Dave T

I didn't think this topic was controversial enough, thought it was time to bring Mo into the discussion....

I expect we may disagree on this point, but I think Wood's regin at the top wasn't unlike Maurice Lyndsay. I think when he was Lewis'right hand man he was conservative and helped steady the ship financially and was prudent. Once Lewis moved aside, I got the feeling Wood tried to push himself outside of those restraints and went bold. It worked on things like the growth of England tournaments in the main and the World Cup, but where I think he was similar to Lyndsay was in so.etimes going for the new shiny thing, but without real groundwork. Mo is held up as visionary by many, but some of his delivery was as bad as you could hope for, in things like PSG and the Kiwi Tour. The opening of the 1995 World Cup looked terrible until England beat the Aussies and then the tournament took off. I do think Lewis is the best we've had in living memory. Its no coincidence that the one time we've attempted expansion with a proper plan, its been a success.

We've managed to divide responsibilities by creating a new body, and have put people in charge utterly lacking in charisma. They may be lovely men, but they are both pretty much invisible in two of the biggest roles in UK RL. All while we spend our time focusing on the Chairman role.

Unfortunately, there ain't much to talk about. Although we can comment that this 3m review now being scheduled to take 8m isn't a great start.

I agree with the final assessment, and the para on Wood is broadly how I would assess him. As MJM says though I do think Wood also played a key part of Lewis' successes too. I do actually think they were probably the right pairing for the sport, and once Wood became the top person, that balance was never there. I do think Wood was bold, an opportunist, a deal maker to an extent, and alongside somebody as smart and strategic as Lewis, it worked. I'm not sure Wood ever got the right people around him when he was the number one.

Its less about inaccuracies as it is a weird list. Crusaders going bust isn't really something that stands out as a Nigel Wood failing. Brian Barwick being non-exec Chairman of the RFL also wouldn't make anyone's list of top Nigel Wood failures. Attempting expanding the third division probably wouldn't be the thing people would slate him for either. If you wanted to run a hit-piece on Wood, there are far better and more relevant things to use against him.

Yup, see my post to SP that it just isn't efficient. But it is legal.

To be fair, outbound telesales is legal.

Yup - it's actually a perfect example of a quick tactical initiative that has long gone.

1. Introducing something that ultimately didn't get the buy in of the clubs and was deemed not fit for purpose is not strategic success. Just having ideas, but not really being able to deliver them is exactly what we are talking about. Delivering an initiative that lasted just four years is a perfect example of lack of strategic thinking. 2. Wood left the RFL in 2018, however he was RLIF CEO when this was international was announced in 2018: Rugby League World Cup in 2021 and 2025 Kangaroos Tour to UK in 2020 Kiwi Tour to UK in 2018 and 2022 Lions tour to southern hemisphere in 2019 and 2024 9s World Cup in 2019 and 2023 2019 Championships for the Pacific nations in a mid and end of season format 2018 European Championship (and then at two-year intervals) 2018 Australia v New Zealand Test (annually to 2022) 2020 New Zealand fixture(s) in the southern hemisphere 3. By going into such minute detail as where Magic was staged and getting an increase over a day, you are guilty of the same as Davidson, cherry-picking individual things to blindly position your argument. Magic as an event still broadly looks the same as it did back at Cardiff in that first ever event. 4. This is just not true. We've had all sorts of things introduced, new clubs elevated to the top flight, clubs relegated, protection from relegation, different rules for different clubs etc.

Come on Harry - this just isn't true. Any conversation on anything RL will ultimately come back to the incompetence of the RFL, and Wood is more than well known and controversial in RL circles to be receiving a whole load of stick. I know you don't do social media, if you did, you'd see all sorts of criticism of the RFL, including Wood.

An issue I have is that it becomes very easy to dismiss the criticism because it highlights stuff that's a bit of nonsense really. The problem is though that any critique of Wood's tenure would have to acknowledge the positive things he did and some will refuse to do that. But the position imo, really is that he did some good stuff but failed to embed it strategically or set us up for the future. For me, it will ultimately be seen as a decade or so of missed opportunities.

Maybe, but Davidson is not the person to do that critical thinking, and tbh he could have done it far better. My main issue is that I find that RL fans are treated like dum dums. This article treats them like dum dums. I refuse to act like a dum dum. This isn't a nuanced piece to do what youre claiming imo. @Tommygilf touched on it earlier, Wood's lack of strategic thinking is his biggest downfall, and it would be really easy to put some analysis together to highlight this if you were that way inclined. For every positive development that happened on Wood's watch, there is a negative to counter it, and the root cause of that was generally lack of strategic thinking and foresight. For example, Wood is a big believer in the international game, and with him in charge we had made good progress in many areas (record breaking World Cup, record Kiwi crowds etc), however it was all undone by failing to build a relationship with Australia which led to the abandoning of the 4N and nothing to replace it, and he led the GB Lions piece which undermined much of the good work around England. He supported expansion in many cases, however he undermined good work by not creating strategies on how we embed expansion teams in the comp - leading to failures at the bottom and ultimately a TWP and French presence that have been treated as outsiders and vulnerable to a few blokes in charge at that time. Record tv deal - blew it with flip flopping over S8's. Magic Weekend - not materially grown since launch. Licensing - sacked off as being too hard and too much admin. But the zinger really is that he was ultimately ousted and deemed to have served his time, paid off with a handshake. That's enough not to welcome him back. For me, Wood had some decent ideas, tactical initiatives or individual things that could be done, but he never planned where they would go.next, how they would look in 10 years. He was good at making deals, winning votes, retaining power - and tbh, I think its that that we are seeing at play right now.

