mrfranco

I think it's been great to see what the game is like without them, and would be happy to see them done away with permanently... but we all know that SL and the English game will fall into line with the NRL sooner rather than later, and I don't hear any calls for them to be got rid of over there, so I think we'll be seeing them come back here too, probably next year

https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12196/12053623/eric-perez-says-ottawa-and-new-york-will-not-be-affected-by-torontos-wolfpack-withdrawal Note this bit in particular: "Perez says he has a contingency plan in case Ottawa cannot play in Canada for any part - or even all of - 2021 because of Covid-19, but insists they will be ready when the Rugby Football League decides on a start date." In other words it sounds like Eric Perez is planning for the Aces to play home games in the UK next season if travel between the UK & Canada is out.

Ha, sorry Point taken!

I've been thinking about this. I think the way to do this (and provide some much-needed stability for any promoted club going forwards) is to say that in the first season, a new club cannot be relegated. If they finish bottom that year, there is no relegation (if another club finishes last, proceed as normal). The winners of the Championship GF will still be promoted, but they will have to wait a season. This can actually work in their favour, as they will have a full 12 months plus to prepare for the jump up to SL, time to assemble a squad and gel for a season together in the Championship. In that second season, there would have to be two relegation spots in SL, with no team having protection. If the same team won the Championship GF both seasons, the 11th-placed SL team in that second year would get a reprieve.

It's due to time spent in Scandinavia (and Canada) when I was a much younger man!!

Personally, I don't see that scrums as we currently have them add anything much to the game - a chance for a small rest is about it. Therefore I don't think we will miss them as the rest of this season plays out - but let's judge that as we watch the season and at the end of it. There's a big but coming though... BUT, we all know that as far as rule changes go the English game these days tends to just fall into line with whatever the NRL does, and no-one seems keener on that than Robert Elstone. So, even if we play out this season and decide it was a positive change, unless the movers and shakers in the NRL see it and decide to adopt the change as well, I think we'll be back to 'as you were' on scrums come next season.

But you understand why though, right? Cos if you grow up in a UK RL community the two sports are known as "rugby" and "union" (if not something more derogatory). From our perspective it's really shocking when you hear Aussies and others referring to union as just "rugby", because we are all interested in proper rugby and don't think that other sport where it's all about waiting for a scrum to collapse so you can kick a penalty and lots of booting the ball into touch really deserves to be called rugby at all. (And yes, I can understand your POV and the points above about brand awareness to get new people to watch the right game and not get put off our sport by watching a different one, I just wanted to make sure you get why we call it just "rugby" over here.)

Anyone know why the TRL site tells me I have one free article left to read but still won't let me read this? It offers the option to log in but that is only for premium accounts - is this article premium only? And also to Angelic Cynic - is it the bloke in the Saudi article?

I can well understand the doubts about this project, much more so than Ottawa or TWP, but we've got to let the RFL officials do their job on that and only have the club approved to join the league when it's got all its ducks in a row. I'm nervous for its chances of succeeding in a tough marketplace, but if they pass the due diligence they should be allowed in and I will wish them well. Listening to the podcast, it sounds like it will be more of a New Jersey club than a NYC one. Not only will they be playing in NJ, sounds like they will be based there. The 4 development officers will be working there. They will be focusing on trying to engage the local communities in NJ, rather than NYC. It sounds like the plan is: get the kids playing in schools, get the players to visit schools and run training camps, etc. Then get the kids to drag their folks along to an NYC game and try and give them all a game-day experience that makes the whole family want to come back. And target the local communities close to the stadium in NJ for marketing to come to games too. All very positive, and sensible. The New York name is used because, obviously, it's so much more attractive from a marketing point of view, especially internationally. SO they use the NY name to attract more people to come over and watch a game, and to flog more merchandise - and to attract players too - but it sounds to me like on the ground the club will actually be focusing its efforts more locally in New Jersey. And that's a good thing.

Namely?

Of course, but they managed to pull an English team out of the hat!

No French team?

Ha, thanks yes - was just a little joke about all the lines in the pitch... Guess it needed a bit more context!!

Is that Lamport??

Unless it's a typo for 12 (12 men).... I guess it's the fact that it's 11 close contacts for each of the 12 men. OK, how much contact do the two back rows have with each other, so perhaps it should be somewhere less than 132, but you can still see it's a lot of close contacts you can do away with at a stroke without impacting on the game too much, so I think it makes sense

My initial response was something similar, but after reading the following lines in the Guardian article on this, I think it's just a sensible move. "Medical experts displayed evidence suggesting removing scrums would considerably reduce the threat of exposure and transmission of Covid-19, with the hearing informed that if a one-on-one tackle constitutes one occurrence of close contact, a single scrum represents 132 instances. With 12 scrums per game on average in Super League this season, that results in more than 1,500 occasions of close contact in every fixture." When you put that together with the close proximity of faces in every scrum and the fact that the modern RL scrum is pretty much a chocolate fireguard anyway, it strikes me as a good move. -- Article: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/jun/11/rugby-league-scrums-may-be-scrapped-over-risk-of-spreading-coronavirus

Is he going to be correct about them losing the 2104 final though? I wonder who it will be against?

Yep, this. I was about to post something very similar.

Yes exactly, everybody has something to play for. Good chance for French and Welsh players to show what they can do against England too...

Yes, I like the England vs Super League idea (at least given the options this year...) England get first pick on any English players, but Super League can pick absolutely any SL players who are not in the named England squad

Unfortunately I can't remember which podcast i heard the club's head honcho being interviewed on a year or two ago (I think it may have been the BBC RL podcast), but he was talking about applying for League 1. Albeit he didn't sound like he had much in place, more an idea of what stadium he wanted to play at and had some ideas of potential sponsors... It also wasn't clear (IIRC) if the club had any connection with the original Dublin Blues who won a few Irish leagues back in the day. Sorry if that all sounds a bit vague, but to be honest I don't think a lot of detail was forthcoming even in quite a long interview!

Fair enough - no offence intended!

Christ, 1990... they had absolutely no idea what was about to happen to ticket prices to watch sport (especially football)...

Another of their tweets provides some answers:

And the club will get fans from Australia through this, which in turn means more attention to and interest in SL over there. I know that signing Joey for 3 games all those years ago made quite a few Aussie fans adopt Wire as their English team! (apologies if someone else has said this by now, I'm only on page 1)