The Parksider

Yes I take your points and agree to a point, but I do think that if we removed all but the best two or three imports from the game, then more young british players and some british NL players would have to step in. I do think that the quality of the product on the pitch would not suffer that much as long as the teams were even which the cap aims to do. if there are supoerstars on the pitch it doesn't matter if the game is a boring one sided one. I'd take a close NL1 game over a one sided SL game anyday. I think RL is a very entertaining game when it's close, entertaining enough to withstand the loss of around 100 antipodean journeymen. We may not have the strength in depth player wise but Rugby League as a game per se is and always will be one of our great strengths.........

You only posted that last line becuase your club score the lowest Nothing petty about discussing getting more home grown players into the clubs. And again I feel that the merger thing was possibly a realisation that small town clubs cannot stock their sides from "locals" alone anymore. Leeds take all the best lads from Hunslet which has helped kill Hunslet off as a serios semi pro (let alone pro) club. Wigan of course will drain leigh of fans and quality juniors. So it's up to your lot to take the best Oldham and Rochdale have to offer like Maurice planned for you

Do you really really really, come on hand on heart be honest really, believe that the game would be better today without that SKY contract. Without that

QUOTE (Jimmy B @ Jul 2 2010, 12:44 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I cannot help but feel that had Wakefield not been in danger of losing their licence because of off field failings he would have said nowt. Spot on post and for the last line above you win a ceegar.......

It's a tough one for you BBR and probably the same for Tro and Terry, but that choice belonged to those who ran the game, who owned the game or whatever, and they chose to go for a limited amount of strong clubs, and for the weaker clubs they had the choice of merge with a big club or stay small. Merging meant for many of the fans of the small clubs a loss of identity and they unanimously rejected merger, that inevitably has led to the SL clubs nicking their best junior players, senior players and as you point out fans. Jimmy B states that the smaller clubs have also been manipulated to vote for these things and that's life I suppose. All totally unfair, devious, underhand, damaging and alienating of the traditional fan at the small club. I suppose the RFL/SKY were mumbling the mantra "you can't please all of the people all the time". So they went ahead with the aim of trying to get the majority of RL fans watching a smaller number of clubs. Given that attendances for most of our top clubs have increased considerably since 1996, the devious and dastardly plan is working, and as you suggest some oldham "fans" are now Wigan fans.......

Fair enough as always, it's interesting you quote cumbria as a "county" and Warrington as a "town". The development of professional RL has spread not to towns - who are not excactly encouraged to apply for SL but regions like "The London Area", "Wales", "The Catalans region". The towns who once could produce whole teams of cup winners like Featherstone, Cas and Widnes can not do that anymore, and the hope seems to be that in time teams based on regions can produce quality home grown full sides simply due to the numbers game!! You'd have though on this basis Cumbria certainly would be a natural extension of this policy, but it seems the "population" problem (stadium as well I know, but that could be sorted) is the real bar as it's felt there would not be enough fans. I think around 1949-51 the two West Cumbria clubs jointly averaged 18,000 gates......

Derwent answered that with the facts - see above. Workington and Whitehaven do use a lot of cumbrian players in their NL sides, and workington seem to be chasing one or possibly two overseas quality players to boost their side - maybe in key positions). Workington have been stuck in the division of death for some time now and they probably feel they need to get out of it before NL1 gets extended and NL2 gets dumped to amateur, I don't know, but there are probably other angles to this Dave??. If there's a boast that Cumbria has the talent then we need the facts, for instance how many cumbrians are playing first team in SL and how many young cumbrians are in SL acedemies?? Enough such that if you add the customary 8 overseas pro players to the total do you have an SL quality team with plenty of young lads lined up - maybe you do maybe you don't. But also consider before suggesting that Cumbria could not find 17 professional SL quality cumbrian born players to make up a SL home grown side, how any Warrington side would look if it was only Warrington born. Could Salford even field a 5 a side soccer team with salford and manchester born professional RL players. RL is massively short of quality players, that's why they are imported across the board, if we believe clubs should "grow their own" I can only think that given the size of the Cumbrian Junior RL set up, and how much bigger it would be if there were an SL set up stimulating it's growth, it would be quite a production line. So maybe unfair to make remarks about the numbers of quality cumbrians - that's a problem for most clubs even those at SL level.......

