Dave T

Yeah, I seemed to recall it from a Wire game, thought it was the Saints one tbh. And I thought it was right to be chalked off. Inside shoulder is still the tackler. It should be used as an indicator not a black and white rule.

Maybe, however it was only 15 minutes in and only one try. And now Catalans have now scored. It is game on in a semi final.

It seemed to be a way for him to get out of a tricky read. Terrible call imo.

There was a recent decision where the video ref clearly explained that the inside shoulder thing isn't a defence if the contact is substantial. That was substantial and he was four or five yards ahead of the ball. He doesn't have to be there. Crossing and defused by Catalans. No try on two counts imo.

I'm not sure why he couldn't work out whose hand that was!

The hand with no wrist tape puts that down first.

Hmm. Not sure on that read from Thaler.

And there we have that Aussie arrogance coming back to the forefront, looking down their nose at the likes of Samoa (despite apparently developing minnows in the RL world). The mask slips. Also completely ignoring that Tonga have beaten GB, Aus and NZ and Fiji have beaten the Kiwis too.

Correct. It was purely on the back of sustained bad behaviour at Old Trafford. They may have calmed the stance down now, but it was broadly a good change tbh imo.

Yes, everyone is aware of nostalgia.

You aren't understanding my posts then. I'm not saying any period is better or worse, I'm challenging people forming those views on 'feelings' and nostalgia.

Well, there is, awareness is a huge part of it. Without awareness people get too misty-eyed about the past. I used to always have this debate with my peers who used to talk about the late 80s and early 90s as though it was halcyon days as a Wire fan. It's when I started watching Wire and I have very very fond memories of that period, things like going to Central Park, going to Wembley for the first time, watching heroes like Mike Gregory, John Woods, Des Drummond etc. But in reality as a Wire fan it was a really average period. Smallish crowds many weeks with zero atmosphere. Awareness leads to the difference in appreciating something but knowing it's a personal feelings thing rather than it being a great period. We see the same on the narrative around internationals.

I really do think that we have missed a trick by not pushing on with the growth of the WCC from a few years ago when we expanded it to two or three games. My team have never managed to win the big prize to qualify for the WCC, but the two WCS games that we played, versus St George and Brisbane were brilliant occasions, and I feel that there was scope for growth. I think based on what we have seen in the likes of Vegas, Toronto, Barcelona etc. then we could be looking to do something with events/tournaments that could see us expand this comp and maybe play in new territories so we aren't just staging games at Warrington, Wigan, Leeds, Saints etc.

I'm glad they have come out and said that - however I don't know in what capacity Dwyer was making those comments. I'd rather we hear from the IMG reps on the RLCom board tbh.

I think there is potential in Oz, it's probably too difficult to write it off as unattractive yet as we just haven't really tested in fully there. Penrith strike me as a club who aren't really interested in anything outside of Penrith and it doesn't surprise me that they got a bad crowd, even though it was affected by shocking weather. But the other two over the last decade or so have done ok. Melbourne in 2018 got a larger crowd than their average and it was their 4th largest crowd of the year. Substantially higher than a good number of their regular NRL matches that year. In 2014 Roosters got 31k in, more than double their average that year. That crowd was only bettered by their clash with Souths in the final round which saw them secure top spot. These are not insignificant crowds.

LIke I say, I'm a bit split on some of these examples (Fa'asavalu (sp) and Chase are good examples) - but I don't like what seems to be a bit of a targeting of players on the other side of the world, or them making a bid of their own because they aren't making the Kangaroos team.

I'm not against heritage players as such, it's the way sport went a long time ago, but I do think we need to be a touch careful not to go too far down the route of trying to recruit players from the NRL to play for England. I think we have a good makeup of the England team at the moment, but pushing in this direction can soon see us looking like Scotland RU or similar. Not that it bothers their fans tbh.

To be fair to him, he said 65k, over 64k is close enough to give him a pass on that!

It is, but we have seen charges for similarity incidents.

Agreed. From memory though we have seen the odd player in trouble where they could see the ref. I do just think it was a high pace accident tho.

Yes, i must admit, I was received to see that there was no charge for the Wire player there and that it appears to just be accepted as an accident all round.

You do find some stewards relaxed, but official policy changed around 7 to 10 years ago following a fair bit of trouble over a few years.

Surprises me to see SkyBet have Wire as slight favourites for this one. Leigh +2

Yup. What could possibly go wrong?

They stop you at the Grand Final now due to trouble from RL fans.