Dave T
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Posts posted by Dave T
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1 minute ago, BristolDevonCharlie said:
France and Wales will both be in World Cup qualifying this autumn. Since the demotion of Italy, Scotland and Ireland it seems that only four European teams are eligible for RLWC 2025, so that is likely to be a European Championship over four weeks (round robin and final) to decide who qualifies for the World Series 2025.
Unlikely that France or Wales will play more than 3 or 4 games in the autumn window.
Lebanon won't be doing anything much. Maybe them for a one-off game against England?
I wouldn't be surprised if WC qualifying is a game of rock, paper, scissors over zoom.
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15 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said:
Fair enough. I don't completely disagree with you about 3 test series, although The Ashes is the one series that I would retain as three matches.
i like Four Nations events because you don't have teams missing a week and it adds more variety and more matches. I appreciate that's probably not possible or feasible this year though.
I probably would also even have preferred a Tri-Nations with England, France and Samoa, but I guess that too takes longer than is available. Unless you could tinker with it a bit. Would playing twice in a week be too much, even allowing for the fact that France are not at the same level as Eng/Samoa?
Tue - England vs France
Sat - England vs Samoa
Wed - Samoa vs France
Sun - Final
Tri series with France can always work, but would need three weekends for touring teams. England could play France in Wk1 while Samoa play Tonga in Oz. Then Samoa v Eng, Samoa v France and then a final, which you'd expect Eng to make. Not perfect schedules, but means three games in England for the touring team like last year instead of three this year.
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21 minutes ago, gingerjon said:
Aggregate scores for a series are not a good idea. You need to let this suggestion go to a farm upstate for its retirement.
I don't mind a drawn series tbh, the RLWC showed how aggregates could kill a series after the first game.
I think 3 test series are a little archaic though, and I'm disappointed that we are just trying to retain them but with less attractive teams. If that's how we get games, so be it, but I much prefer things like tri and four nations tournaments.
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16 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said:
I obviously disagree, because although I won't be batting my eyelids at anything, I would find it a bit unsatisfactory if it ended 1-1. But there's no right or wrong answer - it's just an opinion, and I'm happy if everyone else feels differently.
I will just ask though, would you feel the same way if The Ashes was a two match series, with the potential to be decided by aggregate score?
I care little for the Ashes if I'm honest. Three test series are not my favourite things
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3 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said:
You make it sound as though wanting a decisive winner is a weird thing. I think it's more abnormal to set things up with a fair chance of things ending in a draw at 1-1.
As I said, if it's 2-0, there's no great problem with it. But I'm wondering what the narrative would be and how it would look to viewers on tv, if after the 2nd test England had just played very well to level the series. Would there not be people asking why there is no decider? And I'm not sure that telling them "oh we'll just add up the points from the two games to produce a winner" is going to be particularly impressive.
Nobody suggested it is weird.
I don't think anyone would think too much of it. Aggregate score is a perfectly valid way of doing something like this and nobody would bat an eyelid.
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18 minutes ago, Click said:
I am honestly not that hopeful that we will even get an England test in London this year.
Being an RL fan in the South is pretty *&$"
I agree. I think this is partly a response to finding that three tests all within 50/60 miles was a bad idea - so they will reduce it to 2 tests within 50/60 miles.
If I had to put money on, it would be Wigan and Leeds or similar.
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20 minutes ago, dkw said:
He was constantly at it for 10 minutes, claiming all kinds of things, most of which were nonsense.. So you can hardly blame a ref for thinking he was just once again play acting. He has no one to blame other than himself. So yeah, reap what you sow fits, or maybe "act like a xxx, get treat like a xxxx" is more suitable.
But a ref is surely watching what is happening, no? We all saw the Saints players lashing out.
It's not really an offence to be a bit of a t0sser. Thankfully!
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It's perfectly acceptable for fans to hate on Connor and think he gets what he deserves. It isn't however acceptable for referees to be clouded by who it is.
Im not one for criticising refs, but I struggle to watch that and not see the ref being influenced by the player and just ignoring other players hitting out at him. That just isn't acceptable imo.
We don't referee games based on 'you reap what you sow' or 'boy who cried wolf'.
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1 hour ago, Click said:
I'd hope we would be aiming to beat 17k for attendance. Has an England game in London ever got that low amount?
