foozler

One thing is for certain, in the modern game the scrum can still be a useful weapon, provided a coach knows how to best use it. I for one would like to see more use made of it, just as much more use could be made of the 40/20.

My understanding of contested = contesting possession for the ball; is that not supposed to be the primary difference between the two codes?

I'd have to question your assertion there about the Quins game. The RU Premiership has run season opening double headers at Twickenham for some time now, always on a Saturday, invariably the first weekend of September. So it shouldn't require an Enstein at the RFL to check the Quins RL fixtures for that weekend when they make the draw for the season, and adjust accordingly. You have to feel for both the Quins club and Warrington fans here. Incompetence at Red Hall, who enjoy banging on about Quins needing to do something about their gates, results in Quins RL having yet another low attendance & Warrington fans being out of pocket. I would imagine Messrs Lewis & Wood are on about

I think that most people, myself included, would question the extent to which RU scrums at the highest levels of the game are really contested these days. If they were contested, then I would expect the ball to be put in straight (something most refs seem incapable/ uninterested in policing) and for there to be more heels against the head. As it is, most of the srummaging action I see on TV seems to involve props not binding properly and scrums repeatedly collapsing - my own theory is that modern rugby shirts are not fit for purpose for props since there is no excess fabric to bind onto. Further down the RU foodchain, I understand that scrums are definitely more contested, just as games tend to be a bit more open.

I can understand your disappointment, I have always found Christine to be very helpful in my dealings with her. What her email suggests is that between them the senior management at the club are either all on vacation at the moment or fast asleep on the job and no-one has told her what to say to people like yourself. As soon as they got the news of the change of day, they should have decided on how best to communicate this to disappointed fans contacting people like Christine in the ticket office. There should be a pre-written email from any one of the CEO, Managing Director, Marketing Director or Commercial Director explaining how disappointed the club is for its' fans, that the decision was out of their control and they will do whatever they can reasonably do to help fans inconvenienced by the change. I believe it's called PR and I'm afraid that it's something Saints are not so great at compared to say Leeds. After all, they (Saints) do have an email contact list they could use for this.

Unfortunately your Saturday schedule wouldn't work because of the restrictions in Twickenham on the Saturday. Personally I would have had the Quins, Saints & Crusaders games all at the same time on the Sunday with a 3pm kick off, actually make that all last round games kick off same time, same day. The way things stand, not only do Saints have an unfair advantage knowing exactly how many points they need to score for 2nd spot, Warrington have almost another 24 hours of recovery time. That might be acceptable during the regular season which is after all the preliminary competition, but I think this unacceptable in the knock out part of the competition. Saints had plenty of success earlier in the season with a Sunday kick off, Warrington fans would stand a chance of getting to the game without taking a day off work and those Hull KR fans wanting to make the trip along the M62 would have an easier time of it. As things stand the Sky & RFL have needlessly managed to cheese off both Warrington & Saints fans, and guarantee yet another meagre attendance at Quins on the Friday. This from an organisation (the RFL) which says clubs must do more to increase their crowds!

Ah, but that's not the point. The Cas game is almost 120 years to the day since the first fixture at Knowsley Road, Saints have been marketing the game quite heavily for the last few months and it would seem many people are travelling from far and wide to attend. Any other game, any other season, it would not have been an issue but Sky are not the favorites at the moment on Redvee. On top of which, I think it very wrong that Saints and Warrington are playing on different days. Surely the drama on the Friday night is who will come second with neither team knowing quite what the outcome will be. As it is, Saints will kick off knowing exactly what they need to do to clinch 2nd place, not a very "fairplay" situation.

I've seen both Wigan and Huddersfield win a scrum against the feed this season simply by getting a decent push on. Wigan destroyed the Saints scrum at Knowsley Road, from which they won the ball and ran it a good way to the Saints try line & Huddersfield actually scored a try from the scrum they won pretty much in the dying seconds of the game. Whilst not wanting to see the scrum descend into the RU nonsense of endless resets and then a feed into the second row, I think more can be made of the scrum situation in RL by creative coaches. Witness Huddersfield scoring against Saints in the CC Semi last year with a cross field kick straight from the scrum. We were totally not expecting it and Hudds scored an easy try.