An excellent analysis Shaun, perhaps you can share this with Jill. She's not too hot at working these things out for herself. Mind she's a good golfer. This is the Mo Lindsay's "merge or die" plan from 1996 at work, and seemingly succeeding to a point. That plan is written apparently on the back of a fag packet (woodbine's I understand) and is in a frame in the RL heritage centre in Huddersfield.

It is maybe (note the suggestion rather than the declaration) the case that there are two agendas going on. SKY want to see big clubs with stars playing out of packed grounds (hence the "greedy"saints, wigans, wires, leeds and hulls of this world) and the RFL want to see RL developing at all levels in a much bigger geographical area than just the M62 (like the France, Wales, Crusaders, Quins and Catalans of this world). I've read everything I can on this over the 15 years since this started wether in books or articles, and have particularly taken note of what the people who run RL wether at the RFL or at clubs say and what the few non lazy investigative RL journos have dug up plus the views and findings of several posters on here. It's been a bit of a hobby, like Golf I suppose. I suppose you could make an educated guess (why not try it sometime?) that the empty stadia of Bridgend and The Stoop are the making of the RFL and not SKY (note the suggestion rather than the declaration). Hope this helps you, however I can't help with your handicap.

When RL hit the free gangway and private media saw a value in sports, money was available to RL. Clearly that would be on the terms of the monetary provider i.e. SKY. Mo had no power to stampede anyone. I am quite certain that all club chairmen are not so bl**dy soft that a glorified bookie that was Mo could "stampede" them. Ludicrous proposal Tro......

What's your handicap at the mo (Mo! geddit??) Are you looking forward to widnes back in SL??

Hmmmmm Maybe they all knew that no SKY contract meant the death of RL so they all voted for it. Now some cubs moan a bit (but don't moan as loud as their fans)................... Perhaps the clubs know the score and the fans need to realise the score. Our skint game is propped up by non negotiable mega-money from SKY.

1. You could try some research and add to it an educated guess? 2. I am sure you are correct that a deal worth hundreds of millions was "scribbled down on the back of a fag packet"

As always spot on, but everyone must wake up and smell the coffee. What state would Rugby League be in if SKY did not provide it with tens of millions of pounds??? And why would anyone in the hierarchy of RL not give our biggest ever benefactor what they want, when not doing so would kill the game to a greater extent than several posters on here are arguing it's been killed already?

A very astute analysis my friend. Mo Lindsay wanted the fan, sponsor, sugar daddy and TV monetary resources to be concentrated in a small number of clubs (naturally at the expense of other clubs). He wanted this so that what RL had, which was and is still not much, was not spread so thin that all the RL clubs were small and weak, that Rugby players per se did not swan off to union, fans did not go and watch soccer or stay at home, and SKY were not given what they wanted - an elite league of big clubs, with big crowds and quality sides. You rightly suggest that more clubs could be involved in sharing the SKY pot and thus we could become all inclusive (to a point) and even manage two leagues with P & R between the two in such a fashion the promoted team (as promoted) would be a stronger one than the relegated team. I like that, it's good thinking, but do please consider the problems it brings. Firstly if we share resources across too many clubs our strongest, biggest clubs have to level down. The men who put millions into RL will be restricted in doing so, because the salary cap may be only

Well let's cut to the chase Tro. Dump Crusaders, Catalans and Quins and have two divisions of 10 clubs... 1. Wigan, Wire, Saints, Hull, Leeds, Fartown, HKR, Bradford, Wakefield, Cas 2. Salford, Fev, leigh, halifax, Barrow, sheffield, Widnes, Whitehaven, Batley, Dewsbury Redistribute the 900K 14 clubs now get as

Come on Terry It was mostly SL sides yo-yoing up and down like Salford, Cas and huddersfield. Small clubs like Halifax, Leigh, Workington and Oldham have been in there and have dropped out and now we see things a bit more settled. If Widnes replace such as Cas then we will be even more nearer all the big (money) clubs in and just the little clubs left over in the NL's. The gap is too big between NL and SL for any meaningful promotion and relegation. HKR bucked the trend with

