langpark

Fantastic! Let's hope many come back next season and support them in the Championship!

I cannot stand the guy, but will hold off on condemning him until the court reaches its verdict, as we all should. Would not ridicule him for trying to make an honest living either (the reaction the article seems to be trying to incite).

Referee was a neutral. A Fijian who lives in Europe. For this level of match that is fine. Fir higher stakes matches (WC qualifiers etc.) they do usually bring in a more experience ref from England or France.

This fixture has just been announced for this weekend! https://europeanrugbyleague.com/articles/2311/poland-face-czech-republic-in-mens-inter One encouraging thing I see mentioned in this article is that over 100 players played the game this year in Poland! After quite a few years of the game being borderline dormant there, it is really great to see them back and doing seemingly very well now! Long may it continue!

True, this and Elite 1 standard is lightyears ahead of the Greek League.

Not a fan of RU at all, but look how proud they are of their developing nations. I wonder how a RL equivalent graph might look?

I believe Roanne is another. Not far from Lyon, both are real "RL frontier" clubs. Been around since the beginning, and sadly dissolved during thr pandemic. Hopefully they too can soon re-form and Lyon will have another team nearby. They are a bit isolated as it stands now. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RC_Roanne_XIII

A few years ago they would play 9s tournaments at U16 and U18 level, usually involving 3-4 clubs. Now I think they only have U18, who do a mixture of play/train with the open age team, then play the occasional 9s tournament as U18s.

Of course. I was simply clarifying it in response to someone implying that Serbia are "not that much" stronger than the Czechs.

As I mentioned in the other post, it was a 2nd string Serbia team.

Two teams stuck in unfortunate positions. France: too weak for England, yet far too strong for the rest of Europe (unless heritage players are brought in). Serbia: far too weak for France, yet a lot stronger than everyone else around them (they beat Greece, probably their nearest rivals 40-6). I applaud the initiative but I do fear a massacre here.

A better question is: are the Skolars unsustainable? What ever happened to that supposed takeover?

decent game, though I only caught the first half.

Double.

Indeed, I would say the gap is unbridgeable, in our lifetimes at least. But we should also be thinking beyond that. Too many in our game (in high positions, with the power, money and influence) expect the plant to grow without watering it at all.