Dave T

Not really. High tackles can receive different punishments. Just a penalty, sin bin, or red card. We treat punches differently at the disciplinary. We make subjective calls all of the time, it's part of the game. There is no one-size fits all solution.

I get that, I should probably have clarified that it was my preference around the rules. But I think the punch will be a Grade A no ban and the hip drop will pick up a ban.

I think the red could have been yellow and the yellow red.

I've often made the point that the word sustainability has become something of a problem for us. I accept that it was needed, we settled things down and broadly speaking clubs are in a better shape than pre-SL and it has certainly helped with things like Covid and tv reductions etc. But, there really does need to be an element of aspiration in any sport. I think RU has been a bit reckless, but we have been too focused on balancing books when there is a middle ground that would see some excitement and ambition that could be managed through some limits. Even the exciting things we do suffer from this. Magic is a perfect example. It's an exciting innovation, but it's all done as cheap as possible.

That's interesting. It feels a reasonable approach to me.

I expect it probably is around the £5m mark on average, so it would then depend on what % they deem appropriate. But I think it removes the constant debates, it is linked to income and isn't just left to voting and negotiation.

My personal view is that the cap should be linked to the revenues the clubs drive. So it should be set at something like 40% (or whatever is seen as optimal) of total average revenues. So if we average £6m per club then the cap would be £2.4m. If a weaker club only brings in £3m and can't afford £2.4m then that's tough tbh. I think linking it to revenues is fairer for players. If they are the valuable commodities within the sport, they should be better off when revenues increase.

Correct. They moved on a year or so ago. Just like most other sponsors.

I think it's ultimately a way of keeping base wages at the current level. We accept that we can't afford to spend more and any raise in the cap would see wages increase across the population. This way, you maybe pay another 12 players a bit more that you were at risk of losing to Oz. It's a calculated increase basically.

Like I say, I don't disagree, but ultimately we are as poor as ever. It's all relative. I absolutely agree that as tv deals increased we should have tracked that with the cap. The problem is that we didn't sort out fundamentals and capitalise on, well, anything really, and revenues haven't grown significantly outside of tv money. Look at our sponsor portfolio now, it's garbage.

I expect the problem is that the rest also won't vote for a basic rise either. It suits them because it doesn't raise base level wages, only for the tip of the game. So I think this is a case of the bigger clubs only being able to get this through tbh.

I don't disagree, but the real problem is that if revenues don't increase with inflation then your costs start to become a problem if you keep increasing them. What has happened in the RU top division this season should be a real warning for us. I do think there are some positives in this, and I think the £2.1m limit that gets mentioned is a red herring when exemptions are in place. We used to have £1.8m for a long time with no marquee, and now we have £2.1m with 3(?) in place, so in reality clubs could easily be spending a fair bit more than £2.1m. But ultimately the root cause is we aren't driving revenues enough to grow the cap significantly.

Toppy stated you can't receive a sentence higher than the grading. You can.

Grade D isn't automatically sent to a hearing. Grade D's are usually served a penalty notice. Knowles was called to a hearing with grade D last time due to aggravating factors (Cooper's injury).

Toppy is indeed incorrect. I'm surprised it was missed by all, but Knowles just returned from a 5 match ban for a Grade D offence which has a normal range of 2-3 matches. It's frankly bizarre that the aggravating factors of ban after ban after ban is ignored this week.

I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I actually think he does attempt to wrap the arm, albeit slightly delayed, but I think that's ok. I can understand why they want to cut out what they see as cheap shots on prone players, but I'm not sure I can see anything that should be penalised under current rules. So I have no issues with adapting rules to make things illegal, I do have a bit of an issue with refs just making a penalty up.

I was delighted with the inclusivity element of the last world cup, but tbh, I'm now pretty peed off that the PDRL, Wheelchair and Women's World Cups beibg so linked to the men's tournament now means that they have been cancelled. I think 2021 was a nice way of showing the world that we are inclusive and almost relaunching that element of our game, but I think it is clear for a few reasons that they should now go their own way and form their own paths. We don't need to keep them linked. On hosts, I think we have to just accept that we have a reliance on England and Australia. But I also think that is fine. A host nation should be staging the marquee games, but it is acceptable for Aus and England to stage some games/groups as part of that. NZ could be hosts by staging an opener, two groups, 2 or 3 quarters, two semis and a final. That means they host 17/18 games from 31 and reduces the risk somewhat. Same with France, it can be a French WC as long as it hosts the opener, semis, finals plus French group for example. A Pacific World Cup can have Aussie Stadiums in support. Same with PNG. I'm not against wildcard bids that pump in money, but we are seeing ourselves get burned too many times as we desperately sell ourselves out - USA Test, USA World Cup, TWP, France WC. I don't buy that these things are as harmful externally, plenty of sports have weird things going on, but we do need to get our sh** together as we are neglecting the basics.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I assume it has been mentioned that this is the 2nd time this tournament has failed - it was originally awarded to USA and now France. No doubt some will look for others to blame, but the failure of our international game lies squarely at our own door. We are pathetic.

I'm not sure why we have tried to run before we can walk here. The festival of world cups is a nice idea, but this has to be paid for. Costs and logistics must be really challenging to stage four WC's at the same time, and as a sport we just haven't built up any partners that invest serious money to cover this. We've grown the cup to feature more and more teams, including some that are not really much more than invitational teams, without doing much groundwork. It really is the same old story.

You reap what you sow. The lack of groundwork has meant the whole international game has no real foundations. To think we can just stage four huge world cups combined when we don't even stage proper credible internationals in the country most years is just stupid. Our arrogance and burying our head in the sand last year led to some real average off field performance in rlwc21 and it's hard to see how France 25 could do well. I desperate hope something can be resolved, because I'd have loved to have gone over there for plenty of games. But tbh, I'm not far off done with international RL.

I think the main problem this highlights is that one international window a year isn't enough. Not when the game is split across hemispheres like it is. We should have 2 windows, one with tests down under, 1 with tests here.

It was a red card. It was a pretty blatant one, and one that the Wakey coach said they had no arguments with. He was guilty of a grade B high tackle. There is no error.

A lot of offers tonight, maybe could have hoped for better, but then it's a bank holiday weekend, so positive that we were in 5 figures.

Didn't Doncaster do ok with a couple of internationals when we held them there? One thing I would say, last year's game was clearly never the 9k plus they claimed (remember they claimed the seats were sold out and there were huge empty sections). I thought it looked _ok compared to that, and I would add that the feedback from people who went (non-RL fans on my social media for example) was that they seemed to really enjoy it. So that's something I suppose. I'm almost at the point of past caring about the detail, it's a waste of time and energy as a fan. They'll do what they do, I'll pick and choose what interests me. That was the World Cup Legacy for me tbh.

Yes, we should only send players off if they successfully paralyse the opposition. Wakey's coach said they have no complaints with the red card.