welshmagpie

Off to this tomorrow, looking forward to it. I predict Jamaica 18-38 Scotland

A lot to like about this French team. Yes, England are missing a dozen if not more regulars but they have to be playing this fixture annually if not twice annually. A great contest.

Sangare? Absolute unit

Lyne showing why he’s nowhere near top-tier international quality. Very poor. Le Cam? Excellent! As has been Pelissier.

Tony Gigot (unsurprisingly) playing the furthest thing from a half back and a captain. If France are full strength at the World Cup after a full-SL season for Catalans and Toulouse they will be OK but today is proving that they’re 4 absentees away from being less than average.

They’ve signed Will Evans (Wales 9s) centre/winger - 19/20 years of age. Good handful of Queensland Cup games. He’ll go well.

Massively disagree, Cardiff is a rugby city but puts the participation of it way before spectating it (domestically) I was born and raised there and growing up the city had the following RU teams: Rumney, St Albans, St Peters, Rhiwbina, St Josephs, Llanishen, Fairwater, Canton, Llandaff, Llandaff North Then below this many more clubs who only ran senior teams like Llanrumney, CIACS, CRICC, Old Iltydians

James Cunningham

Ok, here goes… I was involved with Worcester Jaguars over the last 4 years or so. At the start I was head coach, then player coach, then assistant player coach, back to head coach for a bit and then playing. I left at the end of last season due to the ‘semi-pro’ plans as I majorly disagreed with this move after a half-baked season in West of England and having forfeited one or two games due to lack of players. As alluded to earlier, throwing money at this issue won’t solve it. The academy is OK, it’s based at a good school, with good facilities but there’s only about 7-10 members of it. When I first got involved, the academy had a solid 15-20 player squad and felt promising, only 4/5 of those players are still ‘involved’ in the first team squad . Believe it or not the club has plans to tell players they’re unsuccessful on trialling and thus not offer a contract - they plan to launch a feeder team but you’ll see why in the next paragraph why this will be tricky to run and maintain. Jags held a trial recently, with only 3 prospective newbies rocking up and 9/10 existing first teamers. A dozen or so didn’t attend due to union commitments and this was frowned upon as league wasn’t ‘first choice’ - I understand the leadership’s intentions there but the sentiment is massively misguided, you can’t tell amateur players in a union stronghold what they should be doing when a club is in its sincere infancy. Suffice to say, many of these players have well and truly gone of rugby league. Sad. The club has now lost John Fieldhouse as first team coach and many players won’t return if a certain person continues to coach in his absence. Again, a bitter taste has been left here through poor coaching, management and direction. In my most humble opinion, which I placed at the forefront of a players’ survey all Jags squad completed at end of last season, they would be best served developing the South’s equivalent of a Stanningley, Ince Rose Bridge, Heworth… whatever. A good solid community club that knows its place in developing players and structures that strengthen Cov Bears and thus improving RL in the Midlands. I wish Jags every success and I can’t fault ambition but such ambition been attempted so early will not help the retention of good league people like myself and a few others, who have had no choice to step aside with their values and morals intact. The club have a grand total of 6 players attending junior sessions. Yet here they are exploring semi-professionalism with a multi-scale wage offering after 7 gamesc 2 forfeits and 1 win. Happy to answer more via direct message

And a logo stuck in 1992

How very Mascord

WRL run varying junior leagues at U10s, U13s, U15s and U17s. West Wales Raiders an additional layer above this that junior players feed into e.g Charley Bodman as a recent example. The Raiders look after Gwaebdraeth Valley Raiders as they’re Llanelli based but they’re by far the worst run junior club in South Wales - it’s run the same way that WWR we’re run in the early days, last minute and very ad hoc. Ill be honest whenever I see him… there’s a man involved at Raiders and also their partnered Uni and the Gwaendraeth club who is an utterly awful administrator. I’ve actually given him constructive criticism on social media recently regarding WWR’s awful website and social media graphics. For a club so awash with cash, they neglect their most accessible shop window.

The usual (non-covid) habit is very early in November.

Anyone know if Toulouse are likely to go for Saturday as their home games in SL? looking at getting across for a weekend.

Couple of ideas I’ve seen on social media and thought up myself, worth sharing for all to discuss: 1) £60 Big3 ticket, allowing entry to CC final, the GF and a home international/one day of Magic. 2) 24 hour offer for 24 hours the moment the grand final whistle blows. 5,000 tickets available at £5 each. Have a big countdown on social media/SL website, instant email to all on RFL/SL mailing list. 3) X amount of free tickets to the junior club of any participating player in the grand final. Let the future watch the present via a thank you for their hard work in developing them in those early days. 4) Better, more publicised entertainment. 5) Minor European international finals (similar to Serbia vs Ukraine this weekend) on the Friday and have them as special guests. Adds an international, multi-cultural flavour to proceedings

On this note, nice to see Clydesdales are back from next season

Above all, this. Can only be positive.

Raiders love an awful press release, more questions than answers here. Is the head coach search still ongoing? Is Flower helping out as an assistant? What about Pontypool?

Russia really paying the price for a lack of activity and no real competition in place. 10 years ago you’d be expecting them to put nearly 100 on Ukraine, but now the gables have truly turned.

Nowadays it’s a bit more modern and professional:

Thankfully Ille sur Tet have updated this classic

Very similar to Easts’ (Brisbane) recent rebrand, but then maybe it always has been just is more noticeable now on a simpler scale .

If that’s in reply to me mate, I’ve already identified a championship club (or two) that I’ll be visiting next year. Cheers nonetheless Happy to here you’ve been welcomed so openly.

I have absolutely no affinity to any SL/Championship club. I’m born, raised and living outside of any ‘heartland’ I want to see RL thrive in Wales and I suppose that leads me to supporting West Wales and the Crusaders. With that in mind, I’m not a massive fan of how West Wales operate (they come across shabby, amateur and have a poor reputation in the amateur game in south Wales) and Crusaders are full of players that travel over from England’s north west (I have no issue here as such but see ‘no affinity’) If L1 was to disappear if still follow the game as I love it too much and have put too much of my own time (playing and coaching) into RL in South Wales and the midlands to give up over night. As a previous poster alluded to, travelling up north is a logistical pain, so internationals aside, I’d very much remain an armchair fan.