On the subject of the redevelopment of Headingley; both Leeds rugby and Yorkshire cricket have had significant sums of money from the taxpayer, via Leeds Met, to pay for stand rebuilds. My understanding is that the South Stand was pretty much paid for by the University and that the latter is also paying Leeds RU

If these are the figures for Leeds Rugby, does that not mean it is the combined accounts for both the RL and RU operations?

Does that mean there will be no more, albeit infrequent, match reports in the Sunday Times? The one this Sunday was almost half a page and for once was considerably bigger than any RU coverage.

He was on the BBC a couple of months back taking part in a rowing marathon, I think that's where the lard went.

Indeed my point was that with one fit half back and a decent kicking game, Saints would have come out on top IMO. I take your point about throwing Gaskell into the mix at short notice but after Pryce and Eastmond the cupboard seems to be pretty bare, certainly where the kicking game is concerned. This much was clear to see at Headingley last month once Eastmond and Pryce had gone off. I wonder about giving Foster more kicking responsibility. He has a good boot on him and you would think he could certainly kick out of hand for penalties and gain more ground than Roby. I know he's working with Tommy Martyn, surely he could learn a few tricks for 5th/ 6th tackle kicks near the line or a few 40/20's.

Yup, they did indeed both play last October and only one of them really turned up on the day. Since then, Pryce has struck a rich vein of form and Eastmond is always dangerous; in my view, had they both lasted at Headingley in July and been on the field on Saturday, Saints would have come out on top on both occasions. They weren't and we didn't. Too bad, we move on. Leeds had the stronger team available on Saturday and played some quality rugby. Needless to say however that you would have suffered considerably had you been missing both Burrow and McGuire.

Hardly surprising now is it; How many supporters from either club were going to take probably a whole day off work to make sure they're in Neath, hardly a hotbed of RL, for 6pm? I think they did well to get that many to be honest. There may well be a very good reason for it being a 6pm kick off but without having seen the reason explained, it just strikes me as a monumentaly stupid decision.

Saints were always going to be up against it without Pryce as there's no-one else to pull the strings effectively. Both sides played well but Leeds were always going to have the edge with Sinfield, Mcguire & Burrow on the field. I think the Rhinos also played a good guessing game in the lead up to the game - so much for Senior having to play in the pack! Was surprised to see Eastwood and Diskin back as the news was they were struggling so well played Leeds on that front. I think Saints were naive in the tackle and consequently allowed Leeds quick play the balls which you just can't do. Leeds were much more effective at getting numbers in the tackle and slowing down the ruck area, unlike Saints who for most of the game seemed too eager to get back on their feet. I think Meli is a good call at centre and his throw away pass execepted, I thought he had another good game in the new position. I wonder whether Potter rues the decision to leave out the young half back Gaskell who had a good game the other week and might have been more effective than Wilkin in that position. With our first choice half backs on the field it would have been a Saints victory all the way but fair play to Leeds, on the day they outwitted Saints and showed I think greater desire. Leeds v Warrington should certainly see a packed Wembley.

