burningmuscles

Are you suggesting that if they were called Leeds RLFC it would have shaved a few thousand of the gate? Or those home grown players wouldn't have materialised? I mean, I understand where you are coming from - everything is connected; it enabled, or galvanised focus in all areas of the club. For me, it is a bit flimsy that adding the name of an African land mammal to your 100 year sporting club could be the only facilitation of this. The true litmus test of a brand is when the club is performing badly, and Leeds were successful enough on the pitch for the name to never to encounter the same fate as Wildcats. I sometimes wish someone would do a sociological study on the difference between Football and Rugby League fans. Football fans protest and lose their sh*t when club owners try and change the name, announce a stadium sponsorship, or tinker with the badge. Anyone remember Hull City Tigers? With Rugby League fans, it's like; "alright lads, we're called the St Helens Wandering Gooseberries and there's now a couple of cartoonish giraffes on our badge" "fair enough, lol"

You are attributing this to the random nickname generator, rather than a team littered with generational talent of super stars that played amazing rugby? It's mystifying how people are willing to justify meaningless infantilism. There is no rhyme or reason as to why Rhinos worked and Wildcats didn't, aside from what occured on the pitch.

So, the man who instigated suffixing the word "Rhinos" to a famous and proud sporting institution is in charge of another rebrand? Yeah, good luck with that.

I'm not sure why him and James Graham are having a go at teams which a) are not in Super League, and never have been and b) not even the most delusional traditionalist support of either club thinks it is realistic probability in the current system. Announcing 10 teams, and attacking Featherstone and Batley seems really bizarre and unnecessary.

Yes. I have truly never understood how Steve McNamara has extracted a salary from Rugby League clubs on the pretence of being a coach.

Yeah, and the sound keeps dipping in and out. Is it doing this for anyone else?

The red button

This. I like how it gives references, and doesn't just spew out spurious drivel without citing where it has got its information from. And if it does, you can usually tell from the websites where it has collated its answer, have wrong information.

Very interesting. But I suppose, as an adjacent point - if this had happened with a run-away domino effect over to NFU. Would the NFU have been able to change the rules, and control the sport to the same degree, if the newly joined Welsh/South-West clubs had full voting rights. Perhaps keeping the NFU as primarily a close-knit adherence of local clubs abled the sport to radically change itself without too much fuss.

Is it me, or where Rugby League crowds in a general malaise around this time? I seem to remember Saints vs Wigan Challenge Cup from Feb '82 only attracted 7,000. Rush - Moving Pictures. King Crimson - Discipline. There have been worse years.

Well, it was scrapped this year on reasoning less sound than this. But yes - there are many animals, and former ancient ethnic groups, to base a stupid nickname on. It made no sense for Wigan (one of the most iconic, well renowned, famous RL clubs on location alone) to adopt the same nickname as Auckland/NZ, and still doesn't.

Did Manchester United and Newcastle United both choose the suffix United, because they wanted a unique identifier in the 21st century hyper digitised landscape? Is the Premier League table formatted like this, where United and other suffixes are prioritised, to the complete erasure of team (location) names?

Don't we already have a team called Vikings? And their kit colours is basically a copy of the existing Vikings, as well. Surely, it'll be confusing when the Vikings play the Vikings. What's the point of choosing silly nicknames as a unique brand identifier, if this sort of thing can occur? Even more so, that Super League has (probably)instructed Google and others to use these names. It's like that joke from The Simpsons. Who are we? The Wildcats & who are going to beat? The Wildcats

Makes sense. Richard III was obviously a better candidate for King than Henry VI.

Well, this just proves my point about RL kits in the modern era. Like, why did KR introduce a sash in 2011? What does a sash have to do with KR jerseys? It wasn't even a proper "Southampton" - it's all swirly as well. I'm not having a go at KR though. Most teams are very random in their designs. Warrington don't know if they play in blue or primrose. Saints are forever dickin' about with the size/style of vee (compared to St George), and can't decide if their shorts are red/white. Castleford can't decide between yellow or orange. Salford just come up with anything. At the end of the day, it's not important - but just merely curious as to why RL teams are a bit "liberal" with this kit design business, more so than in other professional sports. Some recent Salford jerseys, for example;

It's interesting that jerseys of famous football teams have miniscule variations from year to year. It seems people are happy to pay for the tweaks, and the slightly different decoration of the same shirt. I have no idea why RL kit designers try to reinvent the wheel every time. The Hull KR kit is literally a mish-mash of two styles, neither of them owing any past heritage to any former Hull KR shirt. I honestly think they're taking the ######.

Probably before Michael Maguire became Wigan coach in 2010.

Does anyone provide one-way trips to parallel universes?

Well, it seems to me from a casual observance of this forum, and other places - that tinkering with formats, fixtures, structures, and dates occupy thoughts more than raising the number of quality teams. As if any of these changes would magically revive the sport. As the saying goes, the two best times to plant a tree - the first is forty years ago, the second is now. There are no other solutions. I'm just sick of the sport - in general - rearranging deckchairs.

How about raise the standard of playing within every club bar the top six or eight clubs? It's ridiculous how fans just accept that 80% of all RL teams that exist will be permanently ######. Rugby League is a pretty unforgiving sport, and it only really excels when you have elite or comparable clubs going toe-to-toe. It's not as in Football (soccer), where you can employ negative or defensive strategies. But at the same time - the cures for the Challenge Cup are for the wrong disease. It's the sport itself that's broken, and lack of competitiveness within the entire structure. You might as well implement a handicapping system, where if Hunslet played Wigan - you'd give Hunslet an automatic 52pt start. Much easier than actually attempting to raise the quality of Hunslet, and other teams in League 1/Championship.

I don't even know how much the average Super League player earns. A relative pittance probably. It's a damn shame. Wages in soccer have gone absolutely parabolic lately, and it seems RL is languishing to the point that I don't know how those involved make it worth their while.

Well, I rarely watch RL anymore either on TV or in person. So, kinda.

I wonder why Football in the UK doesn't need such "razzmatazz" to get children involved. The FA doesn't even encourage teams to adopt carton animal nicknames.

Touche. But an angle to explore on during the initial years of the 22 game Super League was how much the World Club Challenge tournament was meant to play an integral part of the season. As it also seemed quite mad that many clubs could been "okay" with such a limited amount of league games. If so, it was a speculative bet to deconstruct the entire landscape of the season on.

Its mental to think 1993/94, we had a league of 16 teams. 30 fixtures, alongside 5 potential CC games, 5 potential Regal Trophy games, 3 potential Premiership games (and the season before that had the Lancashire/Yorkshire Cup, albeit with a league of 14 teams/26 fixtures). Using the first example, at least, that's max 43 games. Then we decided there were too many games and teams to sustain "decent" quality RL. And now, having culled the amount of teams, and trophies, we need play loop fixtures to maintain financial solvency. The sport is the very definition of borderline personality disorder.