Dave T

The attitudes are a little weird, and I do think it makes them look a bit stupid. Super League players are more regularly going over there and doing well, England regularly win against NZ, Samoa, Tonga etc. We lost the 2017 World Cup final 6 nil in Brisbane, our clubs often do well in the WCC. Considering all the advantages that the Aussies have, it's really quite staggering that we are even close to them, and for them to act as ignorant as they do speaks volumes about their journos and pundits tbh.

Beat me to it by seconds. Exactly right.

This one made me smile. It's no more than PR this, of course the end of the negotiation should see a better deal than the start.

I think the problem is that we are just seeing more of the same, which is no surprise as we announced an inside man as MD. I'm not somebody who always believes we need to look externally, but Jones just seems so utterly impressive as a leader.

I think it was part of the restructure triggered by the IMG partnership, and IMG have a guy on the board, as well as the RFL board. So they have an involvement, not sure how the formal jv/partnership is structured though.

It just supports what I've said for a while. The gradings mean nowt. It's the top x ranked teams depending on how many we can afford to have in. Genuinely not sure why they've kept the A,B and C gradings once they got rid of the guaranteed place for A.

Yeah, that's fair enough - agreed, fans can only know what they have been told, and there is little reason to doubt the website that we post on, or a prominent SL owner. No fans have made this up.

yup, agreed. Although I think one source is fine for a report. Whether it is enough to then quote it in various reports on an ongoing basis is another question!

Come on Archie, that last line is disingenuous. If TotalRL publishes this, and an SL owner supports this, who are we to say that the bill isn't £450k?

If this number is wrong, then journos should be challenged. However they will have a source. DB is the one who has publicly stated this, meaning that effectively he is a good enough source for anyone to now claim that.

Let's be blunt here. Derek Beaumont has been the mouthpiece of the claims that this is a £5m cost.

So if we look at the series versus last year, focusing on the top 2 matches. 2023 - total of 28,375 (Saints and Leeds) 2024 - total of 31,205 (Wigan and Leeds) Considering we removed one game, created an element of scarcity and clashes in West Yorkshire, and the fact that we were one year on playing a team with some recent history, I think delivering a 10% uplift is disappointing. I often make the point that in RL we just don't deliver growth - and this is an example of that. The best example is Magic Weekend. This was a brand new concept back in 2007 and we got 59k. It was pretty popular and is something we've stuck with, but 17 years later we got a crowd that was lower than year one, and our peak during those 17 years was only 16% higher than the opener. We saw the same with Roses, Exiles, England mid-season games. Last year we got 14k average at Saints and Leeds - this year we really should have been looking how we drive serious growth to c20k per match. Not just more of the same. I refuse to believe that when we do something new we just get the crowd we will always get. Others grow things - we just seem to meander on.

If we are losing money on internationals, then I'd suggest we really do need to be looking at the TV rights model for these. We've been insistent on being on the BBC to get eyeballs, but are we getting the knock on benefits from that, because the commercial income doesn't appear to be strong on that. When internationals were on Sky we did used to have highlights on BBC the next day, and I do wonder whether we should be testing the water to see if anyone is prepared to pay for England internationals.

What was better about this weekend versus the Tonga game at the same venue last year? (assuming you went to both).

I think world class is obviously ambiguous and can mean different things - so I am happy to concede that it doesn't have to mean all seater, or the very best grounds in the world, but I do think it is a 'feel' of the event. Have the internationals that we've staged in the UK over the last 3 years felt genuine top quality events? I'm not sure we can answer that as a resounding yes. Even if we accept that stadium criteria is heavily opinion based and a case can be made for more 'rustic' grounds for England games, shall we say, I think that even at Wigan and Leeds they need to be top quality events. They just aren't anything to write home about. I suppose the 2013 World Cup is a great example. We played in some really average facilities, but there was effort and the events felt like real events. I haven't really experienced anything like that tournament since I don't think.

I agree. I expect it was in line with expectations on a crowd front.

Why shouldn't everything be World class? England Autumn internationals should be the pinnacle. Headingly is a great Rugby ground. But if I'm honest, I think all seatered modern facilities are the minimum for these games. I think Elland Rd is fine as a compromise for some games.

Yep. The fanzone at the Olympic Stadium for that first visit was one of the worst RL experiences I've ever had.

TBH, even tapping into the mates rate thing, Wimbledon seems a perfectly nice ground for a France game instead of Warrington or as pre-match entertainment for a Featherstone match.

I think these things will be different for.different demographics, but I think one of the biggest feelings around international RL for me is lack of effort. Even if the choice of entertainment or whatever isn't to my taste, I can appreciate effort. Just opening a stadium and putting two teams on the field isn't what others tend to do.

I think the fact that we get around half these crowds for a game versus France means we have little to lose really in terms of taking the games elsewhere (on a purely bums on seats aspect). The challenge is making it work financially as we clearly access mates rates at RL grounds. But we are seeing ever diminishing returns, at some stage we need to be brave.

I'm not a huge fan of the home shirt. Having the yellow base still feels like an away shirt to me. But, I don't buy rugby shirts anyway so hopefully the young 'uns like it. It'll look decent on the players. As a Wire fan I must admit to being a touch disappointed that we do appear to have moved away from the white shirts that we had during the 70s and 80s.pretty consistently.

The site is almost unreadable at the moment. When people share links i just see huge blank sections in posts. And that's after I've had to click the tiny crosses to close down the adverts.

I think as Damien described it, the series is maybe passable at best. We really need to be getting way beyond passable don't we?

That's great, and i can watch that on BBC.