mrfranco

The relevant question for the Western/Perth Bears is, do those old South Melbourne fans in Melbourne support the Sydney Swans and go and watch them when they play in Melbourne, which presumably happens quite a lot? If they do, that's the precedent the NRL are looking to emulate with the Bears. If the above is true, it would also be interesting to know if the South Melbourne fans in Melbourne are only the oldies who remember the team being based there, or if the (now Sydney-based) club still attracts next generations of fans in Melbourne.

I think we should bring back Wire v Leeds finals

12 SL clubs coming in at the last 32 stage, rather than last 16 stage, is a good thing - for income for lower ranked clubs, for less fixture fatigue as you say, for the romance of the cup, for the cup not being almost a straight SL shootout - but the balance seems a bit wrong here. Perhaps all SL & Champ entering at last 32 stage would be more sensible, leaving room for 7 qualifiers from below that. SL clubs and top 4 of champ seeded to play away as this year.

That's equivalent to £37 today when you add on inflation

Well, the coach said he thought the club was finished if it left Plough Lane, so it seems if they make the start line it will be in Wimbledon (or without the coach?)

Seems like a great solution to me, and I'm sure if it were put seriously on the table, Wigan would do all in their power to make it happen... but like you say, it's about the will from the other side. The Twitter comments are full of people saying how Penrith shouldn't do it because it would disadvantage them to lose a bye week...

Did this get outlawed?

Is this whole thread just second hand news?

I did wonder if that's why they were launching a "new-look pro club" on 1st October, i.e. with a different name

Must mean the yellow/red/blue quarters one??

Does SL+ work on laptops (unlike SS+)? Can you stream it to a smart TV? (Some services don't allow this, such as I imagine the Sky Sports app)

No red button games on there though, right?

Hammer. Nail. Head.

Not looking good for NZ2 then...

If no recording, they surely need to provide the games on demand, and pretty quickly after they finish. Plus the ability to pause/rewind during the game (which on Virgin I do not have as yet...)

I think that's true, which is saying something when you realise that RL is pretty much invisible in the majority of the UK...

This reminds me of when Catalans got some decent general sports coverage in France after winning the Challenge Cup, which was generally explained in the French press as the "coupe d'Angleterre", the English Cup. This of course then led to the obvious follow-up question of why was a French team playing in the English Cup...

Just for clarity, I wasn't advocating 2x5 plus a final - someone said there had to be 21 games and that just happens to fit. Although I think if you add in semi-finals as well, this is the best formula for a 10-team WC

I agree. I think add a semi in as well and it's making the best of a bad format (i.e. having 10 teams), but apparently it's 21 games, so that's out.

OK, what am I missing? In a five-team pool, there's one team with a bye each round of fixtures and everyone plays 4 games, so five rounds of 2 games = 10 games. 2 pools of 10 games = 20 games + final = 21

If you mean what I said - 2x5 plus a final, that's 21 games. if you mean what welshmagpie said, the 4-team group is 6 games, the 3s are only 3 games, so presumably the rest would be cross-pool games. That's why I was asking Mathius what knowledge he had of an obvious schedule, as I'm not so sure it is obvious. The 21 games bit was news to me, so was grateful to learn that. .

Thanks for that - 2 pools of 5 and a final would also be 21 games, but as I wrote earlier I too expect it to be 4-3-3, the question is how they do that - you would think 2 of the semi-finalists from last time in the 4 group and one in each of the 3 groups (Tonga have to go somewhere too, hopefully by a fair draw), but we have seen more stacked supergroups before, so we'll have to wait and see!

Hi Mathius, sounds good - can you enlighten us?

I think two groups of 5, then semis could make for a very good comp... but of course we won't get that, it'll be a supergroup of 4, 3 going through, plus two groups of 3 with a playoff between the winners for the last semi spot... or something like that!

so is 0.9% not so bad then? Or would that slot on BBC3 normally get a higher share? (Of course, I agree that we would want a BBC2 or 1 slot)