JonM
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Posts posted by JonM
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2 hours ago, NRLandSL said:
I very much doubt this will be anything under 130 points if the French try for the full 80. It’s a team of top 2 grade players versing a team of amateurs who have probably only played the sport for a years. This could be a IRL record breaker unfortunately, but I hope I’m wrong.
France have lost to the USA in the past decade and away in Lebanon multiple times. I wouldn't underestimate their ability to have a punch up within the team, or go out on the lash the night before or something.
In any case, the result is not the point. It's being ambassadors and that France are a big name in world sport. The fact that sponsors in Kenya are prepared to pay for a France team to visit, for them to travel to SA etc. is pretty amazing. Just as the fact that Kenya, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria have been able to get together for internationals. 8 mens teams competed in Kenya's recent comp, there was a woman's comp too. (Fwiw, Accra to London is about the same distance as Accra to Nairobi; Africa is big.,)
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15 hours ago, Gomersall said:
If South Africa can score 80+ against Kenya then the French will score a century + IMO.
Kenya arrived in SA on the morning of the first game. Suspect they'll be a different proposition at home. And the French have a well earned reputation for not showing up for internationals, so maybe it will be a little closer.
In any case, the fact that it is France will count for a lot with the locals regardless of the result, just as it did with Oxford Uni going to play Ghana.
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1 hour ago, Barley Mow said:
Maybe they should invite them to play a game to test it out and regain a place in the rankings.
They were both due to play last month in the European championship/ RLWC qualifiers that were cancelled.
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8 minutes ago, gingerjon said:
Nice slogan.
Meaningless, obviously.
If the RFL wanted to learn from an Australian sports body the go to one right now would be soccer - and even that is an imperfect fit but at least it’s a minority sport expanding its reach from a low base. That fits RL in England better than the biggest sport in two populous states.
Even there though, soccer is way, way bigger and better known in Australia than RL is here. Football Australia has far higher revenue, massively higher numbers playing, orders of magnitude more brand recognition through world cup, premier League etc.
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4 hours ago, iffleyox said:
it would require humility on the part of the NRL to come with ‘this is what we bring, what are we (NRL) going to have to do differently?
There have been multiple people in NRL head office roles with prior experience in UK RL. And several examples of high profile Aussie administrators trying to run clubs here and failing eg Shane Richardson - Souths CEO for over a decade, the Brisbane takeover of London Broncos. It's an utterly different situation.
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1 hour ago, Damien said:
I don't think this is the case at all. The Northern Union showed a great reluctance to really be anything more than just Yorkshire and Lancashire. From their point of view that's where the big clubs were and that's where the money was. In a time when travel was much more difficult Northern Union clubs just didn't want the expense or hassle of excess travel. Areas like the North East, Midlands and Wales were the London, Cornwall and France of today.
I am certain the Northern Union could have brought many more RU clubs and areas across if it so desired, it didn't, and the game has suffered the consequences ever since.
Important to remember that this was the pre-automobile era. Teams travelled to away games by train, with tram / horse and cart for the final miles in some cases. I've seen photos of an away team travelling to Bramley by horse powered transport as late as the 1930s. Widnes travelled to Barrow by boat in the early days and presumably other clubs did too.
The football league had no southern teams in its first few seasons, then just Arsenal and eventually Luton. It was only in 1905 that more London clubs joined and there was no southern winner until the 1930s.
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4 hours ago, Damien said:
I love this and would gladly go to supermarkets instead that take this approach. I hate going to the likes of Tesco and Asda these days with like 2 people of the checkouts and everyone being funnelled towards the self-service checkouts. It is a terrible customer service, for anything more than a handful of items, and does nothing but eliminate jobs so that companies can make more money:
I love Booths, but it's for places where Waitrose is considered as downmarket... My nearest 'chain' supermarket is ~40 minutes drive away, Shopping at any of the more local shops usually involves all the people in the queue having a chat with the person on the checkout, not just paying for their stuff and going, so best if you're not in a hurry.
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1 minute ago, Dave T said:
You can do owt really, this is sort of my point. We just went with a Three Test series, well, just because.
We've never played France like this. Or PNG. GB didn't do this when we toured in 2019.
Tri nations, Four Nations, Tour games - plenty of options.
Federation Shield in 2006 was England, France, Samoa & Tonga (GB were playing in the tri-nations down under - on Bonfire Night weekend, they beat Australia in Sydney on the Saturday and England beat Samoa on the Sunday IIRC).