My aspiration for this would be 20-25k for this game, but if we managed to absolutely pack out a 17.2k stadium, that would be far better than what we did last year.
We should remember that whilst we often do quite well in London, it isn't a given, we've only ever staged huge games there, I.e versus the Aussie or Kiwis. The Samoa crowd was solid for a World Cup Semi at Arsenal, but this series would be nothing like that.
I'm not sure if there are any decent grounds around the 25k mark that would be suitable.
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51 minutes ago, 17 stone giant said:
It's one of those frustrating situations because if it goes to 2-0, I do think that a third test can feel a bit pointless. But if it goes to 1-1, I would like a decisive 3rd test. Otherwise it's unfinished business.
Unless you just count aggregate if you really want a series winned?
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Are they actually from Lancashire though?
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28 minutes ago, Jack GB said:
If it's only 2 tests we need to also be playing France for 2 tests too to test out combinations, develop the team etc. (the france tests could be in france)
I personally would love to see the first Samoa test at St James park - tap into all the people that attended the WC opener. market it as a revenge game for samoa or something.
Could we then be brave enough to do the second test in london?
We need to target sensible growth here. We got 40k for Tonga, averaging 13k per game.
I think it should be a target to be getting 20-25k for these games.
Elland Rd and a London ground if possible would be good. I like St James' though and would be happy with that too.
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1 hour ago, sam4731 said:
I'd honestly take one to the Emirates.
I'd absolutely go to London for one, but I wasn't overly impressed with the Emirates, and I'd wanted to go for years.
I actually think a 2 test series is the right way to go. I think 3 test series are a bit old fashioned and not necessary. If we can get another game, probably France as well to give us three games that's OK. If Samoa can play a test Down Under before they come here it feels like a decent approach.
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Hudds really should have finished that off. Always likely that.
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Been a cracking game this one.
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Just now, dkw said:
There been the exact same "hitting out" by several players several times, there is in loads of games, its a shove not a punch.
His cretinous ###### is made worse by how good he can be, last few weeks he's been outstanding, just concentrating on playing rugby. It's all just so pathetic and tedious.
Nah, I disagree.
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1 minute ago, dkw said:
Come on, he's been trying it on for 15 minutes, pulling in saints players then claiming stuff at the ref. It's cost his team a try, he's just an absolute child. Just get on with the game, doesn't help having commentators saying "oh isn't he cheeky"....no, he's not, he's a clown.
And the two Saints players hitting out?
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Just now, dkw said:
Connor is an absolute moron, just get on with the game you tedious child.
It is an odd rule that you're now allowed to just hit out at Connor though.
I mean, I'm not totally against it, but..
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4 minutes ago, Dunbar said:
A similar decision was made in one of the Australian games this morning. A player deliberately placing the ball behind the foot of the marker to try and get s penalty. Although they are always calls that can go one way or the other.
I didn't think the one a few minutes ago was a problem personally. Clark doesn't have any right to move back across the ruck in a tackle he has lost imo. He really should have to step out of the ruck.
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13 minutes ago, dboy said:
It's a forum.
He started a thread on a premise.
If you don't think the thread has merit and don't want to contribute, don't post.
On topic, I don't worry too much about the production (though Baz and Tez wound me up big time (well, Tez), I care about the value for money, which I don't believe is there.
I think Sky Sports is around £30 month isn't it on Nowtv, less if you start packaging things up and bundling as part of Sky or Virgin.
For that to get every SL game each week plus three NRL games a week I think it's outstanding value personally.
As a general sports fan I get more value with things like Football, Cricket, F1 etc.
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1 minute ago, Waynebennettswinger said:
If that wasn’t Connor then it might well have been given the other way.
I think that's right.
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Just now, Padge said:
He seemed to try and keep Clark entangled and play the ball and blew it.
I think he got a quick ptb and Clark made no attempt to get out of the way.
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Just now, Futtocks said:
There actually was some nonsense from the St Helens players, but Connor didn't sell it well enough.
Saints are very good at accidentally beibg in the ruck. It really should have been a penalty, just as it should have been a few minutes earlier when Clark lost his rag with Connor.
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Not a fan of Connor, but I think the ref treated him poorly there in his battle with Clark.
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England vs Samoa Series
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
Standard approach where we have three England games should always be NW, NE and South. Pretty much tried and tested.