Dave T

Why are you ignoring the slope on the grass pitch? Do you want RL on the NFL fake pitch? Gebuine question again, why are you ignoring this point! It's been pointed out time and again, and yiu even tried claiming it wasn't there. Photo evidence proved you wrong.

I suspect BP is right, I expect there will loads of spare grass knocking around and we just forgot to ask if we could use it.

Let's be honest, they probably are t bothered if they sold 300 instead of 200 because a few people passed on the code. But it's fans being outraged that have caused these to be cancelled (if indeed they will be).

Grounds just aren't built for RL generally. Maybe we should change to yards like Gridiron.

You basically want to rule out all sorts of quality stadiums all over the country, and indeed world, just because.... Pitch sizes can be within a range. It's fine, only a certain kind of person thinks this is any kind of issue.

If you are talking about a 3 year period where we regrouped after going broke, I agree with you. It was entirely right to do that though.

They will have been on there. I'd always be reluctant to use a code I don't know where it came from for this reason, but I think a pop up of some sort should have been possible.

I've covered 1996 to 2000 in my post. Some of the most exciting there.

We use links for exclusive offers regularly, and we aren't disappointed if we get a few extra sales from it. They really should have flashed up an NHS condition to deter people using it, but it doesn't change the fact that people are crying out to be outraged.

It's interesting too that many of those spreading the code were the ones calling it a farce. Almost like they wanted it to be a farce.

So which time frame exactly lacked the ambition, because I've covered from 1996 to 2010? 1996 - ambitious GB tour to NZ, Fiji and PNG 1997 - WCC and Ashes 1998 - Launch of Grand Final, Kiwi Tour 1999 - Gateshead launched, GB entered first Tri series Down Under. 2000 - most ambitious WC to date 2001 to 2003 - game regrouped 2004 - relaunched Tri Nations as a major tournament in UK 2006 - Catalans joined SL 2007 - Magic Weekend launched 2008 - World Cup Down Under 2009 - Licensing launched We have had loads of failed initiatives, but I dont think we should confuse that with not trying things. We're just not great at delivering things, usually as they are badly planned and we have little spare cash.

I won't be upset if one of the conditions is employee ID, that some of these who jumped on it won't have.

Well it definitely is a leaked code - nobody seems to know the source here.

Yep, but it will be used as an example of RL discounting next year. We hear often that we should be targeting local kids, youth groups, players etc - there is a good chance this is how it was being done, and there is uproar.

The reality is though that these things cost an absolute bomb and almost broke the RFL, although IIRC the WCC was underwritten by News Ltd. That can't be ignored. The WCC was a freebie that couldn't be funded any longer as it was a bit of a disaster and the Aussies were focusing on their internal restructures. The UK game remained interested in the WCC and always has, but it is the minor partner and doesn't have the funding or noise to deliver it without Aussie interest. The World Cup went into hibernation, but that wasn't really the RFL's issue - we had staged a tournament in 1995 and 2000, we weren't due to stage one, it took 8 years for the Aussies to pick up the baton. We then picked it back up and have continued to do so. Whilst there was a small number of years where we regrouped with modest sized international series' the the 2000s saw us: Launch the very successful Tri Nations Admit Gateshead to SL (with terrible results) Launch Magic Weekend Admit Catalans to SL (with great results) Launch licensing. That is a lot of ambitious stuff for a decade.

Hudds were in SL when the deal increased to £200m.

Yeah, odd it reduced the two tickets to £7.50 each for me. It gave no indication what the code was for. It could be RFL employees or similar and they may have a different map with pricing.

I think the sad thing from that is that it was abandoned completely rather than streamlined, but it didn't help that our top teams were poor too. I think the sport here went through a bit of an odd spell, the move to summer affected standards as we needed to work through what the game looked like, as well as the challenges from Union. I think it weakened us at club and test level and it was the early 2000's before it started to improve again with some quality Ashes series (although the end result remained the same ).

Surely the 1997 WCC and 2000 WC were clear examples of the game not accepting its lot? They were two examples of huge ambition in RL.

This doesn't look like a general promotion, so it maybe isn't part of the sales strategy for club fans. I expect it is maybe being pushed for local schools or community groups etc? It is a risk with the use of codes.

I wonder what this code is for. If you put two £55 tickets in you pay £15 instead of £110. I assume you won't need any kind of staff ID or anything to use them?

I don't think we became less ambitious in the late 90s, we were probably hampered by over-ambition and its probably a good example of how these 'fantasy RL' ideas are nice to discuss on forums, but often they don't work in the real world. We had a GB tour in 1996 which looked great on paper, there were no Kangaroos, but we stubbornly cracked on (sound familiar) and went with games versus PNG and Fiji as well as the NZ leg which were generally subsidised by the Kangaroo tour. It was a disaster, and Lindsay even sent players home early to save some money. 1997 saw the WCC. This was possibly the most ambitious club thing we had ever done - but it was over-ambitious, a crazy format and didn't work, despite some outstanding games. Even now this tournament is often used to quash any suggestions of an expanded WCC. We then had some poor performances from GB in internationals for the rest of that decade, probably not helped as RU players stopped coming to join our sport. The Grand Final was launched in 1998 which has been a great success. The 2000 World Cup looked good, ambitious, exciting, to grow on the 1995 tournament, it had sponsors lined up in advance paying proper money, some big names really if you go back and look. But for a myriad of reasons, and some bad luck, the tournament flopped massively. One of the major factors in the loss was the level of ambition. We saw the likes of Paris flop from SL as a bit of a car crash. We need to learn from some of these things when we look to go bold, Richard Lewis and Co did, they went back to basics to an extent before driving exciting change. We can all get carried away with exciting initiatives, but these things do have to have solid foundations, I hope IMG appreciate that.

It's my challenge around this lovely nostalgic view. The plan was bad. The principles were sound, and these were provided by independent consultants. In reality Lindsays RFL plan was poor, and what was delivered not much better (worse depending on your personal viewpoint). We should look at the positive outcomes though from the whole FTF piece that drove this though: More sustainable clubs, less boom or bust and the cap has helped that (ignoring any negatives the cap brings). Wider geographical spread Superior facilities. Move to a summer sport.

I think that's the problem. The mergers were expecting weak teams to merge and become strong clubs. But its not as if we had I vestors and councils behind mergers - there was nobody driving Wire and Widnes to get in bed together for example. The whole proposal was muddled, and retaining some small towns and telling others to merge rightly caused issues and showed that there were agendas at play. It's difficult to justify big city or county teams being forced and then leaving in some of the towns they did.

Ah, I had forgotten that detail. This was the original 14: Wigan St Helens Leeds Bradford Halifax ---------- Cheshire Manchester Calder Cumbria South Yorkshire Humberside ------------ Paris Toulouse London