Dave T

Irrespective of the technicalities, it was a ###### point, certainly not interesting! Catalans are as much part of the Challenge Cup as Warrington, and there is no reason why one team should have such a travel advantage.

It's not pandering to the BBC, it is in the RFL's interest for the full stadiums, not the BBC.

But that has nothing whatsoever to do with mine or PMJ's post. Jesus Christ, I think some people are really special.

Whilst I completely disagree with Wendall's point, the 80,000+ crowd at that game was not due to Catalans being a draw, it was due to it being the first RL game at the new Wembley.

Am I missing something?

But Mick, you had a rant here telling us that they had closed one and it was a farce? Remember? On the SL website the 4th stand is still closed off.

Whilst Wendall's post was a load of ######, the one you quoted specifically referred to games prior to the cup final, making your post a bit ###### too...

Absolutely agree, and I must admit, after reading the OP a couple of times, I'm still not finding what the issue is...

Wouldn't have been surprised to see another match or two on there, but these days 3 is a pretty big ban, so can't really complain.

You lot seem a well travelled bunch on here, so looking for a favour. My sister is in New York this Sunday and desperately wants somewhere to watch the semi final, does anybody have any tips on where she could get to watch the game on BBC? Cheers in advance. Onto the actual game, I can't wait now, it's the first game I have been to for a month or so, am driving down from Edinburgh on Sunday morning to sunny Widnes. I am a bit more worried than a few weeks back, we were sloppy at times the other day, but I still think we would have had too much for Catalans, but then we didn't 2 weeks back. Just like last year's semi we need the key players to stand up and be counted (Monaghan, Briers and King) - I thought all three of them were below average last weekend. Looking forward to the Morley v Ferriol battle, hope nothing stupid happens though! I'll go for Wire by 8 crowd of 10,372

Why do you have to make stupid predictions like this? 8k to Paris or Toulouse? You are living in cloud cuckoo land and you completely discredit any points you have with crazy predictions like this. We are taking 10k to Widnes, and if you honestly think you would get 80% of these going to France then you are clueless. You may have got 2-3k absolute max, more likely 1.5-2k, which would still have been very good. You would then need a good French following, and Paris isn;t the place IMO, as they only got around 7k for the 4N game against the Aussies. You make yourself look stupid by making out that the RFL are stupid and incompetent and then come out with absolute nonsense that Wire would take 8k to Paris and they would get a crowd of 30k in Barcelona. There is nothing whatsoever that backs up your estimates. Apart from that, I agree with your point!

How long has the non-fed thing been in play for though? It's only a couple of years isn't it, and the limits were pretty much worthless, with clubs having up to 11 'overseas' players in there, so there has been nothing stopping French players being signed imo.

I'm not sure it ever really has. In the past the quota has been about passports, but now they are moving towards fed-trained etc. they have had to tweak the rules. French players never counted on the quota (in recent years anyway) and they won't under these rules. I just see it as clarification rather than a real change.

That typo made me chuckle. I must admit I found the stewards in and outside the ground at Wrexham to be very good, friendly and helpful.

Guisset has now played 250 games in SL, he has been a very good SL player.

But Catalans were in Bradford yesterday, and now in Widnes next week. How many of their fans could travel twice? The game would have been loaded with Catalans fans, whereas now it will be loaded with Wire fans instead. We either need to embrace Catalans and treat them like a full member of SL and the CC, rather than a foreign team in an English comp.

To quote from the opening post: I think they are poor quotes tbh, and hope they have been lost in translation. He is pretty much saying that Morley isn't a great player, people don't look up to him, and it is not goo to see what he has become. You'd think the bloke was getting battered all round the field the way Ferriol is talking. He is still one of the best props knocking around in the game, playing week in week out at the top level. I agree about the explosiveness etc. but it doesn't read to me that he is only talking about that. He is pretty much saying that he is a spent force.

Think you are miles over with your predictions of crowds, but I do agree with the principle of the post. We got 18k when season tickets were used last year, so it would have to be a hell of an increase to get 30k. Watching some of the athletics over the past few days made me remember how good it was over there and what a shame that we didn;t have the balls to stage a game like this there. I would also love them to be bold and go for Magic Weekend there if they are moving it to Feb. It would be lovely there at that time of the year, and the RFL could fund journos coming over for the couple of days instead of having a crappy launch in London that nobody bothers writing about. If you can't get people interested in that, then we should give up!

Depends how you read the article. He is suggesting that it is sad to see Morley playing as he is and he has gone on too long. I certainly wouldn't say he was right about that. You also disagree that Morley is hard, so how does this equate to Ferriol being right?

I do think that Warrington does seem to have been a good fit for Morley as much as him for us. He has had the likes of L Anderson, Westwood, Harrison etc to share some of the work and big hits, meaning that it has taken a fair bit of pressure off him. You rarely see anything flash, no fancy offloads, just good hard yards and quick ptb's. I must admit to still being a bit frustrated by Graham. I worry that he is being over-used and they need to be careful they don't cut short his career, and tbh I prefer my props to just get stuck in and make the hard yards than do some of the stuff Graham does. I don't doubt Graham's talent, but his actual metres per carry stat is actually pretty low, and I put that down to playing too much making him less effective than he could be. For example, Warrington's three main props all make more metres per carry than him, so for getting up-field that is what you need. People go on about Graham being the best metre maker in the business, but he simply takes more carries than anyone else, when Morley (7.99), Korkidas (7.89), Peacock (7.36), Carvell (7.27), Fielden (7.22) and Wood (6.93) all make more per carry than Graham with his (6.85). These were selected from the top 25 metre makers (apart from Carvell - personal interest on this one). I'd love to see Graham in a pack loaded with big forwards where he could be spelled and just do his job, rather than trying to carry the whole team.

I'll ignore your comment about Sherwin, as I don't think we need to go down that one again , but it is definitely fair to say that Morley has changed the way he plays the game (and IMO made him a more rounded player). Sure there are fewer big hits than in the past, but then there have been fewer bans on the back of it as when he used to get it wrong, he got it spectacularly wrong! He is still one of the top metre makers in the game (metres per carry), and his tackling technique (getting players on their back) is outstanding. He is still more than capable of coming up with the big hits when required, see Crabtree at Wembley as an example.

Maybe I was being overly harsh, I do like him, as I like a few of the French forwards, but it was more a reflection of the level I hold Morley at.

Wendall, why didn't you complain about this after the Warrington game? Why didn't the Wigan fans kick off about this? The same policy was in force, it didn't start yesterday.

Yep, not something I have ever liked, and if I was a manager I would be stamping that kind of thing out. Sure, celebrate with your own team, but there is no class in looking like a smarmy ###### when patting a player on his head following a knock on. I'm disappointed with these comments as it is more like boxing build up, which I'm not convinced we should be going down that route. Morley is a modern day legend. He went to the NRL and became a hero, has played impeccably for his country (apart from that 1 game!), and has dragged Warrington to a Cup win. He was in last year's Dream Team, short-listed for MOS, and is having another very very good season. I wonder whether some of this has got mixed up in translation, as there is certainly a point that Morley is not the animal he was in the past, but then getting sent off after 12 seconds never helped any team. He has now become a more rounded player IMO, who still plays near the edge, but just stays on the right side of it in general. I'd rather that than him being sent off and banned every other week. Ferriol isn't even a quarter the player Morley is now, never mind was.

Plenty of grounds no longer have pay on the turnstiles, it's really no big deal. The game isn't all ticket as such, it is simply how you get into their stadium. I found it simple as anything when I went, sorted my ticket out and then went for a few pints, wonder why these 'hundreds' of Salford fans struggled?