fighting irish

i thought my position on this topic was familiar enough to forum regulars to get away with a bit of sarcasm. Please read on (a bit).

I know you are being non-confrontational so please believe me when I say that so am I. I don't agree with you however. Any thought of calling on them for help or support or advice will just slow up your initiative, sap your strength and likely kill off your project all together. Nothing will happen. You'd be far better off going ahead and developing your own competence and your own group of would be pioneers. Independent, can-do entrepreneurial types, who just won't take ''no'' for an answer, who don't need permission, who don't make excuses and who refuse to have their ambitions delayed and ultimately frustrated by hopelessly inept bureaucrats. These are the people who make the world go round. Keep looking for them first and when you find them, let them get on with it.

Shouldn't we just sit back, do nothing and complain, that the RFL should be doing it for us?

Congratulations my friend. Well done, it's a hell of a legacy. What a lifetimes achievement.

When we were selecting our away team to play in the London league (our nearest opposition was 200 miles away) we carried a squad of roughly 43 players. I wrote a personal invitation, hand delivered to each one, every prior Thursday night, telling them the time and venue of the bus departure on the following Sunday morning. This inflated figure usually guaranteed we had 17 or 18 players to travel. On any home Sunday, we could expect 28 players to make themselves available. It didn't take us too long to realise we had a 43/17 conversion rate, for away games but once we knew how the stats tumbled down, we felt we could operate confidently from then on. We also had a multifaceted selection policy (on the day) which constrained and compelled the coach/team selectors to favour the players who were ''more loyal'' to the club and helped us ensure we met our responsibilities to the league (by travelling away) before considering playing ability!!! Only when the entire turn-out fulfilled our ''loyalty'' criteria, did we consider playing ability in the selection of the team. This prevented the fickle, disloyal, glory hunting, fair weather, non-travellers from displacing one of our club players in the glamour games. This short-term discipline built increasing trust and loyalty between the management team and our club members/players over time.

Congratulations Arch'

When were the talks taking place? Who were the ''talks'' between and what did we all make of it? Furthermore, have you got any extra news to add to the existing mystery? Or are you hoping to rake up the same old carcass as last time and tart it up with a bit of tin foil and even more speculation?

Hmmm, well when the NRL take over, perhaps we can get Vland (ys) the Impaler to carry out your sentence?

Yep!

I don't know why you think it can't be done now? Why is it too late to build from scratch, it's happening in all the countries I mentioned in my original post? I'm arguing for a separation between the management and marketing of the elite professional sport and the development of the grass roots game. I'm saying that the amateur game should be engaged with development work as it's highest priority and leave the SL to it's own devices (and vice versa). I'm suggesting the amateur game in the UK should stop expecting the RFL to do anything for the development of the amateur game. They've demonstrated complete incompetence and indifference towards development of the grass roots participation here. When you say RL could do this, if it was happy to see the game reduced to a part time pastime like rounders, do you mean the RFL turning it's back on pro sport and focusing only on the grass roots game? That's the antithesis of what I'm suggesting. It's bizarre that you claim to agree with a lot of what I'm saying but your comments suggest you haven't really grasped my point at all.

This little phrase, highlights the major flaw in Rugby League, since day one. This attitude is a significant part of the problem. These matters are not a boring inconvenience but an existential necessity. They should be highest on the list of priorities, not considered a bl......dy nuisance. The belief that you can implant a pro team in a place where the game has no (huge) grass roots game is a folly. I don't know how many times we are going to have to endure the embarrassment of this naive, (arrogant) and idiotic policy but there's no sign of the game learning this salutary lesson. We need an organisation (like BARLA ought to have been) which is devoted to the spread of the amateur game and nothing else. Until we acknowledge this fundamental necessity we are going nowhere and more likely to preside over an accelerating decline. The amateur game ought to be organising Coaching courses, Refereeing courses, try-out sessions, visiting schools to introduce the game to kids, pulling in would-be administrators etc. etc. Please don't tell me it can't be done without RFL involvement. It's happening in Canada, North America, Jamaica, Brazil and some other South American countries, a handful of European countries, a few African countries and it's even happening in Wales! What's patently obvious is the RFL can't do it. They can't even wash their own faces, never mind develop the amateur game across the country. Billy Smart's Circus doesn't run the sport of gymnastics does it? So for goodness sake, let's get on with spreading the amateur game and just let the circus take care of itself.

Steady on Worz'.

Poor Luke hasn't exactly endeared himself to SL fans or the administration. Of course it also has the potential to negatively influence would-be fans who are/were unconvinced and could be deterred from following the game by comments like this. I interpreted his comments of as a criticism of the coverage rather than the game itself but the article doesn't make that explicit and so I suspect he was responding to some leading questions by the reporter, who goes on to edit his interview for maximum impact/offence. It's a good example of the importance of controlling the narrative. I don't mean we should be disseminating ''spin'' but we should (if it's possible) be doing what we can to ensure that our tales are clear, concise and unambiguous. This is a debacle borne of a perfect storm of a foolish interviewee, an indifferent (or malicious) reporter and some careless/reckless editing, resulting in creating the worst possible interpretation of what was said.

It seems Griff, you need to embiggen your vocabulary!

Well I'm not going to claim I'm right and you are wrong but have you considered that his revelation, that he couldn't afford to continue may have been his honorable ''get out'' rather than telling Elstone to stick it?

Oh well here we go again. You left something, (something critically important) out of your summary above. My impression was that David Argyle had enough cash and a ready willingness to support the club, indefinitely, if only he'd been made to feel welcome. Robert Elstone made it obvious from the start of his tenure that Toronto weren't wanted and he did his utmost to undermine them at every opportunity. It wasn't just what he said either, it was the tone of sneering contempt for them, which I'm convinced, encouraged David Argyle to turn away from continuing to spend millions to keep the enterprise afloat when he was being reviled by the (penniless) organisations so called, ''Chief Executive''. I don't think either, that Toronto had reached anywhere near their potential and Argyle would have been planning for significant growth in fan engagement and financial backing lessening his personal financial burden. Oh by the way, I'm not arguing this as fact, it's just an opinion piece but I believe people like to work with others who are like minded, and (ideally) friendly and at the very least respectful of their business partners efforts and financial contributions. All of that was absent from Elstone's correspondence with David Argyle.

I'm getting fed up of the endless speculation without any confirmation. I'm going to tune out until something happens. If you don't mind, tip me off when you hear some real news?

I think this was the daftest thing he ever did.

Do we have any reliable numbers on the actual sales for Wembley today?

Has anyone got any actual news?

Good old Leeds United.

This is good news isn't it?

Enjoy it.

Come on BBC get your act together!