Big Picture

That isn't enough any more though, modern crowds want more than just the match, they want an event.

That again is quite a fair number of RU converts, would there have been as many as half a dozen at each club on average?

Wikipedia says that Myler played for Widnes RUFC Colts before he signed the pro RL club and says nothing about him playing junior RL.

Tonight I watched the 1989 Charity Shield match between Widnes and Wigan in which Widnes had five RU converts (Alan Tait at fullback, Martin Offiah and Brimah Kebbie on the wings, Jonathan Davies in the centres, and Tony Myler at stand-off) in their starting lineup. That's just a smidge under 40% of their starters in that match, and they had John Devereux and Paul Moriarty on their roster that season too. This leads me to wonder just how high a percentage of the players in the old First Division were RU converts? Would any of the real long time followers of the game here such as @GUBRATS, @Harry Stottleand their like happen to know?

It would be very interesting to know where in the country those phone calls have been coming from. That's a pleasant surprise, considering RU's establishment connections you wouldn't think their supporters would have much to worry about.

That's clearly biased and unfair though, a level playing field requires that travel should be as equal as possible among the teams.

They do have it wrong, what they were talking about there are divisions. Then again they were stupid enough to be thinking seriously about putting all the Sydney teams in one division and lumping all the rest into the other so the Sydney teams would all get off lightly in terms of travel and the other teams would do most of that.

Whether they're still called conference anymore is irrelevant. I agree that a Conference can be either a subdivision of a league or a standalone league, most collegiate leagues in North America are called conferences rather than leagues. That's yet another reason why divisions existing within a league — something we agree about — necessarily means that by definition conferences cannot exist within a division.

As I've proven, there's no such thing as two conferences within a division any more than there could be two leagues within a division. Divisions fit within a conference, not the other way around.

The Conference was a league below the Football League, thus Conference North and Conference South were divisions within that. You can't have different leagues within a division, that would be even more stupid.

So do you admit that Conference North and Conference South are two divisions within a conference then, and therefore divisions fit within a conference rather than the reverse? Because that's what you just implied.

As you just proved, the Conference included divisions and so does the NCL. There's no such thing as a division including conferences though, to my knowledge so such structure has ever existed anywhere in the world. I'm well aware that divisions are typically tiers in British sport, but that's just a convention. Noting in the definition of the word division limits it to differentiating tiers of anything.

Yes you have. As you can plainly see here, even in British sport where a conference exists it is not part of a division, instead if both a conference and divisions exist the divisions are within the conference(s). QED

You have your terminology backwards there. There's no such thing as "conferences in the same division", the way that structure works in the NFL, NBA and NCAA is that you have divisions in the same conference, not the other way around. Where on Earth did you get the notion that the top clubs are spending 90% of their income on players? Wigan's turnover in 2019 was 6,551,920 million £, the salary cap is less than 1/3 of that amount.

It's worth noting that NBC has the same parent company as Sky, Comcast. That company clearly has plenty of money to spend on the rights to broadcast pro sports.

Joke or not, with the reduction in TV money ten is all they can afford in the top tier.

I hope they're more legally binding than the guarantee of at least 10 million Au$ was last time around!

ROFLMAO, thanks for pointing out that typo. It's fixed now.

LOL he'll never come up with an answer to that! Sure I will. Queensland was the historic underdog and New South Wales never stopped being competitive. Looking at those 12 series wins from 2006-2017 we find that of 36 matches, Queensland won 20 and NSW 12. That's a far cry from Australia's dominance of International RL for 40+ years: if we look at the last 36 matches between Great Britain and Australia we see that Australia won 24 and GB only 8, not even in double figures. 1995 was the official Australian national team, the same team which played for the Ashes. I mentioned 2007 only because you mentioned it. Yes I do have evidence: the series stopped being competitive with continued Aussie dominance over a period which now exceeds 40 years, thus the Aussies lost interest. A good few posters have suggested that GB could have role as a touring team like the RU Lions, but if the Aussies aren't interested there's nowhere where they could profitably tour is there? The 1996 tour was disastrous and 2019 doesn't seem to have any better. I quite agree that that match was amazing, it's the only time I've ever seen the Aussies given such a comprehensive defeat. If GB had been able to compete like that more than once in a series now and then, the Aussies almost certainly wouldn't regard State of Origin as the pinnacle of the game. International RL has suffered greatly as a result of first France and then Britain falling behind Australia and New Zealand. A successful World Cup might regenerate Aussie interest in Internationals, but the poor financial results of the last one in 2017 suggesst that such success won't happen on their shores so it's up to the RFL and FFR XIII to make that happen.

I ignored 1997 just as the Aussies do; that wasn't a true Australian national team. This list of "Test" matches in 2007 doesn't list any GB vs Australia or Australia vs GB match. The Kiwis toured Britain that year. The Aussies losing interest is my evidence that the Ashes series had ceased to be successful. They stopped considering British RL a worthy rival. They know that a series down there would struggle on TV and at the gate.

Yes they are correct for the matches from 1992 to 2006. Whether particular matches were part of an Ashes series or not is irrelevant to whether those matches bolstered or undermined the Ashes concept. If we look at the 13 matches played between England and Australia between 1995 and 2017, we find that Australia won 12 out of 13 and outscored England 320-162, giving an average score of (once again) 25-12. In short, occasionally the matches have been close, but not often enough for the Aussies to remain interested and that really is the point. It might be the case that an Ashes series held in the UK now would be a success, but that depends on the Aussies being interested in playing it which is seriously in doubt now.

It's let down by having any sponsors' logos on it, that's a tacky practice.

I grant that that series was close, but Australia still won it 3-0. Australia won 11 of the fourteen matches between 1992 and 2006 and outscored GB 499-231, giving an average score of 25-12. It's not difficult to see why the Aussies lost interest.

The match you watched wasn't at Princes Park, it was at Olympic Park. I know because I've watched both. It stopped being successful though, that's what you don't seem to grasp. The years of Aussie dominance undermined the Aussie public's interest and led them to believe that State of Origin is superior to International RL and in one sense at least they're right. For years SOO has been far more even and competitive than International RL.

No of course not, I have no knowledge of whether there are or aren't. If there are though, they've shown that they're not interested in getting into the sport.