burke

Berwyn Jones who was a sprint champion and member Great Britain 4 x 110 yards relay team, Commonwealth Games medal winner I think , signing for Wakefield Trinity. Or Mike Lampkowski signing for Trinity having represented England RU . Plus Keith Smith, what a player, singing for Trinity from the England RU set up.

walk in the training park for Leeds who will breeze to an easy win by 30+ points without having to break sweat.

Wigan to easily cover the Sky Bet -8 handicap.

If Fafita and Tanganoa ( limping at end of cup game at Warrington ) are not fit to play I would suggest that it would be advantage Salford and they should get on the front foot. If they do play I would back the Wakefield pack to just win the day.

Yes Eddie Trinity can easily finish below Toulouse who I think are an improving team. When we, Wakefield, travelled to Catalans it was reported by Michael Carter that his squad had six players who were unvaccinated and therefore unable to go to France. Purely as a guess you would think that most SL squads will have a number of players who remain unvaccinated, some may have less than 6 some more. It is likely that sides will be `understrength `when in France. I also think that sides will underestimate Toulouse. So taking these factors into account, improved Toulouse performances, unvaccinated players not allowed to travel and underestimating Toulouse I think they could well win enough home games to avoid the drop. Wakefield do have more strength in depth than in recent seasons but they do lack guile, a cutting edge in attack so even with plenty of ball and tons of effort we simply do not look like scoring points.

Most teams can cope with missing a few players but take McShane out of the Cas team and they fall well below their usual standards

Slap on the wrist, fine plus 6 points deduction at start of 2022 season would be a more fitting punishment.

what new stadium at Cas ?

I love a rumour and find it impossible not to tell everyone I know. There are three forms of communication Television, Telephone and tell me. Anyway I wondered if anyone on here could shed light on the tale I was told last night. It goes like this : HMRC reached an agreement with the Rugby Union for the Union clubs to only have to pay 15 % of the back tax owed on the image rights paid to players over the last six years. All SL clubs also owe back tax on image rights. The RL got wind of the 15 % agreement reached between the Rugby Union and HMRC and approached HMRC to obtain a similar agreement. HMRC turned us down. So now Leeds ( financed by the RL ) are challenging the HMRC decision in court. Also the RL is unhappy with the lack of consistency in the way that different HMRC tax inspectors are treating each club. Wakefield are at the head of the list, they apparently owe the least in image rights tax ( apart from Crusaders and Catalans ) of any SL club and yet their tax man is demanding immeadiate full payment. Whilst other clubs who owe the tax man far larger ammounts are not under as much pressure from their tax man. Apparently HMRC likes to set a precedent in court, ie go after a club that only owes a comparatively small amount, force payment then go after the big boys once the precedent has been set. Can anybody out there add anything to this tale, I mean would be good if we could prove that the establishment , HMRC, was treating RL in a different way to their mates at the Rugby Union. I suspect that the above may be a load of tosh as surely the RL would have made this information public.

Interesting thread this, with some good points made. I take the point made about Cumbria but would note that Cumbia has had a long history of RL with many well established amateur clubs that thrive with or without a SL club. My concern is that the amateur clubs and junior RL set up in London will wither without a SL club in London. For what its worth, without doubt in my mind the RL / SL should some how force SL on Cumbria, not sure how it should be done but Cumbria is a hot bed of RL and it makes no sense for SL not to to be represented in Cumbria. Wellys4Hullfc, I take your point re the Crusaders model, but the rumours from Wales are equally concerning. I understand that that the Wrexham football club ` owners ` may be very concerned re their financial plight. They agreed to take on last years loss / debt from the South Wales operation, big mistake, was it reported at

Rumour doing the rounds at Trinty v Warrington game last Sunday was that Quins have applied to move to Milton Keynes for next season, Quins backer wants to move the francise out of London but Brian felt that this would be letting down all those people who have done such a great job at ` grass roots` level in London. Backer fed up of running club at huge loss. Players do not want to relocate to MK and there are arguments re whether it makes their contracts null and void. There is also some sort of SL rule saying that you can only move a francise 12 miles ( sounds daft to me , why 12 miles ? ) so the Quins owner / backer is saying to SL either allow me to move to MK or I pull out, precedent set with Crusaders. Terrace rumours are normaly rubbish, has anyone else heard of a proposed move to MK. Would hate to see London not represented in SL. A good friend of mine coaches at one of the London academies and often reports how fantastic junior RL is in London, it would be a disaster if these very talented young London based, recent RL converts, did not have a SL club to sign for.