Methven Hornet

Fantastic news! Does anyone in the know care to explain what this means?

It is indeed brilliant stuff. I always enjoyed going to City as a Rochdale fan; used to go in the main stand with the home supporters and enjoyed the chat/banter. As a club they shouldn't be in League 2, and I'm glad they got the opportunity to overturn the disappointment of the League Cup final.

That is disappointing. I would at least have expected to see a team from each of the four home nations. Can you imagine what impact a combined PSNI/Garda Síochána na hÉireann could have made?

Regional conferences, as in north and south?

Some of us had snow yesterday!

And then the problem could be that the standard of the elite competition falls significantly, possibly affecting future TV contracts.

Have these been announced as part of the proposals?

That is quite an intriguing proposal, and could possibly go some way to solving the problem of having full-time clubs from the top 12 playing the part-time clubs from the bottom 12. You'd probably have to tweak the points carried forward in some way to make it more of a realistic handicap, but it would probably make for a more exciting competition. The only problem, again, would be that if the part-time finished in the top 4 they would still only have weeks to put a full-time squad together. And they would be more likely to finish in the 'middle play-off' the next season.

Got mixed feelings about Barnsley. After what he did for Rochdale, I'm really pleased that Dave Flitcroft is making a fight of it in his first job in charge. On the other hand, relegation might get him the sack and could lead to the dream-team partnership with Keith Hill being re-established at Rochdale. As Keith seems to have made a good start on his own anyway, on balance I'll go for Barnsley staying up and 'Flicker' getting his first bit of 'success'.

[media=] [/media]Just had an uncontrollable urge to play some New Seekers songs. I'm sure it's nothing to do with the two female singers!

TAAB2 - all afternoon.

Played that in the car yesterday for the first time in years. As good as it ever was

Snow on the hills and mountains just north of here.

Interesting idea, but why not combine it with an idea we discussed a while ago on here? Allow Super League clubs to enter their U20s but on the proviso that they play at a venue outside of their home town, eg at a neighbouring town's RU club or non-league soccer club, and give them a name reflecting that local identity. It would be a quick way of plugging some of the gaps in the heartlands, perhaps act as a focus for RL development in virgin territory and add numbers to the Championship leagues.

And there will be those who have been regulars in the past but, for whatever reason, no longer attend. They will have helped the club to be where they are today, they will retain an affection for the club, so why shouldn't they be there?

Not heartless at all. My mother died last year and my dad in 1999, at ages 78 and 76 respectively. Although obviously upsetting, I found it relatively straight forward to come to terms with their passing. They were not old in today's terms, but neither did they die 'before their time' - in sporting terms I think of them both achieving hard-fought draws! There is no such comfort in premature death and the loss of the young, whether that loss is through a road traffic accident, depression (as seems to be the case here) or some other illness. I cried uncontrollably at the death of my young nephew years ago, was deeply disturbed when my teenage son's mate died at the wheel of his car just a few weeks ago, and, similarly, can see nothing but tragedy in Terry's sad demise.

I can appreciate where you're coming from - it did make me sit up and take notice... As for the appointment I hope it helps towards turning the Lions around.

Because the game - its players, fans and followers - is bigger than club loyalties. Part of the game at professional level is calling the opposition all the names under the sun, but when basic humanity is needed RL people have in abundance.

Desperately tragic news. RIP

WA Reds. Living in Perth, Scotland, Perth WA is kind of a 'sister' city. Also my brother and his family live there.

Borough Park?

Damn! I've just realised that I have missed the Camanachd Cup final between Fort William and Kingussie. I'm not a great fan of shinty but it is usually a great experience to watch the annual showpiece. A more competitive and passionate sporting occasion you'll struggle to find in these islands, and the game holds such a treasured place in the heartland communities that play the game (mostly small highland towns and villages but they do have the odd outpost club in the south - Tayforth in Perth and Glasgow MA, for example). You'll not find that much in the Sunday or Monday morning papers, however, although there will probably be a 'colour-piece' in the Scotsman and the Herald tomorrow - you'll know the type of thing. The thing is the sport has been happy enough to stick with its own 'ethnic' group and has never really made that big a thing about expanding southwards into the big industrial towns and cities. Therefore it remains a regional novelty and doesn't really get the national coverage its regional passion perhaps deserves.

I am in the 'pick one team and stick with it' camp but perhaps that is too idealistic at this stage of the games international development. In that case your idea could be the basis of a compromise - one that is based upon the reality of the sport. Forget the idea of a PI team for the moment and just have the big three at the top. Allowing dual qualified players to switch would benefit the other nations while not depriving the game's professional players from playing at the highest possible level. A Fiji/Australia qualified player could start representative life at a young age with Fiji, bringing great benefit to both himself and the team. When he is good enough to be considered for Origin, and Australian selection, then he formally switches allegiance. When he is no longer good enough for the Kangaroos, although he will almost certainly be good enough, he can play for Fiji again. I'm sure that used to happen in union many years ago - didn't some Aussie internationals go on to play for Argentina and Italy? It just has to be presented as a necessary aid to international development, as you point out cricket gets away with it. Make a virtue out of a necessity! The downside is that you could reinforce the gap between the big three and the rest, but that gap is likely to stay for a long time yet. And we are only talking about dual-qualified players.

Has anyone done any serious investigation as to why we don't get more coverage? Or, more seriously, why our coverage seems to be declining. We could ask, I suppose, but I fear we would get a 'stock' answer such as 'sold our soul to Murdoch', 'you're just a professional version of rugby for which there is no reason anymore' or, the classic 'you are just a regional game, read about your game in the Yorkshire Post'. But would it be interesting to see what attitudes of sports editors are? There's a post on the Community Game forum that describes St Alban's coverage (I think) in their local press. What was excellent coverage declined when a new editor was appointed. It turned out that the new guy had no experience of RL at all but soon came around after a bit of effort from the club. I fear that sort of effort has been made by the RFL at national level, however. The fear I have is that the game is paying the price of its history. It has not expanded anywhere near enough to have buried itself into the national consciousness - and that failure is not just one of growing outside of the northern counties. The overwhelming strength of the game is still limited largely to the northern industrial towns that gave birth to the Northern Union. Go just a few miles from one of the heartland towns and you will find a rugby league wasteland equal to anywhere else in the UK. The work carried out in recent years has been excellent, especially given scarce resources, but this is something that should have happened and been persevered with at the beginning of the 20th century, not the 21st. Another thing that occurs to me, however, is that the game is still anchored in the same northern industrial working class that has always been its base. Unfortunately the world has moved on and that base has declined over the years in terms of size and, arguably, in status, influence and economic well-being. While, as a bloc, the games followers may once have interested sponsors, advertisers and national newspaper editors (and political parties, as it happens!) I don't think that is the case today. Bluntly, and this does sound superficial (but then isn't the UK national press?), the game and it's followers are not fashionable. Union and cricket have the middle classes and the establishment enthusing after them, with soccer mopping up most other people (and notice how some of soccer's more working class supporters complain about being priced out of Premiership football). Playing devil's advocate, what does rugby league offer that makes it attractive to the national press (and remember its nature at present, not how it may have been in the past), given the make-up and backgrounds of its players and supporters?

I often enjoy his posts, and he contributes a lot of information, but he does have a tendency to 'go off on one' and present his opinions as absolute fact (don't know where the hell he gets that from).