Dunbar

Interesting that DCE is in the mix. This suggests he may have taken a few 3 point hauls later in the season which may effect Tom Trbojevic's chances. Because of this, I am going for Clearly to have stayed ahead of the pack and pick up the award.

According to this article, Bristol’s Golden Ferns are to become the first semi-professional women’s club in the UK. https://www.allgoldsrugby.co.uk/womens-rugby-a-european-first/

Just to add to this. There is also a series of documentaries on State of Origin including a couple of very good one's on Wally Lewis and Alfie Langer. For anyone who remembers the iconic SOO battles and players of the 80's and 90's they are excellent viewing.

Can we not have a 'select all that apply' option?

For someone who has complained on here time and again that Rugby League is too oppressive and players are not allowed to showcase their skills any more, I would have thought you would be happier about seeing teams and players score points?

This is entirely right. As a sport, we are always looking for the negative and blow out scores are always taken as evidence of something gone wrong on here. But if Chelsea or Man City were scoring 5 or 6 every week people would be piling in to see these goal scoring exploits. Let's actually celebrate some of the skills we have in the game (and that's coming from someone who loves a tight physical content and thought the Panthers Eels game was one of the best of the year).

I'm still not exactly the biggest fan of the NRL admin at the moment but I am delighted that Rugby League is thriving over there.

But they are so clever with their apparent passion for Rugby League and their negativity only having the best interest of the game at heart. They fool me every time and it literally never gets old.

Well according to this page on their website "RLWC2021 will be Spark Sport’s first foray into Rugby League". https://www.sparknz.co.nz/news/SS_RLWC2021/ But can we trust their website over Harry's grandson?

Let's not be too harsh on Harry's grandson here, it is easier to do than you think. I was halfway through the game this morning when I noticed that Kim Kardashian was playing for the Panthers against the Eels... turns out I was watching the E! Channel by mistake.

Wigan's defence has been outstanding for the last 4 games or so. As we start to approach the wetter weather and the more grinding games that will do them no harm at all.

What I really want to know is how popular Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend thinks Super League is in Trinidad.

That's a funny example to back up your point. Bundesliga, Major League Soccer, Serie A, Primeira Liga and Ligue 1 are all shown on subscription tv here. This is an example of the popularity of football in this country, not a refection of the relative quality of these leagues or popularity of these leagues in their home countries.

It's all ridiculous. There is no way Rugby League will be dead in New Zealand in 10 years.

What I find interesting about the original post is that a New Zealand sports subscription channel ceasing to broadcast Rugby League from another country is perceived to be a problem with the source country when the reality is that it is a reflection on the popularity of Rugby League in New Zealand. If Sky stopped broadcasting the NRL over here, it wouldn't be because of how well or poorly the NRL was performing in Australasia but how popular it was in the UK and the volume of people consuming it. This is a worrying update for Rugby League. But in New Zealand, not the UK.

Well done Wigan for playing every game of the season. Great effort.

In the final round of the regular season, Terry O'connor has just beaten his previous best number for the year by saying "little tip on play" 675,543 times.

I think this is right. Most of the alternative suggestions took place before the poll was made or subsequently occurred behind a firewall so didn't penetrate the national consciousness. Maybe the NZ World Cup semi would have traction but I doubt it. After that I can only think of the Ben Flower send off that may be infamous enough to be included.

The Don Fox miss is just as much about the iconic commentary as the incident itself. Of course missing a kick in front of the sticks to win a final would be a big story but nowhere near as memorable over 50 years later without Eddie Waring's "He's a poor lad". Just shows the power of personality in sport.

I've been wondering what everyone was going on about on this thread as all the posts weren't matching what I was seeing. Then I remembered I had paused the programme while I had my dinner and I'm 20 minutes behind everyone else!

The Sky commentators? I'm hearing loads of praise for the Wire tries and play.

Lovely first try.

So much relevance in this one sentence. Bristol may have had a working class support base but now they will be selling themselves as the Rugby Union experience in the city and with that will come an assumption that they will attract a different (or should I say complementary) demographic who don't see price as a barrier... in fact they would see price as some indicator of quality or prestige. This is where Rugby League has its eternal dilemma around our identity. We are rightly proud of our heritage and our connections to the communities in the North of England but at the same time we see this as a demographic that won't spend big on tickets and broadcast partners and sponsors see this as a demographic that doesn't have that disposable income to sell into. You can see from the World Cup partnersand sponsors attracted that we can break out of this but that is for the biggest event we offer and not the regular club games. I say it is a dilemma because even of we could break out of this fixed demographic, would we want to, is it not the heart and soul of the game?

In order for that to work I think you would look at a club membership approach where a membership fee (up front) would get you discounts on game tickets, merchandise etc.

The commercial model for season tickets is interesting. Firstly, they are very good for clubs because they provide guaranteed income for the year which is good for financial planning and also they are a 'pre-payment' which is very good for cash flow and so welcome in that regard. A high number of season ticket sales would also be a powerful tool in negotiation with or attracting new sponsors or partners as you can use the 'reach' that you have to these people to sell the story. All things being equal, high season ticket sales for any club is a good thing. From a commercial planning perspective, purely for income (taking away the less tangible benefits described above) then there is always a balance between the price of the season ticket and how many games a fan would attend with or without the season ticket and you would expect clubs to model this with a lot of sensitivity as it is a key commercial decision. A back of a fag packet calculation: If you sell 5,000 season tickets at £125 each then that is £625k cash in the bank. If you were trying to attract those same 5,000 fans on a game by game basis then attendance at 4 games a year paying £30 for a ticket would be £600k and so the season ticket provides better cash flow and more revenue. But as soon as you get to 7 games attended then you are at £1.05M and for 10 games attended it is £1.5M. So the question is, can a club commit to the efforts required to sell those tickets on a game by game basis - or indeed raise the price of the season ticket - to see that extra revenue. I would say yes as the differences we are talking about here are significant - an extra £875k for fans attending 10 games a year at 'normal' ticket prices. You could buy some decent talent into a business to 'sell' the game day experience for that. And then you would be managing a growing business with all of the benefits that brings. (p.s. this is reply just on the commercial model of season tickets, not a critique of the Giants)