ghost crayfish

And he's probably right, but consistency in Newcastle seems to mean being a consistently mediocre team with consistently mediocre halves...

It is strange he hasn't gotten a run at 6, given pretty much everyone agrees Newcastle have slow plodding halves and need to replace one of them with a faster, more dangerous running player.

Yeah unfortunately the new RLPA agreement guarantees the players a massive amount of time off in the off-season. This is bound to crunch the window for test footy sadly - and it is not an initiative of the NRL or clubs, but rather the players union.

If the NRL does invest in the Super League I doubt it would come with the same pitiful lack of control granted to IMG, who have been enabled to make 'recommendations' the Super League clubs can still reject. The NRL would expect to be able to say: 'we're doing it this way now'. And with the money to make the clubs actually fall in line, it would work too (while no doubt p*ssing off a lot of fans). This is just what rugby league in England needs - someone who can say, for example: London is critical to the game's future, they must be in Super League, we will support them with funding and strategy, and we will increase funding for the other clubs so they stop crying about the lack of away fans or whatever.

Oh wow! That is a big point - IMG could make big money there, particularly given the game's seemingly only big sponsorship at the moment is Betfred! They certainly know what they're doing...

I think Manu has mostly been pretty ordinary for the Roosters the last year or two. That whole team in fact has looked pretty stale for a while, so it's no surprise he's looking for a new challenge. And if he doesn't want to play against the club, it makes sense to chase a big Union pay day. He's a loss to the Kiwis, but it's not the end of the world. I actually think the Roosters have known this was coming for a while and have bought Dom Young in with an eye to him eventually playing right centre.

Good move all round. I think last year his impact for Souths slipped slightly, on what was an outstanding 2022 for him, and he is entering that veteran stage. He's been at Souths so long he is part of the furniture, but at a new club he could probably freshen up and add a lot of value on and off field. Presumably Chris Hill will finish up this year, so Huddersfield probably feel they need a new senior prop - Burgess is as good a signing as they could hope for in that area.

Kayo will presumably continue to have the two main Sky Sports games, if not all 6?

Yeah let's not forget that the last World Cup saw 40k plus in attendance for two England test matches against Samoa, 30k at Elland Road for Australia v NZ and Old Trafford was packed with almost 70,000 people for a game not even involving England - all of this was pretty much unthinkable in the golden age of the 1990s! Still, the difference is the 90s international game was coherent and meaningful in a way the current schedule largely isn't. The Ashes were seen as the pinnacle for Australian players in a way test football doesn't even come close to now. A big part of that IMO is scheduling - Australia should play one mid-season test match each year, after Origin. Position test football as the pinnacle; a reward that players are competing for in the origin series.

Someone with a degree of professional competency is finally in the building, it seems. Thank God!

Yeah, Wigan performed (mostly) well, from memory. I just remember being a kid in the crowd to see the Broncos sleep walk their way to a 70 point win over a clearly hungover Halifax...

This all sounds great. I hope they fill it with archival matches including all World Club Challenge games (except the expanded format 1997 matches!), GB/England test matches going back to the 90s etc. That's the sort of additional content that would make it more worthwhile for me, as an Australian fan.

I think this all makes perfect sense. Superleague+ is an alternative way for people who don't want to pay for the full Sky package to see rugby league. In this day and age of people subscribing to several different cheaper streaming platforms, over a single pay TV provider, it is a good approach. Of course, it makes sense for Sky to maintain the power to choose 2 games each week that they have exclusive live coverage rights for - I guess that's what they're paying their 25 million for. It will be interesting to see how this impacts SL coverage in Australia, on Kayo. Will we get the 2 Sky games, or all 6? And will Superleague+ be available internationally (surely it will be - this is where they could attract a few subscribers)? If Kayo only carries 2 games and Superleague+ is available here, I might sign up myself... more as a show of support than anything else. I doubt I'll ever want to watch 6 superleague games a week, in addition to all of the NRL I watch!

The recent string of announcements marks the first time in years that the RFL has looked even remotely connected and competent. It is very clearly the impact of IMG expertise, and the first cause of genuine optimism in English rugby league administration for a long long time. Of course there are a lot of things left to fix, and a lot of progress still to make, but all of this inspires confidence that it actually could happen!

