Dave T

Is the excitement actually appreciated by people on a tangible level? Are people really that interested. Because the biggest crowds, the biggest viewing figures etc are for the games at the top of the table.

None of this is perfect, and i do think there needs to be an element of accepting that the holistic approach will tease out the better teams, and broadly speaking, I don't think there were too many anomalies in that first round - although time will tell on that. I do think people are guilty of looking at the minute detail too much, but that is always going to happen under a system like this, which is a flaw for me. On your point about digital engagement - one thing I did see was London recently pleading for people to engage with their social media so they could get IMG points. We also hear the likes of Cas talk about putting seats in to get IMG points. I think this speaks volumes about those clubs, and explains why they are ranked where they are. Instead of just saying "click here to give us points" maybe London could actually focus on the spirit of this and actually create content that people want to engage with. And maybe instead of Cas talking about improving facilities to get points, they should change their mindset that they are improving facilities for the comfort of their fans to improve their viewing experience, allowing them to drive more money and retain more fans. I think it speaks volumes about the mindsets of people in the sport. And that includes fans - people are talking about Castleford finally making improvements to their ground after decades of criticising the ground as a negative. It's a really strange mindset.

I think there are plenty of issues with how the Grading has been introduced, but I don't have an issue with this one (apart from maybe the actual numbers and %). Turnover is really important here - it's all well and good giving points for a club making a profit - but that isn't necessarily going to grow the game. A tiny club making £1k profit shouldn't be rewarded more than a club turning over £10m and posting a loss of £100k for example. It feels sensible that the three things they look for here is (1) pure turnover number - they want bigger clubs that are driving loads of income. (2) % of non-centralised - no over-reliance on central funding - clubs need to drive their own income (3) profit - this addresses your concerns that clubs aren't just recklessly driving hollow turnover. Broadly it feels like it can work. I also don't have too much of an issue with the on-field performance tbh, having one giant ladder feels ok, and in the circumstance you describe, Wakey have the opportunity to be ranked 9th on performance if they won the GF and the 1895 cup. That doesn't feel too odd.

This has been debunked though hasn't it? People said that this was an issue when Sky had Hull spending £1.8m on their "guess the wage bill" table. Pearson has dismissed that and confirmed they are spending half a million more than that. People said this was an issue when they were losing and Smith hadn't ben sacked. They said they could just coast and not have to sack their manager. Then they sacked their manager. This whole coasting point isn't really playing out. Some teams are just rubbish and it's usually bad decisions.

Crowd fluctuation is down to many factors, including team performance, scheduling, marketing, prices, morale etc - I'd argue that Hull beibg a basket case and sacking their coach is a far bigger factor than any structure element. London's crowds have so far been better than 5 years ago when they were in a relaxation battle and had 10 wins. If we point to any other element being the factor, then I rest my case.

Poor team without a head coach gets poor crowd? Well, knock me down with a feather!

This is a weird take on a weekend when Leigh (joint 2nd from bottom on 2pts) wipe the floor with top of the table Catalans. I also suggest your memory isn't that good when suggesting that 10-12 could feasibly make the playoffs. No surprise, the teams 10-12 each year have been generally rubbish. I'm not really sure what your '8 team SL' really means tbh.

One thing that I do think is going to be challenging for the sport is the potential realisation that this format isn't that attractive any more. And I don't necessarily mean that the individual tests won't do well themselves, but more that an Ashes tour was far far more than the three tests. It really was the long format tour that was attractive. Seeing midweek games against lesser teams, some you'd never heard of in unique locations, watching some of the fringe players earn their place in the Test team. Playing three tests will be nice and all, but just like that last GB tour, it'll pass by without much fanfare and be lacklustre.

Only post from the club said he's in good spirits in hospital and they'll update on his injury in the coming days. Obviously pretty nasty.

I don't disagree, however one of the big issues we have is that we usually start at around £25, which is very reasonable as you say, but it can sometimes be difficult to get those tickets. We mess about so much with them it's a joke. But the point is probably linked to your last line, and in another post I make the point that we start from scratch every time, meaning we have to go back to the drawing board like this. Whilst paying decent money for tickets in London may not be a massive issue, they aren't stupid, and we can't charge premium prices for a less than premium product - we saw that in the world cup - the public basically ignored the tournament and stuck two finger sup to the arrogant organisers. So, I agree, we don't need to give them away, but getting that price point right is important.

