Dave T

Bennett actually said last week that everybody would get a game vs PNG that hadn't played in the your, as he wouldn't take people away from their family for a month without playing them. So this squad is either nonsense, or he is senile, or a lying ass-hole. He certainly shouldn't be giving these players a chance to finish on a high because they have lost each game. The others deserve a run.

I dont disagree with that, and I would like to have seen an outsider get the top job when Wood left.

These are two very different things mate. I see no evidence that there is no accountability. We have seen a lot of people movement. We have seen new agencies etc. We see and hear plenty of change in approach. I think we are relatively transparent, but I support any calls for us to be 100% transparent and take the wind out of the sails of those who criticise them for lack of transparency. Take that criticism off the table - what have we really got to lose?

We have however seen a huge turnover in staff - maybe people were held accountable!

I dont disagree with you John, things need to be better, but I dont think it is lack of accountability that is the problem. I think it is lack of resources, leading to lack of sufficient expertise and talent. As we have seen with some of the RLWC 2021 stuff, we do some stuff very very well, we just cant afford to do that for everything. We should be doing much better in a lot of areas, and even those we do well in we should be challenging ourselves to do better, but I dont see real evidence of us not having accountability.

It is. But I'd be stunned to see the media spending time reporting on us spending £100k on PPC instead of Outdoor next year.

Well no, I'm talking about things like missing some crowd targets etc. The way you fix that is reviewing performance, making the required changes in investment in personnel and process and go again. But much of it is the boring stuff that wont make any newspaper article. So people are held accountable and changes made, but it doesnt make the headlines. Because it is just day to day business. We need to make sure we focus on the big and important stuff.

Just because things are not made public does not mean there is no accountability for things. Not in the slightest. Ultimately, most changes on the back of bad performance will be behind the scenes, as they should be.

My point is the first three things you mention are not from this article, they were all from last week. They may want salary cap changes, that is their prerogative, and just like the other recent changes they will need to be voted in. Hardly a big deal, we have been increasing and reviewing that for the last couple of years. Elstone has said out loud that the money will be split amongst the existing clubs. It's a bit of a nothing article. Fine, but not worthy of the excitable tone of the thread.

It depends on what we mean by accountability. Too often people just call for people to be sacked when there are empty seats at a game for example, when that isnt how businesses work. I'm all for transparency, but tbh the annual review is quite good and gives plenty details, it is more about the special things that can be missing.

Which parts of that article showed they would move the sport on? There are literally two things in that article. Firstly, they want transparency over where the central funding they arent getting is going - it's going to the clubs. Our clubs re far more transparent with their financial records and community activity than TWP. Secondly, he wants the RFL to have a word with the Home Office. A fair enough ask and the governing body should crack on with that, but that isnt a game changer at all. So what are we getting excited about here? All the SBW stuff was announced last week.

In the first game of this tour, the Video Ref called them England. Rank amateur stuff.

Whilst ageing forwards may concern some, the overriding issue here is tactical, so even if we had a young pack, Bennett would still have had them taking 5 drives before putting in an aimless kick.

So I'm on holiday and couldn't get it on the TV. Did I miss much? What a load of .

I'd rather give it away for free to a different provider than take £70k from the same provider.

As below, you wont/cant answer the question, because you are dealing in soundbites. Would you have sold the rights again for the £70k that was rumoured?

So what exactly do you want right now? You want him to give the rights away. And then you will moan.

There is a demand, they want to broadcast it. But they want it free. If we dont put a value on our rights, why would anyone else. We may need to do things differently and cover them ourselves and sell them on, but we cant just keep gifting rights. People criticised Nigel Wood for selling to Sky for £200m and are now criticising Elstone for not taking £70k from French tv.

I sort of agree, but why have what is pretty much a deformed, clunky S. I'd rather it was a mistake, because if it is genuinely meant to be an S then it is some of the worst design I have seen.

Let's not be so quick to criticise Elstone for refusing to give away our rights in Framce pretty much for free after almost 15 years of French involvement in SL. We will never get a paid deal if we keep giving it for free (negligible amounts).

Tbf, the posts here are normally pretty tame. That isnt the same elsewhere, but the internet is a minefield, so not sure there is too much benefit to giving credibility to these rumours. I suppose these things can be interpreted in 100 different ways.

I finally did my first ever Parkrun on Saturday in Edinburgh. Very enjoyable, 33.5 minutes so very much plodding but I achieved my goal of jogging the whole way round.

So if Catalans get a home TV deal announced, that would mean all 6 games to be shown - what a result!

Seems you feel the same as me mate. Despite one of the best days of my life this year in the Cup Final, this year is probably the closest I have come to switching off RL in boredom. I cant wait for it to be over tbh and hopefully next year brings some excitement.

This is another 'only in RL' thing I like to point out. When the likes of Salford were punished well after infringing we were told it was incompetence from the RFL, how can it be so late, it is unfair and so on.