The Parksider

Thanks for that interesting/informative....

I stand well corrected there. thank you for your post. But I have to stand my ground on the basis that Batley won the Northern Rail Cup today all on local players in an area where the competition for the best players at SL level AND NL level is quite hot. All NL clubs will suffer their best locals going to SL. Leaving the dominant NL clubs to be those who can bring through a good supply of NL level players. I would have thought Cumbria would have an advantage given the large amateur set up. I'd have thought a vibrant Cumbria RL would be an attraction for all kids who can't get an SL deal, and I would have thought that a Cumbria side would capture more fans imagination than traditional Lancs/Yorks club sides. You lot sound just a bit depressed up there??? I'm not being funny but whenever someone relaunches an RL club that is in the doldrums as a new project, it does get the public and the players thinking and acting positively. Why would alternative fixtures at the Rec and the Park be a problem??

Thanks once again..... Looking forward to it.....

Thank you very much sir!

Anyone confirm you can "pay on the day"

Is the game all ticket???

QUOTE (Jimmy B @ Jul 14 2010, 05:07 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> 4) Yes in this modern age Junior clubs do nurture the yougsters from a very early age with a disgusting amount of recompense, but in the days of not so long ago such junior set ups did not exist on the scale they do now. For instance in my area and in my teenage years any one who had ambitions of playing RL at a professional level went training initially with the under 17's - progressing to under 19's. My club signed many players from this age group not amatuer RL. So in those days you could say it was the schools who first developed the young Rugby players with no recompense at all. At Parkside the local Hunslet School RL fed the best into the U17 juniors who then became the U19 intermediates and on to the "A" team and senior side!!! I remember those days Jim. Up north Leeds loads of schools did not play RL!! Every time I hear schools in non RL areas taking the game up it reet gladdens mi heart...........

A few hundred grand I suspect ST..........

QUOTE (Jimmy B @ Jul 14 2010, 04:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> So can you tell me what the present quota of imports is - and what is the programme set down for reducing it ? Sorry Jim - not easily off the top of my head. It's a season by season reduction of about one a year and as RP London says (I sometimes listen to you ) it's a gredual weaning of the clubs off imports and a time lapse enabling clubs to improve youth set ups. Jim - I'm not sure wealthier clubs take less wealthy clubs players. These are all professionals free to sign wherever they want. The reality is it's the amateur clubs who find and develop the players and the semi pro and pro game "take" them from their clubs, with little recompense.

QUOTE (Jimmy B @ Jul 14 2010, 11:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I repeat, one of the reasons for franchising, so we were led to believe, was to was to improve the development of home grown youngsters.Unless we reduce the numbers of imports how can this be ? We are reducing the number of imports, but the best imports will still sign for the top clubs.......... Only a draft will spead imports evenly.

I'm afraid hard times at pro-plevel and merger go hand in hand. Big city professional RL on five figure crowds has not fully left the NL clubs behind and who knows which way our game will go. If SL heads for the stars Cumbria have no chance, but if there's any sort of a downward trend of the SL game, or retrenchment, the chance for a Cumbria side to make it could present itself. I also wonder about club chairmen who can't afford tuppence, are really motivated towards SL themselves, because if there was a push towards SL these lads would have to up their input or move over surely??? Are clun chairmen at NL clubs turkeys who themselves won't vote for an SL christmas?

Lewis's aspirations is to get people playing wherever he can and to complete a free gangway must be to see RL played at all age and skill levels of the amateur game as possible and get the game back to an even keel or better with Rugby Union. Creating semi professional clubs at a time when semi professionalism as we have known it in the north is not as viable any more, and creating it when the RFL are not prepared to back it doesn't seem to me to be Lewis's ambition at all. If it's his ambition for others then it's disingenuous.

I'm not sure what the aim of the Magic weekend was, is or will be but it certainly must be linked to promoting Crusaders formerly and latterly promoting RL in a country where kids are taking it up. I can see a link between junior rugby league and academies and SL clubs in a pyramid of playing that can get the best RL talent from anywhere in France, England Wales and Scotland to the top. I just cannot see where "an NL club" has any relevance at all to this system that is developing??? Had big money men come into Superleague, and had the Rugby fans in non traditional areas responded to Suerleague in numbers then you may have had Mo's vision of clubs in Glasgow, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle, London as well as Wigan, Leeds and Hull and Paris sitting atop of a junior structure across all four countries feeding the acedemies. I don't think developing NL clubs in new areas was ever on the agenda until expansion faltered so badly from the original plan that Nigel Wood uttered something about a watered down idea of starting with NL clubs in new areas. Fine if SKY are going to pay for it. Where we are now is hoping that kids continue to play RL up to 200 miles away from "their" nearest SL club, and if they are any good travel to an SL club and take a chance on academy success........

No

Team talk - "look lads it's your job today to give the GB side the hardest match of their lives to help prepare them for the upcoming four nations, really get stuck into them and give them what for, remember your proud heritage as a rugby nation and show the crowd what NZ players are made of" Team thinks - (I aren't risking getting injured for this crock of sh*t, still if I can go through the motions I'll at least pick my match fee up, If i'm gonna give it large for NZ it will be in a proper NZ shirt and none of us are given that) Complete bolleaux, the vehicle for GB selection remains Superleague until France can improve considerably, and they won't do that being ignored for mickey mouse matches.