Yep, that's fair, agreed.

I must admit, im not really seeing that about Nigel Wood. It does appear to be a Martyn thing on here.

The problem is, when something is so biased and one sided, it does become meaningless. You can't highlight the £2m loss yet ignore 17 years of profits leading up to that, or the record £200m deal in place at the time. I dont see this as Davidson being amusing or making a point. I think that's the genuine level of his analysis.

Davidson is guilty of just naming bad things that happened when he was at the RFL and therefore makes him responsible. Even some of those are questionable - TWP is a particularly negative reading of events. If we take the approach Davidson has, literally nobody can do any good as a leader.

I must admit, I think that's a poor, one-sided version of events that is so blinkered it makes it worthless really. There is plenty to criticise Wood for, but Davidson and articles like that are poor imo.

I do think we are maybe expecting too much when we want all of our players coming from the local area. Many sports have loads of overseas players, maybe hoping to get world class athletes to fill a whole comp from such narrow geographic regions is hugely flawed. Remember, we used to get a lot of RU players to pad out squads.

Obviously we can only fill in gaps where commercials won't be disclosed. My interpretation of that is that by return we are probably talking profit. I expect we are getting very favourable terms for services from some of the subsidiaries that are mentioned which is probably covered by the basic retainer. If its £0.45m per annum for 10 years, its a really insignificant sum of money for a company like IMG. I expect they aren't going into a 12 year partnership to get income of £4.5m over that period. I expect the 'return'being referred to is the more serious money, which in reality should be substantially more than that retainer. I accept that's my interpretation though.

The interesting bit here too is that in the interview the whole focus is on rewards coming through improvements. Performance related rewards seems to be exactly what Martyn is now asking for and claiming isn't really in place, yet Dwyer is here telling him that is what is in place. I think a lot of people are being disingenuous here. When you read back a lot of the stuff about IMG's involvement, it talks about groundwork, behind the scenes, and ultimately getting the game looking better for commercial and media deals. If we compare how the sport looked before IMG to now, there are clear differences. Branding work (tweaks rather than full rebrand). Every game broadcast live. SL+ launched. More professional facilities - i know people mock things like ad boards, bt they absolutely look professional on TV and support serving sponsors better. Same as above for things like big screens and some other facilities. Increased focus on food, drink and entertainment at grounds. More fanzones etc than ever. Now when we go to providers for TV deals we have moved the dial on what we offer. It may still not be attractive enough for Sky to ever go back to £40m per year or a competitor coming in, but we are seeing some.hhgely increased numbers around digital in particular. Sky want more viewers, to an extent, a central body can only do so much, they have enforced standards, let's now see what happens in future.

Interview with Martyn back in 2022. https://www.totalrl.com/qa-with-the-img-man-who-will-guide-rugby-leagues-future/ Dwyer - "I can’t go into the commercial details of the deal, but it is structured so that our return is very much focused on performance, because that’s what we feel is the best for both sides.We need to prove that we can make this work and that’s how we get remunerated. If we grow this sport, that’s how it works for our side." MS: Your financial return is linked to the enhancement of broadcasting, sponsorship and commercial income more generally. I imagine you have a ratchet effect on your income so that the more successful the game is in generating income in the long term, the more successful you will be too in getting your return. MD: “The better we perform the better our return will be and there are levels where we won’t get a return. The over-arching principle all the way through was to link it to performance. What Rugby League didn’t need was someone coming in and charging them a huge fee with no skin in the game, while promising a lot and potentially not delivering it. “They have been down the path of private equity before and that is an incredibly topical conversation at the moment. “But what they want from us is the skills and expertise that we bring in growing sports and growing revenue streams. MS: As I understand your role, you will probably not generate any significant income for the first two years of your involvement. In a sense you are making an investment of your time and expertise to generate income later in the cycle. The current TV deals all run out at the end of 2023 so clearly there is pressure to get the league structure established before you go to any potential broadcasters MD: “There is some time pressure, which is why we announced the deal this last week. I basically start from Monday and there is a lot to do. “We have a lot to do to get a clear direction as to what we will need to do going forward and to build the brand around it. The future structure is just one part of this, we then have to position that appropriately as well" I'm not seeing Dwyer saying what is claimed. Can somebody link to where he did say it. Dwyer explicitly states he cannot disclose the commercials.

The 'clubs' often make claims that they dont know the detail. They did it after the record £200m deal (as soon as the cheques had cleared) and they are still doing it now. That they keep having the wool pulled over their eyes says a lot about some of these people.

I dont need to wait to make my judgement, im not saying that's what will happen in the future, im saying that's what's happened for decades, and we havent changed anything, its still literally happening right now. We are flip flopping year after year after year. Unlike many others, I dont have too much of an issue with Wood, and defended him plenty when he was in charge. But I dont think this is a progressive move and is certainly not being done in the right way. And whilst you are happy to wait and see, what is your view on having to wait 15 months instead of the 3 months that we were promised was all Wood needed?

Looking at the last 30 years we can see votes for all sorts of things, often contradictory. It isn't a good indicator of anything really, amd tbh vote results are a good reason to lessen the power of the clubs. They breakaway, they get back together, more than once, they vote in licensing, they vote out licensing, they vote in the Super 8s, they vote out the Super 8s. And so on. The power and the ever changing views of a small number of Northern men are holding the game back here.