OK sorry, I agree with you. But as for pointless games even if we had P & R and let's say featherstone went up this year and Catalans went out then we have two likely scenarios. 1. A disaster for the development of professional and international RL in France 2. A featherstone club needing to build a professional side when all the best players have been signed up and without a big enough budget to do it anyway. Then what would P & R bring us?? Featherstone struggling to pick up points and looking certain to go down whilst the half dozen clubs above them go on to play their meaningless games they play now. You won't get a relegation battle if the clubs who come up cannot compete, and when we left P & R it was the case that promoted clubs were regularly disadvantaged by the SL clubs as a means of ensuring they had a fall guy other than themselves. Remember the year leigh came up - that will be the norm. I know HKR broke the trend but again they broke it with

I was there when Meninga obstructed someone getting to Stewart at Old Trafford Tro, but what exactly am I wrong about. We have lost to the Aussies regularly since we won the world cup in 1972. Maybe we didn't lose as often and as by as much, but then we had legends like Hanley, Schoey and Gregory at half back, we could find British wingers, and play full backs in form like Hampson. We had pack giants like Harrison Skerret, Betts, and Platt and our teams were well balanced. Today we have to really push it to scrape up 13 in form quality players. The demise of Great Britain is about the demise in numbers of international quality british players. Superlague today offers six figure salaries for such players to play our game and get to the top. The incentives are there. The kids sadly haven't come. What earthly link is there to promotion and relegation????

I think that the attendances you quote may also have been affected by other factors, midweek game, and a game against a club whose own fanbase is dropping sadly like a stone, notwithstanding a sense of aceptance at Castleford that they don't seem to have the resources anymore to compete with the "big boys", and that includes players rumoured to have already done deals at bigger clubs as they play for you. It's not relegation battles you need my friend (which are statistically matches with below average attendance - of that there is no doubt, Padge has his "facts") you need what Wigan, Fartown, Crusaders, Saints, Wire, Salford, Quins, Crusaders, Widnes, and HKR have and that is a rich backer, or you need to have a fanbase like Hull or Leeds. Low crowds come more from having clubs in SL who can't compete. I see no low crowds in the NRL

England went out of the soccer world cup because there's around a dozen countries who currently produce better quality players than us. How this links in any way to GB's losses to Australia at RL is beyond me?? 15/20 years ago we were regularly beaten by Australia, sometimes heavily. Today the same thing happens. That is because they produce far more quality players than us to pick from, and can pick those in form. Where promotion and relegation to superleague in any way comes into this scenario you really must tell us.

Well yes that's the point isn't it. If we have around half a dozen clubs who can find an exciting team, compete for the trophies, spend full cap and pull in the fans that's where all the excitement will be and clearly is. If the skint bottom half of the table can't compete and has no brass then of course that's where the doldrums come from. It seems weird to say that the bottom half of SL is boring because there's no relegation battle. the facts as Padge keeps repeating them is in the relegation years you could pick out the odd match here and there that was a relegation "winner takes all" in which several thousand extra fans were attracted to these games. However for the vast majority of "relegation" games the crowds simply did not turn up. Of course the follow on from the supposedly well attended and attractive relegation tussel may be the promotion of two new clubs to SL - say at the moment Featherstone and Leigh. Then off we go again. Two more clubs destined for small crowds, low income and struggle such that there may not even be any relegation battle if they never get off the bottom of the table and go straight back down again. Don't forget SL set up P & R such that by the time you got promoted they'd cleaned up on all the best pro players leaving the promoted side as relegation fodder from the start. I know HKR bucked the trend, but that was because Hudgell had

As rLrLrL says fans watch on TV in massive numbers and pay to watch on TV and that money goes to Superleague clubs. I suppose you mean "REAL" fans. If you do the only reality professional sport recognises is money and wether you pay it to them via SKY subscriptions or via the turnstyles it don't matter. I watch loads of games live and even more on TV and pay for the lot. Very nice "package" that is too.