bbfaz

The Gorillas are still around I think.

I've seen some bad stuff and some teams are spiteful but that's next level.

Not off topic, Nate. I doubt those numbers exist. There are enclaves of Britishness across Spain. In Madrid, they have FC Britanico and Madrid Barbarians, which are the English-speaking football and rugby clubs. You'd expect some expat action down on the coasts and but I think it's a coincidence that the two biggest autonomous communities for Brits are the same for Rugby League.

Do you know if there's a course or an exam that might make my CV pop?

I'm struggling at the moment with this. Thought I could change careers but something has come up which will stop me from getting into that industry now. I can't get a job as an IT BA right now (Brexit hiring freezes in the UK, my Spanish isn't good enough for Spain plus nobody knows what they'll do with us Brits in less than a month), changing career was my ticket. I genuinely don't know what to do with my life. Sadly, my business takes up loads of time but doesn't bring home the bacon.

Game has been moved to an athletics stadium in Xativa, which is home of the Xativa Roosters. Over on the AERL Facebook page, I said it made no sense to hold it near Jaen to begin with. Torredonjimeno is a small, inconsequential town near one of the smaller, inconsequential provincial capitals. However, and maybe this is coincidence, the regional delegate for Jaen is the president of Asociación de Rugby League de Andalucía. As I said back in May 2017, ARLA split off from the "national" (read Valencian) setup to get their own thing going and there hasn't been a game played in Andalusia in over 2 years. Things have stalled, still no fixtures announced. Maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there but it seems to me that they found this stadium and convinced the national committee that this would help them launch and reboot ARLA. This wouldn't be such a concern if Custodians Madrid hadn't complained that they weren't allowed to host an international game, eventhough they were trying to do exactly the same thing 18 months ago. I think we're at a point where you can say there's an international coach and players who'd play for the team but, for all intents and purposes, the game is gone in Spain.

She's genuinely dreadful, I've no idea how she's on TV. I can only assume cronyism or nepotism. Or she got her job by convincing her half-sister to put out.

Red flags galore tbh.

I hate starting new threads so I'll put it here. So, the AERL selected Torredonjimeno, 20km from Jaén, for the upcoming RLWC qualifier with Ireland. It's roughly the size of Clitheroe. However, the state of the pitch is making them question whether they'll be able to play this game. My question would be why were they playing a game in a backwater of a backwater to begin with?

Yes, Audois. Hammersmith are Aussies, Wests are primarily Kiwis. Hammersmith won 16-10 against London Chargers. In a result sure to please anybody who played them, Hemel beat Eastern 28-16.

Oh and the finals. Eastern Rhinos vs. Hemel in the East Div Plate Final Hammersmith vs. London Chargers in the National Playoff Final

I'm not surprised, which is why I am still not sure whether to continue with the game. It'd be easy to walk away if I had personal animosity with those in the club but I genuinely like the other people on the committee and the lads makes me laugh. I'm not going to list all my gripes again for fear of being branded a moaner. However, then I look at some other sports. Some of them can't even get results on their website. Some can't tell you your local team. If I am to compare my local amateur RL scene to that of any other sport with a similar number of local amateur teams, or even more, we're not beaten by that many sports. It's deeply-flawed but others are even more flawed. It's like some sort of private race to the bottom.

Final East combined table. Pos Team Pl W D L GF GA GD Pts 1 Wests Warriors 11 11 0 0 432 140 292 22 2 London Chargers 11 8 1 2 312 156 156 17 3 Hammersmith Hills Hoists 11 6 1 4 350 192 158 13 4 Bedford Tigers 11 5 1 5 225 350 -125 10* ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Hemel Stags 12 6 0 6 252 269 -17 12 6 North Herts Crusaders 12 5 0 7 228 354 -126 10 7 Eastern Rhinos 12 4 0 8 268 312 -44 8 8 South London Silverbacks 12 4 1 7 254 324 -70 8* 9 Brixton Bulls 12 1 0 11 200 424 -224 2 * Both deducted one point for non-fulfillment of fixtures

I think part of the problem with the game is that there's always something bigger and shinier that attracts the attention. Toronto came along and suddenly expanding to Hemel comes across as glamorous as expanding to Blackpool. On the earlier question, what hasn't worked this year has been publicity. A number of promises were made about publicising the competition, I don't think that's really come off. Also, situations with dedicated staff (the competition manager disappeared mid-season) and chopping and changing behind the scenes means it's all been dumped on a person who already had too much to do. Once again, successes in our game seem to come despite the setbacks.

Then again, I don't know how many times we've been on the end of good-natured arm twisting to basically bullying by the RFL so we'd do what they needed from us. The RFL wanted Hemel Stags to go semi-pro as much as they did.