foozler

In that case there will be some cracking tunes on the stereo in the changing room.

Apologies if this has already been dealt with previously, but I do have a life! What is going to happen with regards to competition sponsorship once we get to the 3*8 part of the season. I presume Top 8 will be FU Playoff Series, and bottom 8 will be Kingstone Press Playoff Series, but what about the middle tier? Don't suppose for a minute it will be the FUKingstonePressSuperleagueChampionshipRelegation/PromotionPlayoffSeries so any ideas anyone?

I think he's saying it is rubbish because because they haven't got the cash to splash on decent players and there is a pretty good chance that Bradford could be one of the teams to go down?

Love the comments beneath the page on the Superleague website - it's an utter shambles I tell you!!

Which might turn out to be the best thing in the medium term. The RFL look to the wider interest of the sport, but let the commercially successful people running the top clubs get on with getting more money into the sport. I know it might be fantasy thinking, but if those people (Lenegan/ Koucash etc) can shake up the top of the ladder and get more people putting money into RL, whether through bums on seats or sponsors in the lounge, then hopefully the wider sport can benefit. All we need now are some good sponsoship announcements. And let the rugby commence.

Bit of mind reading going on there! Am guessing Leeds won't be one of the four?

Anyone walked out of the meeting yet?

That's not such a bad haul to be fair. I think it was last season (12/13) that the top AP try scorer had 11 tries to his name!

Must be doing a good job at raising awareness for ticket sales as the eticketing site has been giving me a runtime error since mid morning so can't get in to buy more tickets!

I can well understand the difficulties of persuading senior management to sponsor a sport which has zero profile in your country. But surely there has to be some lateral thinking here. For example, Yorkshire Bank is ultimately owned by National Australia Bank Group (so financial services organisations in two parts of the world where RL matters). Now I don't know whether the latter has any involvement with RL in Australia but has someone at the RFL asked a colleague at the ARL whether it is worth contacting NABG?

Given that we have wheelchair RL, could it be that this armchair RL variant is the answer to the sports participation numbers issue?

Can I ask why it is the RFL's responsibility to secure tournament sponsorship? Should this not be a collective effort between the RFL, ARL and RLIF? After all, it is the World Cup, could we not have a headline sponsor from the southern hemisphere? Be great value for them when the Aussies hold the cup aloft on a wet Old Trafford night in November?

I have commented on this issue before. As Canetman rightly says, you have to work with the financial framework that large corporations decide their principal marketing spend well ahead of when it actually comes into effect. Which means forward planning say 2 years ahead of when the deal needs to take effect and I am not convinced the RFL have worked to that kind of schedule in the past. I do have some sympathy for the commercial manager, his contacts from Man City would probably not bring in much since RL is a very different beast to soccer, and I would expect trying to get competition sponsorship is more difficult than getting sponsorship for a club. Furthermore, when the RFU employee in charge of sponsorship says it is a tough market, and that for an organisation with the clout of the RFU, then you know things are tough.

I understand there might have been an issue with his off field activities, well his barber shop and his big use of Twitter, which maybe didn't sit well with the Saints heirarchy. However Saints were frankly stupid to let him go. Foster on the wing and Meli at centre was a pretty good left edge combination for Saints in 2011, and I'll never forget the ball round the back try Foster scored that year at Leeds. Foster may not be the biggest/ fastest winger in the sport, but he can score tries and kicks goals with his eyes shut. Got to be a big bonus for a team when you know 8 times out of 10 that 4 points will become 6.

Given that we're at Widnes in 2011, maybe we should just have the heritage shirt as our home shirt then?

It's the heritage shirt, done for the last year of matches at Knowsley Road - choc brown and sky blue were the original colours of St Helens rugby.

Exposing kids to our great game, especially those in non traditional areas is the key to the long term health of the sport. Hopefully the Sport England money will go a long way towards this with development officers getting the sport up and running in schools. I don't actually see too many "top" RU players that could make the switch anyway. I think one of the biggest challenges we face is actually selling the north of England itself. It is highly unlikely that top level pro RL will ever have an even geographic spread in England and will remain a predominantly Northern sport, just as pro RU is predominantly a Southern sport (and becoming even more so). Get people to understand that actually up North is a great place to live and that you can have a quality lifestyle for significantly less than elsewhere and it becomes easier. People overlook the fact that top RU stars can earn

Exposing kids to our great game, especially those in non traditional areas is the key to the long term health of the sport. Hopefully the Sport England money will go a long way towards this with development officers getting the sport up and running in schools. I don't actually see too many "top" RU players that could make the switch anyway. I think one of the biggest challenges we face is actually selling the north of England itself. It is highly unlikely that top level pro RL will ever have an even geographic spread in England and will remain a predominantly Northern sport, just as pro RU is predominantly a Southern sport (and becoming even more so). Get people to understand that actually up North is a great place to live and that you can have a quality lifestyle for significantly less than elsewhere and it becomes easier. People overlook the fact that top RU stars can earn

Thanks for that, I had been looking at the bus as an alternative, am more likely to take it now.

Any idea what service there is from the Man United train station into Manchester after the game? The tram was a proper squeeze afterwards last year, not particularly comfortable and not something I think I want to subject my 70 yr old man too. Well for sure he wouldn't thank me.

My understanding is the English RU premiership does have a cap, the current figure is

Not the first time the "pop" side has sung this; it's a little bit of irony when Saints kick for goal at a penalty. First time I heard it was the 08 playoff semi when Saints beat Leeds and Longy kept kicking for goal whenever there was a penalty. Althought the loudest cheer that night came from the pop side when Leeds, who had been pretty hopeless, eventually managed to score a try; a very funny moment although of course the Rhinos had the last laugh.

I thought Jonathan Davies's comment about Ryan Bailey during the Cup Final was brilliant; he effectively said what a waste of space Bailey is. If I was a Leeds fan I think I'd sooner have Bailey's old man in the pack.

RU has been trying to tap into these college footballers for years and having spent a lot of money on it, it doesn't really work as the skills sets for rugby of either code are very different to American Footballers.

Or the Rhinos Retreat?