Dunbar
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Posts posted by Dunbar
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22 hours ago, Martyn Sadler said:
And you are clearly obtuse!
I responded to this politely yesterday but I would like to check with your fellow moderators if this type of insult is within the guidelines of civil dialogue set out for this site?
I have followed these guidelines for 10 years and over 19,000 posts, it would be nice if that effort was reciprocated.
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4 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:
And to you.
I'm not really comparing Rugby League to Baseball.
I'm simply pointing out that some sports experience massive growth and others don't, as reflected in player salaries.
I'm sure that you, like me, would like to see Rugby League players earning far more than they do.
Indeed I would like our players to be rewarded more for their efforts. But within the appropriate commercial framework in which the sport operates... we have seen what wage inflation has done to other sports who try to live beyond their means.
There are comparatives to be made, but I am not sure that a $765 million contract is a sensible one, although I am aware that sometimes you need to use figures that grab the attention.
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4 minutes ago, Martyn Sadler said:
And you are clearly obtuse!
I try not to be, I hope I come across as open minded and respectful on here. But comparing Rugby League to Baseball is nonsense, there is literally no point.
Anyway, a Happy New Year to you.
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4 minutes ago, phiggins said:
Fair enough. For players staying down, I was referring to staying down after high tackles. Those 4th and 5th points are about players throwing themselves to the ground, often when there hasn’t been any foul play
I was in the middle of a massive post on players staying down after high contact and late contact and how hard it is to differentiate between legitimate foul play and play acting... then I remembered the name of the thread is 'RL dark arts'. That's what they do.
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6 hours ago, phiggins said:
Players staying down would be fairly low in my list of issues to stamp out, given the vast majority of times it has happened, has been after a foul has occured. Things above it for me would be;
- Defenders standing between ball carrier and acting half back and making no attempt to move, seemingly on every last tackle
- Third man joining a tackle- but not making contact with the ball carrier, and just there to slow the play the ball down
- Ball carriers trapping a tacklers arm trying to claim holding down
- Players chasing a kick being taken out by snipers in the stand
- Half backs being taken out by the same snipers after kicking a ball, or after turning their back to pass the ball and feeling the slightest contact
Aren't your 4th and 5th points in your list in the same category as players staying down after contact though, all 3 are about players feigning injury or foul play to gain an advantage?
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The article quoted is clearly nonsense, comparing Rugby League to one of the biggest sports leagues in the biggest sports market on the planet makes no sense.
But it has led to an interesting discussion on how our game is played and I have some sympathy with both sides of the discussion.
I can see why some people see that the modern game has become more formulaic. While the ball is in play longer, there is a lot more structure to the modern game with a lot more set plays being run... every team does the same shift plays and it is the team that executes best that excels, but not necessarily the most innovative. There was less structure and more innovation in previous era's... even the spectacular tries today often come from structured plays.
But that is not to say we don't have great individual players today and there is off the cuff play... I am talking about the aggregate.
But, on the other hand, when you watch older games (full matches), you see that it is not as innovative and exciting as our memories suggest. I recently watched the full matches from the 1982 and 1986 Kangaroo tours and it was amazing how many errors there were, the benefit of memories is that we only remember what the greats did and not how many balls they dropped.
There was so many errors in one game that I almost stopped watching and then I remembered these were some of the best players we have ever seen.
Maybe a prece of all that is the game is different, but still the best sport on the planet by an absolute mile.
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The crowd that day was 13,226.
I'm sure Saints would be hugely disappointed if they got that for a Wigan game these days.
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And I haven't brought it up before.
But it was definitely a voluntary tackle.
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Ok, seeing as though there have been a couple of posts.
Twice in the last 28 days:
Pool = 19,700
Snooker = 19,300
Ever in the last year, yes or no:
Pool = 3,535,400
Snooker = 1,035,600
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Because of the post above where there may be a significant difference between irregular and regular participation, I thought in the sense of fairness I would look at the darts and Rugby League data (seeing as though that is the focus of the discussion).
I posted earlier that using the 'at least twice in the last 28 days' definition of participation, the results were:
Darts = 11,300
Rugby League = 55,800
But when we query the much more broad 'yes or no by activity in the last year', we get:
Darts = 1,963,800
Rugby League = 120,300
So Rugby League is a much more regular sport and darts much higher as an irregular or casual activity. Pretty much like most of us would have expected I guess.
As the Sports England Active Lives survey defaults to the 28 days description as its definition of participation, I guess the discussion on whether darts or Rugby League is more popular as a participation sport is still debatable, but darts certainly has more people playing it per year.
As I say, it all boils down to definitions.
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17 minutes ago, Eddie said:
I can’t believe 98% of the number of people who’ve played pool twice in the last month have played snooker - there’s something wrong with the stats.
It all boils down to the definition of participation. The 'at least twice in the last 28 days' is the important variable here I think as that implies something more than an irregular participation.
My guess is that pool is much higher when you look at single instance or less regular activities.
The query builders are on the Sport England website so you can have a look if you want... as this is a Rugby League site, I am not going to bother comparing pool and snooker.
