overtheborder

Interesting, I wonder if it's down to the clubs requesting/agreeing to this rather than SL. My question then would be why, assuming this would have been agreed quite a way in advance, another game couldn't have just been moved into the slot?

I'd agree with this although maybe would keep the top 6 (although appreciate that might leave quite a few with nothing to play for towards the end of the season, unless P and R was brought back - perhaps 2 up 2 down). Under your system though I'd scrap the magic weekend. FWIW I'm not particularly unhappy with a 12-team Super League, although I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of loop fixtures myself. Getting rid of them does feel like it leaves things a bit light in terms of numbers of fixtures though, so I guess my personal ideal would be 14 teams, top 6 play offs and 2 relegated (leaving aside all practicalities, finance etc.).

I think this is a good shout - the matches themselves are big enough not to need a curtain raiser, but I think engaging the community and also having plenty of family activities around the stadium would be a real positive in terms of contributing to the "event". I don't think we need lots of gimmicks though for this series (and IMO we should actively steer clear of anything close to being "gimmicky") - I think the series pretty much sells itself to anyone who'd be interested in attending.

Not sure about delaying my visit to the pub, but forcing me to think more about my alcohol consumption watching my football team Stockport today! One of those games this that, unless I was attending, I despise the disprortionate attention on - I'd sooner us focus on the likes of Hull for example - but appreciate the potential greater good for the game here. That said, as a Wiganer, now it's here, I'm excited about the game, let's do a job in one of the bigger games of our season(!)

I thought pretty much the same during the early days of last season to be fair after a few defeats, and I'm a Wigan fan, but I wouldn't be surprised if that serves as motivation for the rest of the season. Congratulations to Leigh, not taking anything away from them at all, but as a Wigan player I'd be wanting to hammer everything in sight after that.

My early days of watching Wigan were in the latter days of Central Park. I remember my first game being the game against Sheffield shortly after they'd beat us in the Challenge Cup final, although I was pretty young and so remember more about running around the terraces and the crowd than the actual games there! I only got to a handful of games there before it was knocked down, but I'm glad I got to go as I feel like that gave me more of an appreciation of the club's history. As a side note I wonder whether any of the current "modern" grounds will come to be thought of in as fond terms as the old ones that have been mentioned in this thread. Somehow I can't quite imagine the Brick being seen in the same way, but then maybe after a hundred years or so it would after all.

Seems like a great outcome for all involved with the club, really happy for the fans who have stuck with club in recent times. Any club coming back strong is great for RL in general too (and if Hull KR keep up their recent improvement there could be some cracking Hull derbies in years to come).

Fair enough, I'm not massively well acquainted with RU - I watch England games but not much else ironically! Definitely agree, I don't see it as a good thing either. Ideally you don't want the club game diluting the quality of internationals in any sport and vice versa IMO. Talking in RL terms, given that the international game isn't huge, it doesn't feel like that big a step to establish worldwide international windows - to be fair to the relevant authorities things seem to be heading in the right direction for that recently, albeit sometimes pretty slowly.

To be fair I think the club cup you're referring to is seen generally as a second-rate competition that's good for giving fringe players a game. I don't think you'd get the main club competitions playing on an international weekend, so I don't think there's much difference in the attitude of SL/NRL clubs as there is in any other sport to be honest. That said, I definitely agree that international RU looks to be the main priority for them and that everything else (except maybe the European tournaments) seems to feed into it.

Fair point - I'd completely forgot that one!

This is basically what I said in the Wigan vs Leigh thread - this could be a really difficult test against a solid Hull KR side who seem like they know how to come through tight games. The interesting thing for me is how they handle the occasion. Wigan have bags of experience in this area so you'd think they have some sort of mental "routine" nailed down, whereas Rovers could either be fired up just enough, too much, or simply overwhelmed. I hope for their sake they'll be fired up just enough and contribute to a great spectacle whatever the outcome.

I think that's the word I'd use for how Wigan played last night. I think the most pleasing thing as a Wigan fan is the nil. Fair play to Leigh and congrats on making more progress this season, it's nice to have another (usually) competitive local game to go with the long standing ones like St Helens and Wire. Difficult test next week, and I'm not taking anything for granted against Hull KR - last time we played them I thought we got off lightly and took advantage of the yellow cards, but otherwise we were in real trouble IMO.

To be fair to both clubs I seem to remember reading in the older Vegas thread that both teams had sought approval from the RFL to organise this, so you'd hope the RFL have built this into their overall fixture planning (which I'm sure they have). On the WCC, I think it'd be a shame for it not to go ahead for the sake of a game in Vegas, but then there'll be plenty who disagree I'm sure, so each to their own I guess. I'm personally a fan of the competition and would call it the pinnacle of RL, barring such an occurrence as the World Cup becoming a big deal, but again I'm sure many would disagree too, which I think is a problem - there doesn't seem to be any general consensus as to how important it actually is, you'd get a wildly different answer depending on who you ask, and I'd imagine that's a big contributor to it always seeming like we never know if teams are going to bother arranging it or not. You wouldn't have this with the Champions League in football for instance (I get it's a very different commercial proposition), it's pretty much a non-negotiable if you want to be taken seriously.

