iffleyox

Funnily enough, part of what killed Oxford last time round might no longer be an issue. Not, for a fleeting glimpse of a moment in the glint of the milkman's eye, that I'm suggesting Oxford should, could, or would rejoin the league. Can't, unfortunately, say more than that, but one of the big blows wouldn't IMO have happened if it had been now rather than then.

Agree - although I think that might be the autumn, or in a small window of August-September-October before round 2 hits and we shut down again.

I agree with all of that - but (in my opinion, which is all it is), the entertainment business (all forms) should be at the back of the queue as things relax. To be honest, for many people just going into work is going to be novelty enough in month 1 of "normality", never mind anything else.

Well yes, but are those 70-100 people going into isolation for 14 days immediately afterwards? Because if they're not then they can be spreading to everyone they come into contact with (before they're showing any symptoms or know they've got it), who then spread it to everyone they come into contact with.... To be quite honest, part of me (admittedly the most pessimistic but but even so) thinks that sport, cinemas, theatre etc are the discretionary bit of the economy - and whatever the pain, and the hit to those sports, cinemas, theatres etc, the rest of the economy could stand that pain; and sport, cinemas, theatres etc are going to be the last things taken back out of the freezer. My best guess is September for starting the next season of the "winter" sports might be possible; but in reality I think we could be looking at nothing, no professional or amateur sport, until 2021.

Immediately

Quite - I'm not on silly money, but can see furloughing hurtling towards me like a hurtling-towards-me-thing (I'm currently on of 2 people in the firm I work for not already on it...) and have just had a very sobering sit down with my bank statement looking at the implications. Bottom line, £2,500 (which is £1,995 after tax) covers my mortgage, council tax, car and utility bills, leaving me with £7 for the month. Throw in that my wife is pregnant, the only one in her team not furloughed, and about to go on maternity leave and it's all starting to look a bit festive. Yes, on the plus side I've got savings I can use, so I (touch wood) think it will be ok, but it's sobering. If you earn £50k and have normal outgoings (I don't have gym memberships or any subscriptions other than RLW and £5 a month on Netflix), then going down to 80% salary is not fun. Any more than if you're on 22K and lose 80% would be. You set your life up for what you can afford based on what you earn. Now, footballers on £60k a week are in a different bracket (although I suppose they could have an enormous mortgage to service) but your average fringe first team Super League player?

I want to say that they played a home game in Oxford, but tbh it might just as easily have been us playing a home game there... I'm sure someone did come and play a home game in Oxford that wasn't Oxford anyway.

At Middle School, right at the back end of the 1980s, in the heart of RU country SW of Birmingham, our northern PE teacher had all the boys doing PTBs perfectly from about the age of 10. "Just in case you ever move north, like...."* *It got very confusing though as obviously we weren't allowed to do it when playing other schools, but if we didn't do it on a games afternoon then we got a ball thrown at our head.

Given I have to really try hard to attend live SL from where I live (and yes, although closer to the Broncos as the crow flies it is actually quicker and easier to get to the M62....) I tend to default to Wakey or Cas home games precisely because they have some atmosphere and I'm not spending 6 hours plus (return) on a train to sit in a half empty football ground. Horses for courses of course.

Possible to read it both ways - as someone who does this sort of thing for a living that report says "combined in the results" which *does not* mean combined in the raw data. So without seeing the data tables it looks like either of: - wrong headline - right headline but without the right data split in the article

3 actually - there's no one in the east end of Sandwell that will tell you that they're anything other than Brummie - IIRC it's only very recently that at least part of the Hawthorns stopped being in Birmingham anyway (never mind the rest of the ground). Unless you're trying to suggest that Villa are not a major soccer club and only counting the Blues and Baggies? In which case, more power to you, you'd fit right in in the second city! Also, since the dawn of the pro era, the city's leading union club has gone from top flight and gates of 14k to tier 3 and gates of about 700. There is little interest in rugby of either code (other than playing it - the number of clubs is holding up well) as a spectator sport, and what there is is siphoned off by Wasps if you live in the north or east of the city, or Worcester if you live in the south or west. I'd love it, but it's not going to happen.

If you’re not including me in that why would you write it - because it would be irrelevant? If you are then I suggest you take a look at my posts over the past 6 years. On this bit of the forum I only post about RL, because I am an RL fan.

Difficult to win here isn’t it - I’m literally trying to work out what the lunatic OP is on about and point out why what he’s saying is rubbish and you dive in on me for being cross-code... FFS indulge me for a second- how would you suggest we point out the departure from reality? You’ve jumped in 12 hours later with your size tens to attack the RL defending side.Madness.

But origin is basically the pinnacle because the best league in the world wasn't getting a decent challenge because the international game wasn't good enough. At the moment it would be madness to kill it off or weaken it much but there will logically come a time when what's best for the Australian domestic game will be even more out of step with the rest of the world than it is now. I'm absolutely not a dreamer, but given the size of the Australian population and economy a sensible international governing body would have a long term plan for it not to be the dominant part of the sport. Australia and the M62 (with due respect to Catalans/Toulouse and Toronto) is a straitjacket that ideally we'd get beyond in the next 20-30 years. I've got no idea how to do it, but at some point it's going to result in Origin becoming a reasonably important internal Australian comp rather than the be all and end all.... The NRL needs Origin's money and status, the rest of the world needs the NRL to slowly move away from Origin. Square that circle...

sometimes, people get carried away with the December Barbarians game, because once or twice they've only picked N hemisphere players to play a southern hemisphere team at Twickenham (and vice versa). But that's still one country vs whoever is available from the opposite hemisphere to play a random game in December. When it's southern hemisphere v a N hemisphere country, the S hemisphere Barbarians are made up of whoever's free from whichever sides are already up here for the autumn internationals. This year it's v Fiji. But what it categorically isn't is a N Hemisphere v S Hemisphere match.