Dave T

Yeah, I get the impression things are behind schedule and they've delayed this as much as they could so have just staged the event without real tangibles.

I think the strategy for how they accommodate 6 teams is rubbish tbh. Having sections in the lower bowl facing the cameras for either the women's game of the 1895 just shouldn't be happening. The main event here is the Men's Challenge Cup Final and the lower tiers viewing arc should be setup to be optimised for that match. Having a few thousand fans of another club in the middle of Wire and Hull KR fans is odd for me. This triple header approach was always a bit odd, and things like this just make it muddled. I understand giving importance to fans of those games, but it does now lead to empty sections in the lower tier, more so than before they added these games.

It always confuses me who you're mocking with this kind of post you repeat over and over.

I quite liked him as England manager. I thought he did a decent job and found him far better than Bennett. However I do agree with you in that I dont think I'd be overjoyed if he took over at Wire. And I agree on the point about how he presents himself. Although I find quite a few head coaches to be quite unlikeable really (in their public persona).

Joking aside, these things need to be discussed sensibly whenever we do something different. There aren't many sports who would embark on a new venture where ultimately the existing clubs just pay the incremental cost. New PNG team? Here's a few million dollars each as a sweetener. Same with Perth. SA teams in the Union Euro comp? Here's huge sponsorship and media deal alongside it. We also see costs covered by additional investment when things are launched, otherwise those sports just dont bother doing them. We do embark on many things where the business case would be dismissed outright by other sports. I'm not advocating doing that, I'd rather we distribute central funds better so that the 'league's pots of money to invest in initiatives, but it isn't a surprise to me that clubs challenge the governing body who aren't great at bringing in investment to fund these things and just leave the costs to clubs.

That is the justification of somebody who doesn't give a s*** for transparency with respect. It's always the justification "you dont need to know".

The principle of that may seem sound, however I think this is where a distinction between the RFL and SLE is probably needed, and RFL voting being limited to what it can do with regards to SLE. RFL are responsible for grassroots development in the UK, the England team etc. and there is a conflict with overseas teams being a member of that organisation - but this is where SLE needs a strong governance model. But any of the above issues are possible to overcome, with right governance, which is the overarching point.

Again, I'm a fan of people doing what they said they would. It was Nigel Wood who stated they would share the details of the workstream. And that isn't a wild commitment, it is exactly the kind of transparency you'd expect from a governing body and the kind of approach that Sport England are looking for. Keeping things secret because we don't like people discussing it on a forum isn't a good approach. And I look forward to the outcomes too. Although if I don't like them, I can sleep easy, knowing that there will be another within 3 years when crowds and sponsors haven't doubled.

Good stuff, don't always agree with him, but do on this. However, I do think the bigger piece here is around the central funding etc. The sooner we get watertight agreements on central funding, allocations, costs etc. that aren't up for discussion every year the better. IMO the simple starting point is that all SLE clubs should get an equal share of central funding (media, sponsorship etc) irrespective of which territory it comes from. But irrespective of whether my approach is the one they go with, they just need a long term commitment and we just then stop talking about it.

I'm just a fan of people being credible and doing what they say they will. There is zero reason not to release details of the workstreams of the review. It's a really easy win for transparency. And there has been zero improvement in communications. Remember this wasn't a long term aspiration, this was his commitment, knowing he is there for a short period. There is zero reason for silence.

I'm not talking about the outcomes of the review. "The work streams of the Strategic Review will be finalised over the next week or so. We will look to publish these, together with details of the other contributors who have agreed to assist with the process. Our sport is blessed with talented professionals, in clubs, at the RFL and Rugby League Commercial and indeed everyone, who will happily offer their skills, expertise and energy to move us forward. We also need to communicate much better – with clubs and other key stakeholders, and most of all with fans." https://www.totalrl.com/nigel-wood-sets-out-his-priorities-on-rfl-return/ 2 months ago those claims of communicating details of the review and communicating with fans better.

They are selling some rows on Wire's allocation and some on the RFL's. This is often what they are doing when people claim they only put 50% of blocks on sale.

Did they ever announce the details of the review as Wood promised? Even as an interim gang they seem very slack on keeping promises.

Irrespective of injuries or tiredness or whatever, we shouldn't be losing by 30 points against a team level in the league with us. Particularly when that completes the double against us. There was enough talent in that team to either get a result or at least stay in the match.

As per the rest of my line, why would they announce Wood as Chair if they'd done the right things? They've just gone silent, seemingly hoping everyone will forget. If everything's cool, why not announce the situation?

