Liverpool Rover

IMO the reason for the blowouts last year is more to do with the modern game than the format.

A 10 team tournament more than likely will mean the return of the one super group of four and two groups of three as Australias concern will be maximising the amount of games between Australia, New Zealand and England for television. IMO there is nothing wrong with the 16 team format and there will be blowouts but every sports World Cup has blow out games but yet it is only in RL where it is a bad thing.

It doesn't necessarily mean that it would have to be a full 34 game league season, but there is nowhere near the strength in depth for a league of that many teams.

He must have been tough to use that gimmick in the promotions in the south of the USA.

The game looked like it was going to be a tussle till the end but the late tries in the first half seemed to knock the stuffing out of Leigh who did weren't their usual selves in attack and really didn't do much and paid for it. Leigh will be hoping that they have got their bad game out of the way before the final.

Would the group games count on the season tickets? if not then there would be the issue of increasing the games for SL clubs that would have low crowds that they would make be making a loss from.

Now I'm more awake than I was this morning I was mistaken, I don't know where I got that from. I now remember seeing tackles in recent weeks where ball carriers had fallen into tacklers and it was just a penalty.

What a great tense game that was. I thought we had blown it at the end so to get the win was amazing. We don't play with the attacking style of Smith but there is such a steel and reliliance in the team that has been missing for a long time. On the Shorrocks tackle on Lewis in todays game as far as I know any direct contact to the head is supposed to be a red card no matter the circumstances so I thought Miski was going to get a red for the contact on Opacic. French might well finding himself with a case to answer for the initial tackle on Opacic which twisted him around.

The Polynesian population would get behind Tonga, Samoa, Fiji etc

IMO Hawaii would be the best US State to take a game to.

Afterwards I was thinking about people flicking through the channels and coming across a new game show hosted by Lee Mack and watching it until the end.

Red Rum and the National Hunt horses of that era would probably be able to just plough straight through the modern Grand National fences. I would raise the fences a little to force the horses to be slowed down before jumping as well as moving the start further forward so the field can't build up as much speed to the first fence.

I've seen that Castleford apparently are expected to vote against and Wakefield have changed their minds and will now vote in favour.

The more I hear Keighleys whinging the more I think that professional sport really isn't for them.

The irony of animal rights protestors using glue while protesting for animal welfare.

Klaus Teuber, designer of the Settlers Of Catan board game, which is now seen as a classic gateway to modern board games and making people aware that there is more to board games than Monopoly and Cluedo.

Bruno, Lewis, Benn, Eubank and Hamed are still probably bigger names with the general than the majority of current British boxers. It's probably the same with snooker as well. When I was a kid the biggest household sporting names seemed to be those from individual sports, even the top WWF stars of the day were famous names over here, everyone had heard of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Andre The Giant etc. The top RL stars such as Schofield, Hanley & Offiah may have had a lot of name recognition within the RL heartlands amongst people who had no interest in the sport but outside of the heartlands if you weren't into RL you probably would have never heard of them. RL had always had a following outside of it's heartlands but not in anywhere enough numbers to make the top players star household names. Back in the 80s more people in the UK would probably have been more aware of William "the refrigerator" Perry and Dan Marino than the big name RL players. The lack of national attention and interest from the national media has meant that the majority of the public has never got to hear about our players.

Ivo Grahams top level poophousery, Jenny Eclairs barge sailing and Frankie Boyle in a wedding dress. I would have rather heard the music in the dance task but I guess that there would have been all sorts of licensing issues. Mae Martin is just adorable and I think they will run away with this series.

Out of curiosity I looked at the league tables from the 70s onwards and I would say at least 80-85% of the promoted teams went straight back down again so the rate of promoted teams surviving the first season hasn't been very good, which doesn't really suggest that P&R has worked that well. People point to football and say it works but I would say that football as a sport is more suited to P&R than Rugby League is, as promoted teams when they feel it is needed can grind out enough points by playing more defensively or by sitting deep and hitting teams on the counter and there is more of a chance of shock results. In RL promoted teams don't have that choice and as such are more exposed when playing the stronger teams, which is a big disadvantage in a sport where more often than not the better team usually wins. This is why IMO promoted teams ideally need more than one off season to really be able to put together a decent team but they don't get that as one bad season and they go down and all the money that was spent on trying to stay in Super League, on top of all the money spent on getting there in the first place, has been wasted.

I would trust that IMG would take being in the Championship into account when coming up with grading scores more than I would if the RFL were in charge of this.

I would say that a lot of teams in the RU Premiership aren't based in towns you associate with major pro sport either but With IMG on board to help build a fanbase one of the best ways is to create events that people want to go to and taking games to a bigger stadium and creating an event feel to it with bands etc is one way of doing that. This way you can market the game to RL & general sports fans who may fancy going to a game and at the same time market that other things will be going on to try to attract families who want a day out so you are targeting as wide a range of people as you can. I'm not sure I agree with teams not being big enough draws, I think most people won't really care where they are from if they produce a good game.

It sounded to me like the Keighley owners were saying they wanted 2 up 2 down with traditional P&R and not having it within the IMG system. We need as many clubs in Super League to be looking up and raise their standards to get to the level of Saints, Wigan etc and I feel adding an extra relegation place would just spook clubs into just focusing on trying to make sure that they get to still be in Super League from one season to the next which would entrench the big clubs at the top even more. Two promotion places will just encourage a mad scramble for promotion and IMO it's the short term thinking that the game needs to move away from.

There was a time when Hull KR didn't have the money until Hudgell took over. I don't see why someone wouldn't be interested in investing in a championship club if they know that a high enough grading would make them a lot less likely to be relegated with the stability that could bring.

Something like the NRL model where championship clubs can apply for Super League when they are ready or what IMG are proposing, so championship clubs aren't throwing all their money and gambling on short term success because they have to be promoted right now.

They don't have an alternative plan, so far it has been "we want promotion and relegation waaah!"