here they'd never be able to build a squad capable of challenging for promotion (assuming it's re-instated) or the title. Result? No chance of a SL presence in London for at least a generation.

My first season watching the club was 1993/94 when Tony Gordon took them so very very close to winning promotion. A superb team that played some stunning rugby. But my recollection is that the club was broke and being run by the RFL until Brisbane Broncos bought them halfway through the season. After the play off final they sacked Tank and appointed Gary Greinke, who made Rob Powell look a dead cert for Coach of the Year. 1994/95 was a poor season, undoing all the good work from the previous year, with a mid-table team coached by a man out of his depth and owners who'd assumed they would walk the second division. They might have rectified things after this but Brisbane's involvement in London got off to a bad start. As for Brentford, well yes it does make sense to some extent. But there are two things we don't know: 1) if Brentford would be interested (although I think so as there is a shortfall in their funding) and 2) what Dave Hughes' plans are. If he is off at the end of next year then all bets are off.

I don't know about switching "back to union" because lots of the lads coming through these days have never played union, or at least only in small amounts. But, given the choice at 16 years of age, how many would uproot themselves and move to Salford or Wakefield rather than stay at home? And if they'd rather stay at home, how many will want to play for a Championship club going nowhere or try their hand at union in a fully professional environment?

Not a chance in hell of it happening down here with a club outside SL. You clearly have no idea what it's like, in RL terms, in London. The Broncos get the most minuscule media coverage imaginable. Relegated to the Championship even that would disappear. The Broncos attract tiny levels of sponsorship (we went 18 months with nothing on our shirts) playing in SL. Relegated to the Championship even that would disappear. The Broncos have found it impossible to find investors, David Hughes is doing it because he can afford to and he likes having a team in SL. Relegated to the Championship he'd be gone (he's probably going soon anyway) and who would step forward? No-one, that's who. It would be like going back to the mid-nineties, where London Crusaders struggled along in the second division and had no hope of ever progressing. Like the past 20 years had never happened. It's ludicrous the suggest that the club could grow or develop in any way outside of SL. Just plain ludicrous.

1) A London club in the Championship, or whatever it's called in future, will never be able to build to a point where it is strong enough to rejoin the elite. RL's public presence is minuscule as it is, playing in the lower leagues we will disappear off the radar altogether. 2) Completely different situation. If you grow up in Cumbria and want to play pro RL or RU you have to move away from home. Down here, assuming London drop out of SL, you'd have to move up north to play pro RL or stay local to play pro RU.

People who like playing a sport don't always like watching it. Or more precisely, I know when I played football it involved 2 or 3 times a week including games and training. Attempting to get another day pass from the Mrs to go and watch a game on top of that was nigh on impossible. My worry, if the Broncos dropped out of SL, is how many of the youngsters would move up north to a SL club, how many would stick around with Hemel, Skolars, etc, and how many would end up in RU. It would be horrendous if southern RL simply ended up as a finishing school for rahrah clubs.

I don't know if you're being serious or not, so I'm assuming you are. I hate to break it to you but, outside of RL, you'd struggle to find anyone who has even heard of Featherstone never mind associate it with tgg. You'd find it even harder to find someone who knows the club's history.

Even Branson made mistakes with the club. He assumed that simply putting a good team on the pitch would bring people flocking to games - it didn't work because it failed to account for the almost non-existant profile RL has in London. As an example, in the season we made the Cup Final, our crowds fell after the final despite selling 10,000 tickets for Wembley. When the club contacted people to find out why they hadn't returned the reply from many was "we thought the season was over". "Build it and they will come" is no real plan at all. For the club to progress (or even survive) it needs a stable and appropriate home, a big marketing push, a competitive team, astute back room staff, leadership who see the club as more than a hobby, players who don't regard the club as being lucky to have them, and to find a way to re-connect with a fan base that has become utterly disillusioned. In short, the club needs to be everything it currently isn't. Unlike the Chronicler, I do believe there is a place for a London club in an elite RL competition, but it needs a huge turnaround. And I'd say this to all those who can see and understand the role such a club would play in our game: if we miss the opportunity now there won't be another one for decades to come.