Dave T

Oh aye, none of it is personal (although when you are rating somebody that will always appear personal). The criticism is absolutely aimed at the RFL.

Without wanting to take this cross code, but IIRC both the RU Prem and Pro 14 took hundreds of millions in PE - yet I'm not seeing any transformations take place in those comps (maybe Pro14 to be fair). If they have just paid debts, that will help in the short term, until those debts are run up again and they have sold huge parts of their commercial income. It really would have been easy for the owners to just take pots of gold now and repay their loans etc. I'm glad they didn't, I prefer us to own our sport. I have no idea whether this will work, but I think it was the better option for our sport.

The fan zones that his group have been entertaining at have been horrendous. Genuinely terrible, unprofessional, shout and reinforces stereotypes of thick Northerners. The video above us a great example of how out of touch the RFL is. It tells us all about why it's good for him, and not why we should be excited about that. His interview would work if he was a household name we are trading on. But to tha majority, he is a random DJ getting the gig because he's a Spurs fan. Nothing personal to the guy, but this should really be a big gig, with a name that does it justice.

If you think the game has no strengths, I can't help you.

Having weaknesses doesn't mean you have no strengths. I'd rather haters of UK RL went off to an RU board or something tbh.

I think there was a hefty premium around signing an extension with Sky quickly as part of a package of sports rights Sky were signing up, partly due to a challenge from BT. I do also think there was an element of our previous rights being cheap, Sky could easily justify a premium, and they could just as easily reduce it again as there is just no competition. Whilst it is clearly not a great position to be in, I still maintain that this under-performance in commercial and media income surely means there is huge potential for growth - hopefully IMG are up to the challenge.

Woops.

An article in the I states 2004 - £63m for 5 years (£12.5m pa) 2009 - £50m for 3 years (£16.5m pa) 2012 - £90m for 5 years (£18m pa) 2017 - £200m for 5 years (£40m pa - although length is always ambiguous as it was an extension). 2022 - £50m for 2 years (£25m pa) It does look like a normalisation really.

Yes, its sort of my point, irrespective of what the concept was and whether we were a fan, they backed the innovation, we backed out and the money went back to original levels. There is a clear case that the broadcaster saw real value in it, but we failed to make it work. It would be interesting to understand more about the 2 year reason, because it could be that was all we were prepared to accept at £25m.

You do know that 78k was the capacity?

Jeez, I'd forgotten about that!!

Totally agree. My point is that some people seem to frown on Wire signing anyone and trying to 'buy the title' when in reality every club sign players. Our youth development is progressing nicely, but it's a slow process. And, are you suggesting Latchford is unglamorous?

Yeah, I'm not saying the decision to release is wrong, as always there is a balancing act with the cap, and I think Thewlis may take that spot. It was more a general observation that I think he is reviewed harshly.

Winger is one of those positions I suppose where you get 3xposed and can be left looking silly. No doubt he makes some bad reads, but I dont personally feel any more than others who get free passes.

I don't know if it's the fact that we rarely get the glory tries from him, like he used to score for Wigan. A winger will only be as good as the service he receives and at the start of the year he was scoring, in recent games he's lucky to get a pass, but some fans just see that he isn't scoring. Ive always liked him tbh, hope he does well.

I always think he gets unfair stick, for me he's done little wrong at Wire, he works hard and given half a chance he generally finishes moves off. Yet he always fails to be liked by the fans and Powell clearly has little time for him. I hope he does well wherever he goes.

Confirmed that Charnley will leave at the end of the year.

The Playoffs/Grand Final is probably one that I have heard questioned - but I must admit that was a while ago and people see playoffs as a standard part of the game nowadays. I do find people are relatively disinterested in this kind of thing. For example, I may have a view on the Scottish Premier League structure if pushed on it, but not a strong one.

I'm surprised you put that down to S8's - the obsession with P&R has been around way before that. The biggest shockwave around that subject was licensing.

You expect toilet roll in the bogs?

We need to not give this board of RL tragics who focus heavily on the business side too much credit. I can genuinely, hand on heart say that I have never heard any criticism of the RL structure (any of them) from an RL fan in person. And definitely not from a non-RL sports fan. I don;t know if you follow football, but I am fascinated by the City v Liverpool battle, my enjoyment is not being ruined by the fact that Leeds and Everton are having a high profile battle to avoid relegation.

I'm not sure, because when S8's was scrapped, we didn't see Championship games shown IIRC

I think this is a commercial deal isn't it? That would suggest increasing revenues is one of the key drivers. If increasing and improving grassroots is deemed crucial to that, then yes, but I'm not sure IMG will be focusing too much on that area.

To just address this one, important point - the S8 games came in the form of additional games, not replacements. At times we were seeing 4 games a weekend. We were still seeing Leeds every week, even then!

Saying games are not interesting doesn't mean anything. People still watched on Sky. One of the most iconic finishes ever to SL came under S8's (Ryan Hall scoring at Hudds) - a clip still used nowadays on Sky. But, I don't think we need to discuss structure any more, surely we all have fatigue on that subject! But if anyone thinks Sky offered £25m down from £40m because we had a certain structure 4 seasons earlier, they want their bumps felt.