On the bit in bold. These are requirements from Sport England's Code of Sports Governance: 1.9 Each Board must have a duly appointed Chair who shall be responsible for the leadership of the Board. 2.6 The appointment of the Chair and Independent Non-Executive Directors must be via an open, publicly advertised recruitment process. So we appear to be breaching 2.6 with the plan for Wood (plus our internal article on the 12m piece) meaning that we aren't meeting 1.9 of having a Chair. Now, I expect the relevant people have had the appropriate conversations on this with SE and agreed the transition to the new board - however based on the signed off press releases that are factually incorrect, where they announced Wood as the Interim Chair, it suggests they didn't do their homework.

I often think we just fall into lazy analysis with things like 'lazy players' or 'poor culture'. Yet it was only a short while ago that people were celebrating the likes of Leeds and Saints culture, telling us that you can't just buy a team and you have to follow their model. I think nearer to the truth is that squad makeup is complex and being a little out of balance, or a couple of key injuries or the odd bad signing can affect the team quite a lot. When I look at the Wire team, I'm not seeing slackers, I'm seeing a team all at sea at times, and I think coaching is playing a part in that. Whether that is the head coach, or assistants, or conditioners, obviously we don't know, but I'm certainly not thinking anyone highlighting Currie as a problem is on the right track. There are more strong teams now, the likes of Leigh, Wakey, Hull KR are coming in and making their challenges, and there's no place to hide right now. It's how it should be too.

Well he has some credit in the bank as he improved us last year taking us to a 3rd place finish and a Wembley final, but this is proving a difficult second season. Question marks definitely, but we'll have to judge at the end of the season I think.

I was travelling so only saw a few minutes of today's game (thankfully), but I must admit to thinking that Burgess is a little out of his depth at the moment. I find his selections all over the place and I don't think it's always easy to see what he's doing with the team. Admittedly there are a lot of enforced changes each week at the moment, but I think he's struggling right now.

The main thing for me over the years has been the poor governance, and they haven't learnt anything from it. There is little wrong with having the RFL as the leaders in this country - people can then get into their own arguments about who should be in the hot seats, but in reality that's less important than good governance. When the RFL were in charge things broadly worked (under-performed yes) but decisions were made and whilst there would be some challenge with clubs, I'm OK with that as they hold the board accountable and voting rights can keep that in check. The weakness with that model was under-investment in right people and strategy imo. Where things have always gone belly up has been when the clubs have believed they can do better than the RFL. The couple of SLE and NFP breakaways have never done anything well and they've always come crawling back to bed with the RFL. All it has done is weaken the RFL and confuse the lines of accountability and ownership to leave things falling through the gaps. As part of the last restructure they seem to have done their best to confuse it even more. I dont think anyone knows anymore who is the leader of the game, is it RL Com and Rhodri Jones or RFL and Tony Sutton. At the moment it seems to be neither. And then we have the farce over the Chair which tbh in its current form isn't the most important role. The clubs keep wrestling control amd power, but don't really know what they want to do with it. Let's be honest, nothing bold has ever come from these breakaways, it's always just been broadly more of the same. Simplify things, pull together, invest in the commercial arm of the RFL (still call it RLcom if you like) and stop fannying about. A good example of the lack of leadership.and ownership is around grading. On the RFL site it's called IMG Grading Handbook, yet the document is branded with RFL and RLCom. I don't know whether it's intentional passing the buck or what, but it's weird when we don't know who is doing what, who leads what. Nobody has a voice of authority at the moment. And now the noisy idiots have shut up shop too.

We've easily done that before. Major London internationals always get a good local following, it really is noticeable how many different faces and voices we get at these events. When we got 67k in for that WC semi final, we easily had 20-30k Southerners I'd suggest conservatively. Probably more.

Bundles are nice and all that, but in reality, the thing they offer are discounts, and I just don't think that pricing is a challenge here. The bigger piece is that you have a comms strategy that speaks to customers about both of these events (and others) appropriately. And the even bigger piece is that you go big, make the Challenge Cup Final such a great event that people want to rush back to Wembley - and for once they have the opportunity to do that for RL just a few months later. A challenge I find is that the actual RL events often underwhelm (apart from the sport usually) and the actual events should be one of the biggest marketing tools we have.

I'd like to think that's still achievable. There will still be some who haven't been paid yet for example and there should still be efforts to sell tickets, but it obviously slows down a lot. I think there are 70k on sale so it doesn't have to be 'sold out' to get 65k, so fingers crossed. I'd go for 61k

It's quite shocking how this publication was a mouthpiece for DB and any kind of anti-RFL/IMG article you could find, and now there is just nothing.

Yeah, very slow now. The upper tier around halfway for example have plenty left. I suppose 7 finals in 17 years means Wembley just isn't the must attend event for Wire fans. I've made this point before, in those first couple of years from 2009 I went and had a group of 15 to 20 or so going. This year not a single one will attend.