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Fair amount of credit to whoever organised this. I was expecting that having had a real breakthrough with the world cup last year that we would revert to type and either not play any internationals at all, or arrange one at a week's notice on a Tuesday in Goole municipal sports hall or something.
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2 minutes ago, Dave T said:
I mean, you don't have to sit twiddling your thumbs. Maybe play a game or something.
But a Tri Nations wouldn't be my first choice either.
You just play England v France as the first game and have Samoa turn up a week later.
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17 minutes ago, Griff said:
They should pick up a few catchment points in Mongolia.
Population of Mongolia is irrelevant though - it's how much their specific local council in Mongolia has. Hence London getting the same catchment area points as Leigh.
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9 hours ago, Anita Bath said:
No more queensland teams without a new stadium somewhere.
Suncorp already has 4 professional sports teams playing there (plus any games NRLW play there) as well as magic round.
O/T slightly - but is the Ekka a possibility (outside of August, obviously)? What about whatever the QE2 stadium is called these days, or the Gold Coast AFL stadium at Carrara?
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22 minutes ago, Coastal_Geordie said:
Perhaps Brentford Community Stadium which is used for Rugby Union?
Not any more. As others have commented though, it is unlikely that a Premiership club like Brentford is going to be particularly interested in renting out its stadium during the football season for a one-off game that will maybe earn them a 5 figure sum vs annual turnover of £140Million last year.
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3 hours ago, Jill Halfpenny fan said:
Most of the gains A makes count for nothing.
This could never happen though. Club A will simply get a couple of their stands declared as unsafe, shouldn't be too difficult to block up a few emergency exits or something. They could pay some local criminals to start small fires or something if really necessary. This is the kind of behaviour we're trying to incentivise, after all.
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4 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:
How much do Scotland play in cricket? I'm not a big cricket fan so don't know, I just know that Ireland are a test nation now so probably play more. I was just thinking how RL could end up with a similar international game to cricket where there is basically only one top level team in Europe and the rest on the other side of the world should these other European nations get essentially abandoned.
Not really comparable. Ireland has test status in cricket Scotland has more people playing cricket than England has playing RL - they beat West Indies last year. Netherlands first win over a test nation was against Australia in the 1960s and have beaten England in the past, beat South Africa in the current world cup.
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On 03/11/2023 at 14:55, Chrispmartha said:
We also need to market our biggest assets more - the players, who ate incredible althletes
Well, if you eat athletes, you probably will end up becoming a pretty large asset
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4 hours ago, footy_fan_nrl said:
This is the fakest thing I’ve ever seen. Who the hell is watching badminton
It's not just measuring watching. It's measuring engagement, which includes participation. No-one is watching weightlifting, plenty of people do it. Same with running. Hardly anyone plays rugby league, or American football, or boxing, or horse racing or Formula 1, but plenty of people watch them.
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On 03/11/2023 at 06:21, Eddie said:
You get lots of old people playing it to keep fit. I wouldn’t say it’s popular with the under 50s, I can’t think of a single person I know under 50 who plays it, or who admits to it anyway.
Where I used to live in Cambridge, our village badminton club had easily 50-60 people playing in the sports centre on a Sunday morning, and I would've guessed almost all of them under 50, mostly female. I'd imagine it's more popular than say Tennis or Squash. Sport England reckoned 700K+ people played at least twice in the past 28 days.
Golf, on the other hand, seems like a sport where 50 probably makes you one of the youngsters.
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23 minutes ago, Midlands hobo said:
Exactly can't lose. Great crowd stick it to twickers. No crowd same as Huddersfield
Capacity less than 12K, so great crowd isn't really an option.
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Finished 18-10 to the England u-18 side.
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Very good performance from England - got better over the course of the series.
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Sympathy call from the video ref there.
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Just now, EagleEyePie said:
How have Tonga had someone sin binned for running in when every single player ran in?
First player to run in often gets the sin bin - particularly in that kind of situation where there was nothing happening and the ref had already given a penalty.
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Just now, Old Frightful said:
Edited etc...
Lancashire hasn't had that much of it tbf - Doncaster, Wakefield etc. have had it worse.
1895 Cup Revamp
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
If Widnes end up travelling to Colwyn Bay or Wrexham, it would be quicker by road than 12 out of 13 away trips in the Championship. Even the Alexander Stadium is closer than Cumbria or some of the Yorkshire clubs.