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15 minutes ago, gingerjon said:
Surprised to see pool lower than snooker.
I will therefore disregard the data in favour of my own pre-established view on the matter.
I do feel obliged to point out that 19,700 is higher than 19,300.
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12 hours ago, Eddie said:
How many people play snooker in snooker clubs though, or pubs with snooker tables which are few and far between these days. I’d wager it’s a lot less people than play darts or even cribbage. Is rugby league bigger than Cribbage?
Participation data shows that snooker = 19,300 (darts was 11,300 and RL 55,800)
Pool is at 19,700.
This is adults (aged 16+) who have taken part in the activity at least twice in the last 28 days.
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3 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:
But we wouldn't argue that RL was more popular than Gavin & Stacey based on the argument that nobody goes to a stadium every week to watch it. Yet that seems to be the logic on here.
If anyone is interested, I have checked the Active Lives survey data and there is no participation data for Gavin and Stacey.
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I see the holiday spirit has drained away!
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Merry Christmas to all, I hope you and yours have a wonderful day.
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4 minutes ago, Dave T said:
I did see something about last years final reaching something like 27m on SM. I don't know the stats behind that but it is staggering. Like I say, it's pretty much a perfect sport for TV/video clips.
It is. I don't watch a full darts match often - maybe the world's final - but I have watched that 'perfect' leg, where Michael Van Gerwen misses D12 for a nine-darter, and then Michael Smith hits his own 9 darter, quite a few times when it pops up on social media.
Rugby League tries, spectacular finishes and bit hits should fit the same criteria though.
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One area where darts has a clear advantage over Rugby League is social media reach.
Across 4 of the main social channels (YouTube, Instagram, Twitter/X and Facebook), the Super League has 770,000 followers (RFL and Super League combined 1.124 million).
PDC Darts has over 3 million followers across these 4 platforms.
Obviously there will be a layer underneath this for individual Rugby League clubs and players but the same will be true for darts players as well.
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3 hours ago, Eddie said:
I think the majority of blokes I know aged 20-50 would know who MVG is, and few would be able to name a current rugby league player. Comparing with a team isn’t realistic.
It is realistic in the context of this discussion though because what is at the heart of the discussion is how popular the two sports are and so you have to compare the various elements.
You can say to someone 'name a Rugby League player' and that can be compared to 'name a darts player' but so can 'name a Rugby League team' as it will also show awareness of the sport.
When you ask a Rugby League fan who they support, how many would name a player in response to that question?
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1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:
What we are disagreeing on is that you are happy to take that survey at face value and extrapolate from it that darts is less popular and has less participation than Rugby League. That is absolutely your right to have that opinion.
I have a different view on things and won't be changing it, even if the whole forum tells me that RL is the more popular game. Which is where I'll leave it.The funny thing is that when I started to read this thread, I went to the survey to get some data because I also thought that darts would have a higher participation rate than Rugby League and I wanted to post some facts to back up people's perceptions.
The fact it came in considerably lower did surprise me but that is the point about facts, you are supposed to change your perceptions when presented with evidence, not change (or ignore) the evidence to preserve your perceptions.
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22 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:
Well we'll kindly agree to disagree and see where we are in the next 5 years or so, in terms of wider awareness. ATB
Sorry, what are we agreeing to disagree on, are you saying the Active Lives survey doesn't say what I am saying it does?
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3 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:
But that entirely proves the point. Walking is a mass participation thing, as is fishing or cycling. But you wouldn't argue that RL was bigger than fishing or walking as a pastime.
Why would I say Rugby League is bigger than walking or fishing?
I am saying, according to the major uk survey on these things, that Rugby League has a higher participation rate than darts... a survey that includes pastimes as well as organised sports.
I didn't expect darts to have fewer participants, but it does.
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4 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:
But the thing is that the number of people who just play a game of darts in the pub are participants, and this will be way way more than the number of people who play any form of RL. They obviously don't register themselves as "darts players" but they are participating in a game of darts. It requires little effort to have a game of darts in a pub with a friend, whereas to play any variation of RL, you have to go to the effort of joining a team, get kit etc etc.
Do the 29 million (extrapolated) who say they are walkers register themselves as 'walkers'?
What about the 3 million who cycle for travel, are they registered as 'cyclists for travel'?
And where would the 13 million who take part in fitness activities even go to register themselves?
Maybe fewer people play darts than we think.
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8 minutes ago, HawkMan said:
Ha, course I just made it up! Stats mean nothing without context. Darts or RL bigger? Depends on what stats you use and who you ask. I just asked an AI bot , and it said RL has bigger structure and organisation, but Darts has peaks of popularity, which we all knew anyway.
We have a context.
Someone said that darts had higher participation than Rugby League. I checked the largest national survey and it showed that Rugby League had a higher participation number.
If the darts number was higher I would have posted that.
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Final Whistle: Money, money, money – and why rugby league has so little of it
in The General Rugby League Forum
Posted
I commented on the article, not you personally.
I am not interested in belonging to a site where insults are endorsed.