Dave T

I must admit the England games at Sheffield and Bolton don't hold too much interest to me, but I'm really excited about the opener. I hope the seating plan amends are basically a huge reduction in size of the expensive seats and more lower priced seats at every game, plus a bit of consistency. Thankfully, as per my previous post, there are a lot of bargains to be had for random games at the likes of Wire, Saints, Leigh etc. with a lot of interesting teams, so I'll hopefully be picking up a fair few of those.

I couldn't find that detail, so thanks for posting. That 3xplains why his Grade A charge meant 1 match and not 0 as is often awarded for grade A.

Why is this primarily a Leeds issue this year? If this was my club I'd be asking why we are so incompetent with the process. And yes, I am conscious that my club haven't had disciplinary issues this year because we barely complete tackles, legal or illegal.

Aye, the admin is particularly poor. Assume there will be more detail on the appeal outcome.

I have to assume the rationale for the difference in pricing is that one is a Weds and one a Sunday. But that just isn't how this works. I'd be interested to understand who set the prices. Because the stadium maps are all over the place, it is somebody being far too clever.

Not sure on the technicality around challenging the grading or the harsh punishment, but in any case, it can't be argued that he is not guilty.

I suppose that's open to debate, i haven't seen why the disciplinary deemed the 1 match to be fine. From reading twitter (I know, I know) there are some claims that the appeal was claiming not guilty rather than challenging the severity. I'd be surprised if they were that stupid though as that would be a basic error by Leeds.

It was a high tackle. Refs or VR's missing it doesn't mean that it wasn't.

Aye, no issues with Wrexham, but in reality it isn't going to do much for the tournament either way. I'd rather another London game in a smaller ground tbh.

You know my thoughts on the organisation - they have got a fair bit wrong so far. I don't think not taking a game to Wales is one of those things. I absolutely loved the opener at Cardiff last time, but games in Wrexham and Neath were poor, and only Wrexham and Colwyn Bay are now covered by the NPH scheme.

No - If all goes with seeding, England will play Tonga at Arsenal. We can't meet the Aussies or Kiwis until the final. We are in separate sides of the draw. The happy path for England is, Group Stages, QF at Wigan, Semi at Arsenal and Final at Old Trafford.

North Wales is included. I'm not sure whether we should have taken a game there tbh, I expect we are likely to get better support in Leigh.

I am surprised that the marketing efforts are not really shouting about this. They aren't controlling the narrative.

I think that is the approach we should have gone with - if you want to start moving away from discounting, and starting to charge premium pricing, then you need to start to work towards that - not just arrogantly sticking hefty price tags on the games. I could live with the premium prices for the marquee games - England games, England Semi and the Final - but they have gone all over the place. Asking for £70 for seats for some of the games that they are is just really really stupid. Interestingly, on your point about bargains, there are some to be had (I was considering starting a thread that pulled these out as they can be tough to find): Games at Leigh start at £15 for adults. Watch NZ at Warrington for as low as £25 in some seats. France v Greece - all tickets £20 for adults England QF (including Women's game) - starting at £25 for adults Watch Tonga for as low as £25

At Leigh they have Wales v Cook Islands priced at £40, £25, £15 (one of the cheapest games, sensible pricing imho). At the same stadium, they then have Lebanon v Jamaica at £55, £35, £20. Absolutely bats*** crazy.

The problem with this, and I agree that was their intent, is that they have played the majority of games at existing grounds/towns/cities - meaning that the core audience are likely to be people who are aware of RL. In Warrington for example they are staging 4 games, so have 60,000 tickets to shift, the best way of selling them is to target the warm populations i.e. the engaged RL fan in the local area. There aren't 60k people just likely to come out of the woodwork for this event and pay well over the odds for the games. We aren't playing in London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Dublin - yet we are charging those prices. We have seen a fair few comparisons to the Women's Euros - a tournament that is far richer than our WC, with all the advantages that football brings in the UK - and their pricing was dirt cheap - a fraction of what we are trying to charge. They had a sensible pricing structure - and still ended up with huge empty sections at some games - just as we will do. Considering we are trying to sell more and more games, including women's WC and Wheelchair - it seems ludicrous to have a price point of £70 for some seats for NZ v Lebanon. You have to do more than just decide that you want a different demographic and stick a hefty price tag on it. People know how much RL games cost. They know how much international RL costs, and many will remember only 9 years ago at the last WC when tickets were going for as cheap as a tenner a game. It's all well and good them trying to rise the tide and price out those at the lower end, but they need to bring in new segments of fans at the top end, and clearly they have failed to do that.

I think talking about devices is a clearer way to define this rather than what kind of invisible magic is used to get the live RL in front of you.

As I say, I don't think platform is an issue. YouTube, our league, IMG - any are fine. Getting people to pay is the challenge imho. But even if it can't be monetised, the digital offering should be far better than it is (and TBF it's on IMG's list, so the game recognises this).

This is the important bit. Will RLCom be little more than an advisory board?

My point being we should do everything to avoid the 'complicated' setup the Aussie have, I agree with you. But it is really important that these things are ironed out up front, as a lot here will depend where the power sits. I've worked for JV's for a large part of my career and its always been an interesting dynamic, for much of the time the JV was a minor partner of the major parent company, and in effect tapped into that 'product' - in my caee banking infrastructure, to drive value for the JV. I think this is how this one should work as a Commercial arm, SLE and RFL should run their parts of the game, with the RLCom tapping into this and extracting the value. A lot of the talk at the moment is that RLCom would in effect run the game, a little like some of the new setups we have seen around P. E. As I say, it'll be interesting to watch and see what comes out in the wash.

It should, yes, but as we've seen in Oz, the NRL have a lot of power in this area, we need to be careful how this is managed. We have also seen IMG talk about the international game (I think, unless it's just us here).

We then have the challenge of the international game fitting into that structure. I do wonder whether the RFL will in effect become an operational area, delivering and managing some of the things you suggest. One exec board would be preferable, and it feels like that would need to be RLCom which has SL and RFL reps on it.

It would be good to understand the responsibilities of each body in the new world. Will there still be any SLE staff, or will they sit in the RFL, or will it all sit under RL Commercial? The governing body has a lot more to do than drive commercial income, but in reality it is possible to badge everything as commercial activity.

Yes, this is off topic.

The pricing was terrible, I've given clear examples of crazy pricing and inconsistencies. And tbh, the evidence that the pricing is wrong is with me - they are changing it. So, tbh, you are just wrong. If people aren't prepared to pay the prices, then the prices are wrong.