Dave T

Looks a great finish. Dainton thinks Ratchford has scored.

Can't help but feel that Burgess has spent all his time with the forwards, the backs just don't appear to have a clue tbh.

Is Frasier Dainton always this bad? I'm not convinced he's called a player correctly in the first 20 mins.

Choices choices. Do I stay up and watch live, coverage from 1am, or do I record and watch first thing in the morning? Hope the lucky folk going enjoy themselves!

Agreed. I think it's reasonable to charge for early years, but if after 20 years you haven't been able to monetise French presence (very strong at that) then it is on you.

Think it's just pre-confirmed. So two steps away from confirmed confirmed yet.

It really is gaslighting.

I agree with the vast majority of that, although whilst I agree we should be supporting France, we do have to work within the constraints of the funds we have. We are a relatively poor sport, and I'm not sure how much missionary work we can afford in France, so we do need to be sharp with commercials. From a purely commercial point of view, I do firmly believe Catalans get far more out of this partnership, although I think Catalans bring some softer benefits that can't always be measured in pounds and pence. But as long as every sponsorship deal and every tv deal and every bit of central funding is driven from the UK, there will always be this imbalance.* I've often made the point that I think we should be in partnership with the French governing body for things like this, rather than Catalans having to deal with it directly. *as much a failing of the governing body as anyone

At least Saints would get their title back.

Isn't the issue that Amone's head was in the zone of where the ball carrier's head will be? Apologies if I'm thinking of the wrong one. The change that's gonna have to be made here is tacklers can't make these standing tall and upright and wrapping the bal carrier up. The shoulder and head will need to be moved.

I don't think we are. It was a bad decision. We've had them before, I'm afraid we'll have them again.

I think it does ultimately come down to having proper commercials structures in place and I don't think we really gave too much thought to how overseas clubs are brought into what us ultimately the UK's pyramid. As a starting point, I'm perfectly comfortable with charging for a place in SL for new clubs. Catalans were a series of small clubs playing in front of modest crowds and SL has been a great vehicle for them. There is clearly a commercial benefit to them, and my understanding is that as opposed to them buying in, they were paid to join. I think that was the first mistake tbh, although there is an argument that we didn't have any proof of concept of SL being worth anything to a new club - Catalans are the poc really. So I can understand why they went down that route after a series of failures with London, Paris and Gateshead. But I think with a bit of vision, the commercial terms could have been a bit tighter here, whether that was around them having to be self funded, maybe by their governing body, or their media deals, or selling sponsorship in their territory etc. But I think broadly speaking, Catalans worked, irrespective of any commercial arrangement. I do think the problem came a few years later once Toulouse were added, then TWP and then Ottawa. Whilst I don't think 100% consistency is compulsory, it is helpful in terms of overseas clubs knowing what the financial commitment is, whether that be an entrance fee, an annual license fee, covering costs, whatever, they can all work. But I am bug on transparency, and I really don't like Catalans' terms being changed. By now I think they are as good as a founder member of SL and they should have equal rights etc and I think we could make a case to draw a line in the sand under their current agreement and have new agreements for future.

Tell us Harry!

Yes, it's clear they've moved on from that.

Thanks, I thought I'd seen something, and this often comes up whenever Perth are mentioned. In reality, we probably should have a buy-in fee and then you buy an equal share, where for unusual costs and things we should share the risks. I do think the only benefit of this is consistency, I'm not a massive fan of having multiple overseas clubs in the pyramid being treated differently like we saw with Toulouse, Catalans and Toronto. But this should have been considered before now.

I'm not sure of the detail, but I do recall reading articles about clubs having to cover costs in the Aussie game too. I don't think this is as unique as we make out.

Indeed, which I've acknowledged a few times. I do wonder if it's an attempt to standardise an approach, if Toulouse make it into SL again then it'd be harsh to treat them differently. All of this though is ultimately an outcome of us just winging things for years.

I agree with the principal of these posts, and I don't think changing the terms of Catalans participation is sensible. However, a commercial agreement can be arranged however we want it to be, whether that's a buy-in fee, or through ongoing commercial terms, and tbh, I've regularly called for us to be smarter around this kind of thing. We often want to just give places away pretty cheaply, despite that SL place clearly having a huge value to Catalans. Without a place in SL, let's be honest, Catalans Dragons are not really a major thing. I can only think that the change here is around a formalising of arrangements for overseas and expansion teams. We've made a right balls up of it in the past, we've had some teams getting central funding, sometimes not, we've seen some paying travel, some not. I wonder if this is a standardisation of commercial terms. Watching F1 recently, their owners were pretty blunt about if new teams want in, they have to make it worthwhile for the other teams. I'm OK with us being more commercially minded.

Well taht was what I acknowledged earlier, if we want participation fees (which are the same thing, in reality), but to introduce them now is mean spirited at best.

Agreed, however thats more a presentation point. Participation fees to cover incremental costs is fine. But it should be agreed and set.

Just having a look at another comparable sport that has an international league and their South African body carried a cost of c£13m in 2022 for participation costs and travel for Europe competitions. The thing to look at here is what the SL place is worth, and let's be honest here, the decision to allow a French team into the UK pyramid is worth millions of Euro to them - millions and millions in sponsorship, funding, gates etc - we shouldn't be afraid of having a participation fee instead of us actually paying them. Other sports are happy to make decisions like this based on cold hard cash (most Amercian sports, Formula One etc).

We should have sensible conversations around stuff like this. We shouldn't be embarrassed about charging teams to play in the comp - but it should be a well thought out approach, rather than just doing these things ad hoc.

I don't really have an issue with participation fees etc. which you could badge this as, but I do have an issue with moving the goalposts. Things like participation agreements should be agreed and understood.

I do think these historic legacy things of announcing the referee's town is a but weird. But let's be honest here, even if he wasn't from Wigan it would be the same as he is from England. I didn't personally think Wardle's was a try, but I'm happy to acknowledge that I'm watching from a distance with average camera angles, if the ref with the naked eye, in a better position believes he saw it touch the line, I'm cool with that. It is interesting that when people are being critical of that try they use a photo showing him miles from the line instead of one of the ones that make it look likely to be over the line. It's hard to argue there isn't an agenda in those cases.

The protocol did have secondary contact as mitigation. But it's clear that things were being applied too rigid. Had they followed the guidance to the letter of tge law (according to those slides linked to here), we may have seen a yellow card (which would still be excessive), but the VR and ref decided no mitigation, that was their opinion, and that was the huge problem here, that they looked at that incident and saw a serious red card incident. I expect the RFL were pretty peeved with them.