Not too sure where franchising is the devil here RP? The salary cap is the method of preventing dominance, but it can't achieve full parity between clubs if they are not on a par themselves. If a club does not have the finances to pay full cap then they simply will not start off with the same value of playing squad. Of course one good coach may make more of his poor hand than a bad coach, but SL is pretty much ranked in order of ability to spend full cap. If a club does not have a vibrant junior set up with kids coming through then they also miss out on having loyal, local rising stars performing well in their team accepting less money than established stars who are no better performers having seen their best years?. What is the value the current crop of Syoung aints players bring to the team against their current salaries? If a club offers on the field success to a top top import, then when the money offers are pretty much in the same "ball park" that import is likely to choose the winning sides - much less hard work and no great expectations, than for a one off star signing expected to carry an average side. If you are a Wigan, Leeds or Saints because you have concentrated hard on the youth set up (for years), because you have the set up to generate full cap, and because you have had success as a result and attracted the best imports, you may well dominate the honours. It may well be deserved. Many current SL clubs are years behind the top three, but most of them have the wherewithall to catch up. For some like Hull Wire and Fartown that may take a few more years yet, for others like Quins, Les Cats and Crusaders it may be a couple of decades. For anyone short on the salary cap it's goodnight.

It's a good point Johnny, up to a point, but in Yorks/Lancs there's often no need for mergers when the "successful" clubs can draw the fans and the best players from the nearby unsuccessful clubs. In Cumbria it may be the fans will have nowhere to go but stay at home and the best players will be off to Yorkshire and Lancashire. Whilst rivalries may cause fans to reject each other in a merger, any cumbria merger only become a county side and there's no record of the fans in cumbria recoiling in horror at supporting the county side is there??

Maybe it's indicative that Mr. Johnson isn't bothered about all that Superleague franchise requirements mullarkey. No disrespect but why should he spend his money on a ground or a youth structure when he can strengthen the team and enjoy a few trophies as a big fish in a small pond? Or has Mr. Johnson seriously indicated he is going for Superleague?

I will respond Dave. I apologise if I have annoyed you. I was civil in thanking you for your correction, as for the question you posed it did detract from my point and that was all what I was saying to you, but again if that offended I apologise. Maybe it's the year after year pounding Quins crowds get regardless of the positives the club brings to the game. Sure the club can't balance the books on the underlying strength of the club, but at least they have an excuse whilst a whole list of established northern clubs have none. As for Wire I do think Mr. Moran merely adds the cream to a very full pint indeed. Agreed. It will take your club some years to establish as a truly top club. I hope your boys are allowed that. Quins aren't allowed 5 minutes.......

If the reported crowd is an error, it doesn't detract from the point, that there are several clubs who do not draw crowds big enough for them to survive let alone compete in SL, but do so because they have a sugar daddy. The idea that Quins crowds are "not enough" therefore their achievement in putting out a decent part London/part English side is not really worth much would be OK if it were not for the fact that Quins have low crowds yet so do many others - what are their excuses?? Quins are covered by a sugar daddy, so are many others. The point being that if you don't like Quins just slag their crowds off?? That's not right. If there's an error in Wire's crowd I accept that and thank you for correcting it, but please answer the point rather than go on some unneccessary defence of the wonderful Wire....

I reply to you with the utmost respect re: your playing experience and ability. Can I ask you about the Cumbria elite youngsters?? Like all team sports there are great "young kids" but only a few make it. If Cumbria produced great kids, the majority will still come back from SL clubs. If they come back to a skint and depressed Town and Haven will they be interested for a few quid boot money?? If they come back to a Cumbria RL side that is vibrant will that give them a second stab at SL if they do well, or give them the very next best to SL?? I think it would, why not you?? At our local soccer club they love the pro-sides taking the best kids because 99% come back as better players.

How does 5,000 at Fartown pay the bills? Are Bradford paying their bills?? How does 7,000 at Warrington pay their bills??? Are Wakefield paying their bills are Harlequins paying their bills etc etc. Mr. Hughes pays Harlequins bills. Mr. Davey pays Fartown bills. Mr. Moran pays Wire's bills. Mr. Hudgell pays HKR's bills. Same situation for most. I know damn well Hughes subsidises more than the rest, but his club is a fledgling club compared with the rest. The bank manager would withdraw from any of them if their sugar daddies withdrew. That has nothing to do with Quins wonderful achievement which is RL's wonderful achievement. If it has please explain???

With respect beacause you post some great stuff....... Maybe the birthplace of RL is at risk of folding as well?, after all today they got only 5,000 fans through the turnstyles and godammit they ARE the birthplace of RL in 1895 but date back to1864. Maybe the most vibrant club in RL (on the back of their great breakthrough RL cup final win) are on the verge of folding due to todays 7,000 fans? A club that's been around since the 1880's?? You tell me 3,000 fans is not break even? Well is 5,000 or 7,000?? Do all three clubs exist because Hughes, Davey and Moran bankroll them??? If the answer is yes then why are Quins always singled out as the "unviable" club when many of our SL teams are unviable without sugar daddy??? Is it because they are struggling but not struggling in the north?? The crowd stat is tedious, how about a stat based on numbers of fans attracted to a club per year in existence?? Quins would walk that but it would not suit some????

Nearly Half the squad from London? It cannot be true.

Harlequins coach Latham Tawhai said: "When you look at the personnel we had missing to come up with a performance like that is huge. It says a lot about what we are doing as a club to produce that with just one overseas player". Isn't the whole team Australian backpackers??? What's going on??? I think we should be told......