Some interesting arguments and counter-arguments here. Have to say purely as a fan my first thought was "sounds like a great away day, why not?" For me there are two big reasons that would be pretty big barriers to progress for Lancaster specifically (I'm deliberately leaving out the Uni downsides as I know absolutely nothing about it and previous posters have more than got that side of things covered): 1. Slightly expanding on the point made by Treize Hombres about there being no appetite north of the Ribble, in my experience the areas around there seem to be fairly strong Union heartlands with reasonably strong semi-pro or amateur clubs (I'm no expert but Preston Grasshoppers and Fylde spring to mind). I'd imagine that extends up to Lancaster too, but even if it didn't, it suffocates the catchment area quite a bit. 2. There's the possibility that RL fans around Lancaster's catchment area already travel south to watch Wigan, Saints, Wire etc. or north to the Cumbrian teams. I'm not sure how many of those would really buy into going to watch a new club - no doubt some would as interested locals, but realistically it needs more than that. The above posts did get me thinking about the possibility of a strong and well-established Uni side entering either the NCL or League One and making a decent fist of things though, similar to how Cardiff Met compete in the Welsh football league system. Not sure whether that's ever been explored as an alternative (or complementary) option to expansion clubs?

Seems to be getting a bit of a bad rap on here but I don't mind this shirt - I'd imagine the formatting of the advertisement is making it look busier than it would when worn on the pitch to be honest.

Fair point - I'd completely overlooked that possibility!

This has confused me to be honest - I think a lot of people (at least on here) seem to agree that the best thing to do would be to play all games at the same time, both for excitement and fairness. I'm imagining a scenario (notwithstanding any timescales for submitting squads etc.) where Wigan win, and then Hull KR rest a few players for the play-offs knowing they can't finish top, thus theoretically giving Leeds an advantage over other play-off chasing teams. I've no horse in that particular race as a Wigan fan, but it feels very strange to me, and I'm not sure how happy the teams around Leeds are about that possibility.

Fair play this is early, but makes sense from a commercial point of view I suppose - can imagine most Leeds fans being happy with that one anyway!

Interesting one to think about this - on the one hand, Wigan haven't looked that consistent for a while, and looked a little off the pace against Hull (mainly due to being impatient and trying to over play early in the game IMO), but I think we could click into gear at any point. All about getting wins at this point so I see it as just getting through each week until things do start to click - I'd be happy if we scrape through and get a result, although Cats away is always one of the tougher games so a defeat wouldn't surprise me either.

I don't disagree with that sentiment, but where should they be?

To be fair aside from the "main" game on a night, there's seemed to be little coverage pre- or post- match anyway, so I don't think that's a Sky Sports+ thing. On the wider subject of Sky Sports+, it seems to me that it's been mainly motivated by Sky wanting to be able to televise more football, so it feels a bit like other sports are a bit of a coincidental afterthought. I might be wrong, but the main selling point seems to be around more EFL games being shown, so I'm not really surprised there doesn't seem to be a huge plan for catch-up/on demand services for RL games in particular (not sure what these services are like for football though).

I kind of agree with what you're saying here if we're talking about a ref being thrown in at a decent level, but I'd imagine your first game would be something like an under 9s game after that (please correct me if I'm wrong though as I haven't refereed!). While it does feel a bit on the short side it feels to me like coaching - if you want to get involved in the game you'll do a course to get certified at a basic level that's realistically too short to teach you the real ins and outs of it, but that gives you something of an insight into different aspects of it. I'd imagine people on these reffing courses have, like those on coaching courses, a decent level of understanding of the game to start with due to prior involvement as players/fans, so they won't be utterly clueless to begin with. I suppose from there people make what they want from it - I'm assuming those wanting to ref at SL level will actively search out further knowledge/courses etc. As to whether I'd be a ref or not personally, I'd love to say I would but I honestly don't think I'd fancy the hassle and abuse.

Great points made there - I'd forgot about a lot of those in fairness, and completely agree in terms of looking decades down the line - when you look at the likes of Wigan, St Helens, Leeds, Hull - the places where we've traditionally had strong clubs, there seems to be a solid amateur/youth game. Only question for me on developing the game in other areas as you described would be what's to stop the bigger clubs poaching all the talent from those areas? Thus what happens in practice may be that the catchment area expands for the biggest clubs at the expense of everyone else.

Not sure whether I'm missing something obvious here, but given Championship and L1 clubs are under the IMG "spreadsheet" umbrella you'd like to think that'll drive standards up in some way over the longer term. That of course isn't to say there shouldn't be more focused support on those divisions though as you say. Some interesting points throughout this thread in general (not that I've read through every page!). A lot seems to be focused on improving the standards of League 1 itself, which is valid, but shouldn't we be looking to really drive standards going from top down? So for instance, instead of looking to attract potential League 1-standard clubs into the system, maybe looking to either attract expansion clubs with big plans for SL i.e. a Catalans type. Of course the obvious question then is where these clubs and investors behind them coming from. Interestingly, there are a few clubs in other sports that are basically "multi-sport" clubs - I'm thinking the likes of Barcelona, Galatasaray etc. who have basketball teams for example and maybe others as well as football teams (I think Leeds Rhinos have a Netball Super League team too). I've never seen the idea floated that we should tap into the likes of those clubs, but surely that could be worth a look?

Just watched the highlights - first of all fair play to London, they haven't capitulated this season in general despite the fact that pretty much everyone is expecting them to get beat most weeks, hopefully they'll be enjoying that win. I don't think I can really add anything to comments on Hull's situation other than one positive - one thing I did notice was that for one of London's tries, Houghton appears to punch the air in frustration as London score. For all the problems that Hull have at the moment, at least individuals seem to care - whatever the reasons for the recent decline, if the desire's there at the club (which in fairness it seems to be given the changes being made) they may well turn it around. It might take a lot more change, but at least on an individual level people don't seem to have accepted that this is just how it is. Having said that, I don't half feel sorry for FC fans at the moment.