17 stone giant

How many are there enough to support? 10 SL teams? 8?

I didn't watch any tonight. Do you mean Leeds v Salford or Huddersfield v Wakefield?

Certainly in terms of drama, if not quality. Hopefully more of the same on Tuesday night against Italy.

1 Brad Dundee 2 Shane Fosters 3 Cooper Kookaburra Not sure if they're real players or not, but if they are, they shouldn't be anywhere near our league. Simply not good enough.

Hence the importance of sticking with one team and building up some history. Otherwise you just dilute things and are left with an incomplete picture.

More than 7 million watched the Lionesses. Euro 2025: England shootout win draws 7.4 million TV viewers - BBC Sport

Is that the boxing event up at Wembley?

Epic night of football. You can't beat watching England knockout matches at a major tournament. We were out, in, in, out, shake it all about and then balloon a couple over the bar. Incredible drama.

I watched the whole Lionesses match and then switched to Channel 5 +1 to watch the second half of Chelsea.

Might have watched this but for the Lionesses match. I think St Helens will sneak over the line. 16-12.

I agree about not putting the sport behind a paywall, for the various reasons given above. I certainly wouldn't subscribe unless it was something very cheap (I'm talking maybe £50 or less for a year, not £40 a month). I do think there is maybe room for a subscription to watch all of your clubs matches, or perhaps even all of your clubs away matches, if you're already attending home games. I would have thought that sort of thing might interest some fans. It's a bit more targeted than paying to watch all SL games. I assume it would have to be agreed with all broadcast partners (including Sky).

Not a bad idea. I thought you were going to say park one at the side of the pitch so that fans could watch the match from the bus - which I think sometimes happens at the horse racing. A bit like the NFL Tampa Bay pirate ship.

Yeah, I understand that. It was only a throwaway comment about what seemed to me to be a pretty lame video. I do understand that nowadays it's possible to film anything and upload it for free or little cost, so you often get stuff that isn't earth shatteringly exciting. I put this video in that category. I'm sure there will many more inspiring Ashes related videos to come.

No, I was being lighthearted. But I didn't watch it and get fired up for the Ashes. It seemed a bit lame with a non-descript backing track. I think it's the tune that is the biggest issue for me. It just had the feel of watching a dating advert on late night TV on an obscure channel. It was just a bit wishy washy, that's all.

Thought it was an advert for a gay bar/dating. Nothing wrong with that of course, but get some better music.

In terms of the Club World Cup, I don't think until now it registered very highly for most fans. Certainly not in England - I can't speak for other countries. So in that sense probably quite a few of us don't have that many memories of it to forget. I can barely remember ever watching a game in previous years. Maybe I saw City two years ago, but I can't specifically say for sure. I've never been very interested in it. Now it's been made larger and less often, some of us are more interested in it, and I expect we'll remember things more easily. Even if it's only the final or the winners, perhaps. Div 1 being forgotten is more a media thing because they often mention things like PL top goal scorer. For people like me who watched football pre-Premier League, I don't think we look on it as a big change at all. Mainly because it wasn't - it was just a name change with a staggered reduction in teams from 24 to 20 (which might have happened anyway even if it had still be called Div 1). It was still the same format - play everyone home and away. As such, I don't look upon Leeds winning Div 1 in 1991-92 any different to Man Utd winning the PL in 1992-93. Same comp, different name. Which I suppose it's kind of the opposite with the Club World Cup. Different comp, same name. In terms of statistics, the two will happily be merged. Liverpool fans don't say they've won 4 European Cups and 2 Champions Leagues (or whatever the numbers are). They say 6 CL's or 6 times champions of Europe. Likewise they've won the title 20(?) times - not Div 1 18 times and the PL 2 times. So the same will happen with the Club World Cup.

I don't have a strong opinion on that. It's something that has been discussed before on the WCC threads. People have suggested a competition involving more teams from each country. Perhaps if that were to happen, it would make sense to limit it to once every four years. Personally speaking, I'd be interested in seeing more matches between SL and NRL clubs, so if some sort of competition was put together, I'd have a look at it.

It has the same name, but it is a complete revamp of what it was before. Therefore people are allowed to have a different view as to how important it is to win. Which I suspect many fans will do. I haven't studied the qualification criteria, so I don't know how every team earned their place. But it's clear to me that there was at least an attempt to get many of the top clubs from the best leagues - PSG, Inter Milan (that's this seasons CL final), Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Dortmund, Ajax, Man City, Bayern Munich, Juventus, etc. Maybe you'd like to compare that to the line up two years ago when Man City won it, when there was only 7 teams. Like I said, a world away. Maybe FIFA will want to tinker with that criteria - that's up to them - but really you're just clutching at straws trying to claim it's not prestigious because some teams weren't there. In a CL season there will be some top clubs who miss out on qualifying. Sometimes those clubs will have improved in the close season and will be doing brilliantly in their own league, but still not present in that seasons CL. That's football. You can't have everyone in every event. Besides, just as there is with an international team World Cup, there are other considerations than just getting all the best teams. It's a global game and therefore you include teams from other parts of the world, even if they're weaker than some that miss out.

The new 32 team, every four years, played in the off season (from an English perspective) event is a million miles away from what it was when Liverpool and Man Utd played in it - 7 teams, in January so during the Premier League season etc. If you want to ignore those facts and bang on about it being the same competition, that's up to you. My point is a simple one - while I agree that in the past fans of English clubs (and perhaps elsewhere) weren't too bothered about winning a 7 team annual event, they might re-evaluate things now that FIFA have introduced a much bigger and more prestigious event. Unlike Chelsea and Man City, Liverpool and Man Utd haven't be in this new format, so let's see what their fans think about it if and when they do.

I hadn't realised that I needed to spoon feed people and explain what I thought was obvious - that I'm referring to the tournament in its new format. This year it has become a 32 team event that will be played every four years, which is a world away from the annual event with 7 or so teams that it was in the past. That has clearly altered the prestige of the event for many football fans (myself included), hence my point that we'll see what Liverpool and Man Utd fans think about it when they qualify for the NEW format.

Not in the new format they haven't. I would argue the new format of 32 teams every four years makes it far more prestigious than it was previously.

We'll see about that if and when they qualify for one.

West Indies all out for 27 against Australia (including 6 extras). I saw the Aussies 2nd innings score and thought maybe the WI had a slim chance of chasing that down. But they were absolutely blown away. The scorecard is appalling. West Indies v Australia - Cricket - BBC Sport

Does it have a 14 team Super League?

You beauty Bashir. Get in!