Yes, I think the suggestion of a tenner is a little basic, but it may be a principle that could work at a different level. Looking at England football, for a ticket versus Iceland, they start at £45, and go to £110. England RU Autumn internationals start at £99 for the All Blacks, and £45 for Japan. I think if RL was going to get in there and aggressively offer themselves as a value alternative to those sports the level could probably be around £25 and still be seen as outstanding value. Maybe even £20. Offer some Premium seats too, but make it dead easy for anyone to get those budget tickets, and don't Micro manage ticket sales to prevent people being able to get seats etc. And when you do get people in, you have to make it a great event, and that doesn't mean just a good game of Rugby. People expect more. If you are giving people a value sample, you need to wow them so that you convert them into regular fans. Thebannoyibg thing is that we did adopt this strategy, back in the 90s those games at Wembley were great value and we made a big effort. But we've now wasted that and we're starting again.

The frustrating thing with all of this is how difficult we make it for ourselves. When anything gets announced we will be starting from scratch, just as we do every year. We have no ongoing sponsors (England RL's main sponsors are SL sponsors who get a bolt on), we have no England fanbase to speak of, no supporters club, we have no 'home' - we are making it almost impossible for this to succeed. We need regularity, to build an engaged Base, partners who help us deliver. I do think this is the closest we've been to killing Eng/GB in the 35+ years I've watched. It's a slow motion car crash.

That felt like more of the same from last week for us, with a few more errors. Obviously some disruption with the half injured, but our attack is pedestrian at times. There is a lot of talent in this team, but tactically we are still a work in progress.

I just genuinely don't see all these slaps by the ball carrier that apparently happen loads of times a game. We must be gentlemen in the Warrington team.

What Connor does is for his coach to worry about, and if he costs Hudds games, that's on him/them. I'm not sure refs should just be ignoring foul play.

Standard approach where we have three England games should always be NW, NE and South. Pretty much tried and tested.

I wouldn't be surprised if WC qualifying is a game of rock, paper, scissors over zoom.

Tri series with France can always work, but would need three weekends for touring teams. England could play France in Wk1 while Samoa play Tonga in Oz. Then Samoa v Eng, Samoa v France and then a final, which you'd expect Eng to make. Not perfect schedules, but means three games in England for the touring team like last year instead of three this year.

I don't mind a drawn series tbh, the RLWC showed how aggregates could kill a series after the first game. I think 3 test series are a little archaic though, and I'm disappointed that we are just trying to retain them but with less attractive teams. If that's how we get games, so be it, but I much prefer things like tri and four nations tournaments.

I care little for the Ashes if I'm honest. Three test series are not my favourite things

Nobody suggested it is weird. I don't think anyone would think too much of it. Aggregate score is a perfectly valid way of doing something like this and nobody would bat an eyelid.

I agree. I think this is partly a response to finding that three tests all within 50/60 miles was a bad idea - so they will reduce it to 2 tests within 50/60 miles. If I had to put money on, it would be Wigan and Leeds or similar.

But a ref is surely watching what is happening, no? We all saw the Saints players lashing out. It's not really an offence to be a bit of a t0sser. Thankfully!

It's perfectly acceptable for fans to hate on Connor and think he gets what he deserves. It isn't however acceptable for referees to be clouded by who it is. Im not one for criticising refs, but I struggle to watch that and not see the ref being influenced by the player and just ignoring other players hitting out at him. That just isn't acceptable imo. We don't referee games based on 'you reap what you sow' or 'boy who cried wolf'.

My aspiration for this would be 20-25k for this game, but if we managed to absolutely pack out a 17.2k stadium, that would be far better than what we did last year. We should remember that whilst we often do quite well in London, it isn't a given, we've only ever staged huge games there, I.e versus the Aussie or Kiwis. The Samoa crowd was solid for a World Cup Semi at Arsenal, but this series would be nothing like that. I'm not sure if there are any decent grounds around the 25k mark that would be suitable.