Whilst your content is pie in the sky, the idea of conferences isn't a bad one and will probably be the way forward. I think the RFL needs to take the 36 clubs that make up the current top 3 divisions and create 2 licensed competitions, a Superleague of 18-20 and the remainder in a revised licensed Championship. At a minimum, I would have 4 from Leigh, Barrow, Halifax, Widnes & Toulouse added to SL which at a stroke does away with the P&R issues. I'm sure they could compete on the field against the likes of Quins, Salford & Wakey and would hopefully see their fortunes improved by the possibility of playing top teams on a more regular basis. I'm sure Leigh v Wigan, Warrington v Widnes and Fev v Leeds would attract good sized crowds. Each league would be composed of 2 conferences, the draw for which could be done at a fancy media friendly draw. GF & CC cup winners would be seeded to keep them apart, there would be a limited number of cross conference games in order to make up required number of fixtures and keep derbies where say the 2 Hull teams are drawn in different conferences. I would have a fans poll to decide which legends of British rugby league the conferences should be named after. Play offs would be simplified. Top 4 from each conference go into the conference play off, the winner from each play off series/ semi final goes to the Grand Final. I would have the losing semi finalists play a game for 3rd and 4th spots, this could be played as a double header with the Grand Final match. I would also consider switching the GF to Wembley. If the RFL really wants to improve the matchday experience for fans thru stadium development, it needs to consider longer licenses say 5 years. In the new financial climate, raising the finance is considerably harder, public funding such as the Rhinos have benefited from will disappear and private finance will be looking for longer term guarantees. Who in their right mind would lend money to say Wakey at the moment after the noises from the RFL about them going down?

Thing I noticed was how limited Ryan Hall is - never takes the man on the outside and has a very limited turn of pace.

Maybe that's what they're referring to in the Liverpool Echo write up of the game?: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/widne...00252-26960766/ "Halifax loss leaves Widnes Vikings facing battle for play-offs Jul 30 2010 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Echo Add a comment WIDNES went down 30-16 at the Shat against Halifax and have a real fight on their hands if they are to gain a play-off place in the Co-operative Championship."

Brian Noble being put thru his paces in my local gym post knee op. Got to say he keeps himself in good shape.

So are Saints - exhibit A - 34 points conceded in home game v Salford. A big week for both teams with tough CC semi action the following weekend. Saints to shade it on Saturday with no more injuries please.

I agree that the 18500 is a good capacity to start with and will suit most games; my point is that if Saints can get 17500 to Knowsley Rd for the Wigan and Warrington games, they should, in plush new surroundings be able to sell out 18500 for such fixtures and have demand over that figure if marketed correctly. It would be a shame if at some point in the future the club was unable to increase capacity in a cost effective manner because such a scenario/ plan hadn't been incorporated into the original build.

When comparing Warrington with Hull, you need to keep some figures in mind: Warrington town pop approx 90,000 Hull city pop approx 260,000 Warrington is pretty much equidistant between Liverpool and Manchester (18 and 20 miles respectively) and the obvious attractions of Premier League soccer. For those lost souls who want it, top flight rugby union at Sale is 20 miles away. Hull is 60 miles from Leeds and almost 100 miles from the nearest Premier soccer city, Manchester. There is no top flight RU within 60 miles and I would question the statement that Hull City is a strong team. With regards to sugar daddies, of course we'd like all clubs everywhere to be self sufficient. However that is just not going to happen; I'd be interested to know what would happen to South Sydney if Russell Crowe were to walk away from it all.

I did wonder whether Ray French had left it there by mistake. I pointed this oversight out on a redvee thread the other day and was told to stop moaning, accused of being negative and that apparently it only appeared to be 2 Union players contesting a lineout. Couldn't be clearer to my eyes. Subsequently I have been reliably informed that the offending website designer has been shot and that a more appropriate book image is being sorted out. Other than that it looks very good. I would like to think that they have allowed for future capacity expansion in the configuration of the ground; I'm sure a load of people, both locals and away fans, are put off going to watch Saints simply because of the poor standard of facilities at Knowsley Rd and would expect attendances to rise. Not convinced by the rebrand, I would prefer to keep the proper name St Helens RLFC and limit the Saints RL to T shirts and the like. Can't imagine Man United will be renaming themselves Red Devils FC anytime soon, or Everton FC becoming The Toffees FC etc etc. (grabs his flatcap and exits).

Not sure quite who people were expecting Saints to appoint? I'm sure Simmons will do just fine, he's plenty of experience and came across pretty well when I saw him give a talk at Headingley last year during the 4 Nations. I believe he's had a fair bit of experience bringing on youngsters which Saints will be relying on over the next few years as the team transitions.