mrfranco

OMG what a day out that must've been for you as a Wire & Eagles fan!!

I reckon it'll be a post on this thread with someone saying the big post will be about TWP...

It's exciting times as a fan... looking forward to seeing where all this goes. As I say though, I'd be very surprised if all 4 clubs are able to rock up in L1 next year!

This is an entirely reasonable viewpoint. I would agree that 4 trips abroad per season for the current L1 clubs and their part-time players is not a reasonable proposition. FWIW, I don't believe Red Star or Valencia will be ready for L1 next year. I'm hopeful that the two NA teams already approved in principle will be. If all 4 overseas teams really do come in next season, something would have to be done to ensure that the UK teams only visit 2 overseas teams in the season (1 European and 1 NA team is probably fairest). You would have to do this by something like splitting the then 15-team L1 in two, with a few cross-conference games to make up the desired number of games. The devil is in the detail, of course, but the point is that it is not beyond the wit of man! I look forward to both these continental European teams joining if/when they get all their ducks in a row & the relevant finances in place. I don't think it will be next season though (especially when you look at how we still don't have confirmation of the two NA teams yet!)

Maybe you should re-brand as "Balkan Bronco"

And he's got legend status among Wire fans

I reckon I'd put money into the grass roots in Jamaica, help them really kick on with the great work already done there, certainly get them their own ground that could be the centre of things for the national team & local competitions. Think I'd have to have Argyle-type spare cash before I'd think about a pro team on top of that though...

Agree with all of those but the subs one (and I can see the logic in that one). I've argued for point 4 before, too. An easy improvement to make that adds to the chance of last-minute excitement and gives the team in possession one last chance to really chance their arm.

I corrected this with an edit pretty much instantly - you must have been very fast in response! Anyway, you get the point, score more tries than the oppo = win; score the same number of tries = if you kicked more conversions you win. Obviously, there are penalties as well, which I wouldn't change. I think we have their value about right (especially if you compare with the other lot). The point I was making, which should be pretty simple, is if you score more tries than the other team, you shouldn't be losing because of conversions. And at the moment that does happen.

Ouch, that's a low blow!!!

Ha ha! I've got the maths right but written it the wrong way round! The whole point of changing the scoring would be if you score more tries than the other team, you shouldn't lose because they got more conversions! So 3 tries should not beat 4, converted or not.

Conversions to be one point instead of 2 (tries to 5 points to keep total score for a converted try at 6). I think they're overvalued at 2 pts, they should be 1 pt like a DG, so that they are a reward for managing to score in the middle rather than out wide and/or having a good goalkicker, but would only be a decisive factor in really tight games (like DGs) and wouldn't stop teams scoring more tries from winning (e.g. currently 3 converted tries beats 4 unconverted, whereas in this system the conversions only make a difference on scoring the same number of tries).

Re: the stupid names... they actually seem to have fixed that this year (late in the season... they were still using the crazy names earlier on). Watch this video, they're now called Qualifier, Eliminators and Semi-Finals 1 & 2. Such a simple change but makes things much clearer!

As I understand if (from reading these forums...) little if any money changed hands in the BeIN deal... I believe BeIN paid for the cost of filming, etc., and Sky were happy to take their feed for every home game in return for giving BeIN the rights to show it in France. No money for Catalans or the Super League pot as a whole. Meanwhile, BeIN have pulled out for next year, so there is NO deal in place for the French games for next season. This is why I picked up Parksider on his constant berating of Toronto for not having a paying TV deal, when the French team we already have haven't been exactly filling up the TV money pot for Super League, and Toulouse don't have a deal either. It has to be said that the chances of getting a paid deal are surely better in SL - but that applies as much to Toronto as to Toulouse!

I'm all for Toulouse entering SL. And Toronto. And London. There was a natural opportunity this season to say "the two sides making the Championship GF will go up, and the bottom SL side should stay. We'll have a 14 team competition and get rid of the loop fixtures." And before you say it, Mr Parksider, Mr Elstone is on record this very week as saying that there are enough quality players for a 14-team SL, and that it is something that should be looked at, probably for 2022. Meanwhile, the reason I've quoted you here is to ask: why do you hold TWP and Toulouse to such different standards - specifically with regard to a TV deal? You're constantly berating TWP for not having a paying TV deal, yet what TV deal have Toulouse brought to the table? The only times we've seen them on TV was when Toronto were paying for it... Come to that, Catalans haven't exactly been bringing in bucketloads of TV cash either, have they? Cheap content for Sky, yes, and TV viewers like me have enjoyed watching Saturday early evening games live from Perpignan. But a big TV deal for the pot? Nope. And last I heard BeIN sport have pulled out for next season, so at the moment there is NO TV deal for the French games, paying or paid-for! It's fair enough to want all these glamorous clubs in exotic locations to come up with local TV deals. It's definitely something they and the game should be striving for. What's not fair enough is to use the lack of a paying TV deal for TWP (so far! - and their exposure in the local media has grown year on year, and there's no reason to expect that not to continue) as a stick to beat them with, at the same time as you let Toulouse off the hook because there's "a chance of a TV deal" (your words).