JonM

Widnes attendance was announced as 3290 I think. 3200 and something anyway.

He played 21 consecutive games for Toulouse in SL. Obviously he played full seasons in Widnes academy before his back injury.

Quite the telling off.

Not only that, but the NFL and similar American sports competitions have a specific exemption from anti-trust laws. Any other situation where employers collude to control who could employ a particular person and to set limits on salary would be clearly illegal.

Which is down from ~75 pre-pandemic. We're approaching the point (possibly past it) where less than half of the RL clubs in mainland Europe are in France.

Can't believe that anybody who watched Widnes v London earlier in the season would've expected both teams to be in a with a chance of the play-offs, potentially even a home first round game. That was one of the worst games I have ever seen at this level.

Widnes 6 Batley 4 HT. Pretty dour game. Widnes have only really had one attack although Batley have had a few escapes after letting high kicks bounce. Batley probably unlucky to go in behind, they have had long spells with the ball and Widnes have done a lot of defending, struggling to deal with Sam Kibula.

Keighley v Barrow is a bit of a crunch game, isn't it? Keighley's point difference of -300 keeping them out of the relegation spot above Swinton on -302. Swinton could even lose heavily this week and end up moving out of the relegation zone... Barrow v Swinton next week, too.

It's changed a lot since then - more like a community sports facility than a stadium for a pro sports team.

It's not a complete RL vacuum in Lyon, as you can see from the local league's newsletter: http://liguera13.com/xiii-info-n123-juin-2023-ͼͽ/

Quality bit of of journalism there: "The purchase cost them £12m, so almost doubling their money in 18 years would be a good return" Well, yes, if we hadn't seen property prices generally more than double over the same period and we ignore the tens of millions spent on redeveloping Headingley.

Sports I watch and follow Cricket (Occasional county games, test matches, 1-day internationals. Been to domestic red-ball games in Australia, NZ. Been to IPL in India). Rugby League (Seen live nearly all of the pro clubs in UK, French Elite 1/2, NRL, 20+ different countries playing in internationals) Sports I watch but not follow closely Football (Handful of games per year on telly) Athletics Sports I have watched live but do not watch Baseball (in the US, on numerous occasions) Ice Hockey (UK, Finland, elsewhere in Europe) AFL (Melbourne, Darwin) Rugby Union (Wales internationals in Cardiff, club games in Wales, both in the 1990s) Tennis (Australian Open) Cycling (Tour de France when it came within a couple of miles of home that one time) Rowing (Pretty popular in Cambridge, friend was in the Olympic setup) Stock car/banger/ dragster racing (In England, and in NZ. The kind of crowd that makes RL look a bit posh in both cases.]

Lyon-Villeurbanne (one of the original 1930s clubs, twice league champions in the 1950s) was in Elite 2 up until a couple of years ago.

Not mentioned in the FFR announcement is that this commemorates the 70th anniversary of the trip by the France 'A' and France students team to Yugoslavia to establish the game there. https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/2307/serbia-france-to-celebrate-70th-annivers...

I listened to Rohan Smith being interviewed on BBC Leeds on the way back home on Sunday, and he seemed to spend quite a long time on veiled criticism of refereeing decisions albeit all done in a way that wouldn't draw a fine - "i was surprised that xxx happened", "Huddersfield were allowed to do xxx", "coaches are having to guess on what the interpretation of xxx", "we had a meeting with referees after round 8 and it was agreed that xxx, but we'll need to follow up".

Still a helluva lot of things the RFL and clubs should be taking note of and copying. My nieces went to a game at Old Trafford and have started playing cricket as a result. There was a roving spotlight/ camera that went round the crowd before the game, with dramatic music, and people's faces on the screen. They got randomly picked when the music stopped, and got to present the match ball to the bowling team at the start of the game. The kind of thing that gets all the kids in the crowd involved in the event, and costs nothing to do.

They had a beach rugby festival for under-16s and under-18s last weekend. Czechia (their opponents at the weekend) have quite a bit happening at youth level. Serbia vs Montenegro this weekend too. I think Serbia visit Netherlands in October. England community lionesses also playing two tests in Serbia in October. Serbia also playing Greece in a women's international in November.

Depending on what you're interested in, Leigh Spinners Mill has a bunch of heritage factory type stuff, with a steam engine, a computer museum, art galleries and artists. Think it's only open on Saturdays though. Leigh East and Leigh Miners grounds are both a very short walk away from LSV, you could take in a NCL game on Saturday afternoon.

Halifax 26 Widnes 28 FT, possibly the most one sided penalty count I have seen this century.

Halifax 20 Widnes 28 with 9 minutes to go. Two Widnes players off for concussion check I think.

Halifax 14 Widnes 28 after 60 minutes.

Halifax 14 Widnes 14 HT. Some great play from both teams. Halifax playing down the slope in the second half will definitely be favourites from here

Halifax 6 Widnes 14 after 29 mins, hat trick for Ryan Ince. All the inventive moves and nice three-quarter play from Halifax, but they have barely been in the Widnes half, with their try coming off a dropped high ball.

Because there aren't 13 professional RL players who have Lancashire written on their birth certificate? Semi-serious suggestion. England play Rob Burrow's XVII (could have a different name - MND Fighters or whatever). The latter can select anyone who isn't in the England squad - too old/ young/unwanted by England, French, Welsh, Aussie, Kiwi, Islander etc. Played at Headingley every year. Some proportion of the ticket price goes to an MND charity. Anyone who plays for the Burrow team becomes.a permanent member of the club, other people can pay to become a non-playing member. Profits from jerseys sales etc. go to charity. It'd be a bit of an exhibition game, but then so is England sticking 80 on France or Wales.

Hornets might consider themselves a little fortunate given the circumstances surrounding the original postponement - points have been deducted in the past for exactly that kind of thing.