Certainly looks that way, particularly when combined with other recent announcements re. BBC and social media consolidation content development - both of which should help to sell Superleague+ subscriptions to non-Sky subscribers.

You seriously expect the BBC to cover its own yet-to-be-confirmed broadcast deal?

I don't think any rugby union convert should necessarily bank on playing first grade, let alone Origin.

I know the topic says English players, but it's a shame to omit Brian Carney's quality season with Newcastle from consideration. He certainly had a greater impact in the NRL than Ryan Hall (who was sadly past his best and struggling with injury at the time, playing in a team with such strong depth that they can never shake rumours about their 'creative accountancy').

Yeah, while I was a critic of Bennett and the GB fiasco, I tend to think if you put him in charge of England last year they win the World Cup - certainly wouldn't have choked against Samoa like that.

While he's still had a great career, Sam Tomkins to the Auckland Warriors wasn't a great move for him. I think he was poorly coached and his injuries were poorly managed in a club that was fairly unprofessional at the time - and while he has had patches of great form since, he has never been the same player or had quite the career he could have had if he'd either stayed at Wigan, or gone to a stronger NRL club. I hope we're not adding Dom Young to this list in the future, after his move to the Roosters - the Roosters are a good professional club, but they have a logjam of talent and play a different style of game. Young was absolutely killing it at Newcastle and could have done without the change I think.

Who knew that a combination of energy, effort and investment can go a long way. Well done to the club I admit I've been hoping would be relegated from Super League for a long time now... I wish them well and if they keep this up, hope they make it back!

I don't really like this idea... we see now the hilarious situation of good junior rugby union players switching to league with the idea that when they make the NRL, rugby union will pay overs to attract them - a salary cap exemption might encourage a reverse situation. Seems pointless to me - we are already destroying rugby union in Australia, and the only reason they are clinging on is they have a stronger international game. That's where our energy should be, not on gimmicks like this.

If they're unable to play a Tri-series with France and Ireland due to euro qualifiers, I think their best bet is to invite the Indigenous All Stars side from Australia for a tour (obviously minus Kangaroos players). This would provide decent opposition, provide an appealing opportunity for some young Australian players to tour, and attract more attention and interest in Australia than any other opponent would - a perfect promotion for the upcoming Ashes tour in 2025.

My plan: 1. Shorten Super League season to create room 2. Mid-year 4 nations tournament - 3 weeks plus final - this is played on stand-alone weekends in the middle of the season. 3. Post-season - Great Britain & Ireland plays against southern hemisphere teams, either home or away 4. Post-season - bottom ranked 4N team plays the team that missed out for the right to participate next season 5. Post-season - France plays a game against southern hemisphere tourists. They need to back this up with a number of actions at Super League level, such as committing to Toulouse and Catalans in the top tier, making it compulsory for every English club to have a junior pathway program with either Wales, Scotland or Ireland, and maybe an 'on the road' round of Challenge Cup matches to promote the game. To do the 'on the road' element, they could seek bids from councils in Wales, Scotland, or Ireland - host one international that year, and also host one SL/CC game earlier to promote it - similar to the way the 2013 RLWC worked, get those host councils to promote the games (might be better to do double headers), and in return you can hopefully offer them the tourism boost of a few thousand SL fans visiting their town for the weekend. I doubt SL clubs would agree to losing more home games, so that's why I suggest Challenge Cup - it may have the added bonus of promoting the cup.

All of the above is true, England has pushed harder for international football than the other nations over the last decade, and I understand how frustrated they must have been with the NRL at times. That said, England has been guilty of focusing on the southern hemisphere for competition and overlooking the need to build rivalry and competition closer to home. Where they failed to capitalise on 2013 was the failure to establish and grow a mid-season competition with the likes of Wales, France, Ireland and Scotland afterwards, to keep momentum going. Super League offers just as many players to those teams as the NRL does to the Pacific Island teams, but there have been nothing but ad hoc efforts to capitalise on it. With a coherent plan for northern hemisphere competition, the resurrection of GB for southern hemisphere tours might have made sense, as it would've given Ireland/Wales/Scotland players motivation to stick with those countries, with the carrot of a full GB series against NZ or Aus. Instead, like basically everything the RFL does, there was no coherency, no plan and no commitment.