HawkMan

Well as someone not immersed in the game from youth, but came into it about 7 years ago , I always found his comments helpful in following the action. I'm sorry he's leaving. If they have another lined up for the role, fine, but if they decide not to bother to save money, that's worrying.

This is a genuine question, I'm not making a point, but why does the Premier League/Sky relationship work with P+R. Sky don't lower their bids because of relegation. Of course the big clubs are unlikely to go down, but the same is true in SL. I can't see Saints, Warriors, or Wire or Rhinos going down either.. I can't see Amazon if they want SL saying, " we must ensure the global brands of ...er.. Castleford and Wakefield remain before we hand over the dosh " Why did Amazon bid for the EPL ? Because they knew NAILED ON that large numbers would at least sign up for a month. There simply isn't enough of us fans to make showing RL worthwhile. Amazon are a global name, the only sports that would interest them IMO are Soccer, (big leagues only), NFL,NBA, for an Asian audience, IPL, , and something not previously mentioned Boxing. What would Amazon have given for Ruiz vs Joshua last Saturday.

BINGO! YES IT'S A WIND UP!! I carefully worded the title using" Oh , it does now" as in "oh dear" No one bit the hook, I wonder if anyone will now?! Unfortunately no one revealed the BBC/Portillo thread was a wind up. I've made my point, conspiracy theorists should get a life.

But they did go off topic to mention his mental health charity,and he's an ex England captain involved in RL , that surely is worth a passing mention at least. I don't necessarily expect him to pipe up about it but Chapman could have said , " great work Tony, and you spread your charity work to RL terrific" , or something similar.

Surprised no one started this before now. The dastardly deed was committed over twelve hours ago. No one here watched the FA Cup draw last night, fair enough, I did though out of genuine interest, but also because Tony Adams was doing the draw and I wanted to see if RL.got a mention. When Mark Chapman introduced him and mentioned the charity work he does, then BINGO, yes RL.would get mentioned, or so I thought. But no! Adams talked about an FA initiative that he's involved in about mental health, very worthy, but no RL recognition even though he does similar work there too, and Chapman a RL presenter would know of this. I don't usually go for a conspiracy theory to ignore RL.but this seemed a tad suspicious.

Well Sony Bill got three results right to Lawro's five. Not great by either, but there was some surprising results.

Sorry this is total drivel. Do you seriously think the BBC bosses say to Portillo, " we've got a Union angle in this weeks show, but whatever DON'T MENTION LEAGUE, we can't have that sport getting publicity, okay Michael" Also they don't just show RL one day a year. Comforting though to believe in a conspiracy to keep RL down isn't it? Means you can blame someone else.

This is a lot of nonsense guys. The BBC show RL, one of the few live sports they have in their portfolio, why should they act deliberately against it, or ignore it ? They don't micro manage a programme like Portillo's, it's up to him what goes into it. He obviously is a RU follower so that explains why RU went into it. I'm so much more confident that the BBC will be showing the Challenge Cup in five years time then I am of Sky showing Super League. Some seriously believe there's a conspiracy against RL, but any conspiracy must have a definite aim. For example those who believe in the Princess Di conspiracy believe the crash was faked to cover up her murder , a definite reason, though I quickly add, a ludicrous one. What would be the aim of conspiring against RL ? WHY BOTHER. RL doesn't need help to keep it niche, it does that very well itself....sadly.

If I called my wife the most beautiful woman I'd be implying that others are not as beautiful, a lesser beauty, however calling her the beautiful woman doesn't imply anything about any other women, football calls itself the beautiful game, what that means about the beauty of anything else is not implicit. Yeah, I admit calling itself TGG doesn't imply others are rubbish, but does imply that others are of lesser quality. Anyway the whole beauty,greatness thing is subjective. I don't usually check RU forums, I just wanted to test a theory that such a forum.had RL pages.

Calling itself the beautiful game is not the same as the MOST beautiful game. TGG implies other games are rubbish. I remember the RL correspondent on The Times, Chris Irvine saying that when Mike Stephenson used TGG phrase on Sky Sports News he felt like cringing. It immediately put people off RL. A bit of humility is no bad thing. Also RL fans seem overly concerned with Union, it's taboo or a subject of ridicule. I can't stand it myself but again humility towards it might be better. Union fans can chat about league with respect. Check this out, pages of RL on a Union forum. https://www.therugbyforum.com/forums/super-league-northern-hemisphere.57/

Have no real gripe with Sony Bill's predictions except somehow I don't think Spurs vs Bournemouth will be goalless!!!! Southampton and Manchester United to win, yep, but not scoring five,1-0 United and 2-1 Southampton.

Truth is many RL fans are insular and parochial, the game generally doesn't open itself up to the masses. Some , can't talk about other sports without being patronising,and calling itself TGG doesn't help matters. The public at large have no views on RL , those that do are either fans or have a view of it as " that Northern game " whose fault is that ? There is no generic views on RL that the public hold , as they do with Brexit, Corrie or cheeseburgers or whatever. However on forums for other sports you often get good knowledge and respect for RL in surprising places, see link. http://www.footballforums.net/threads/rugby-league.267234/

I too watch a bit of K+C, and I love my cricket. BTW why Root was ever made captain is beyond me, he never seemed right to me. But it bothers me , or used to bother me that I couldn't relax in front of Sky Sports News for an hour and enjoy because it's all soccer talk. So even though I have little interest in the results of footy , I follow the managers and coaches, so now I know what the chat on SSN is about. Mourinho, Klopp, Guardiola etc, I don't have an interest in the scores but watching these guys on the touchline is entertaining in itself. Now if our coaches did THAT, we might get some publicity. What is the saying? All publicity is good. Lets have Powell, McDermott et al leaping up and down showing passion, arguing, get their antics on SSN, then we might get noticed.

Any views on Arsene Wenger's theory about why football is popular, that I posted earlier. See above.

If we chose six countries, doesn't matter which, and say sport A is the national sport in none of them, but 2nd or 3rd in all of them, and sport B is national sport in one and not played in the other five, which is the more popular? A I think. Field Hockey probably isn't the national sport anywhere but is played all over, while RL has PNG and bits of Oz , North England and Pacific islands. So being a national sport isn't necessarily a deciding factor. Truth is we all know which sport is truly global, American sports because of the vast finances carry on in their merry way, not global but they couldn't care less, cricket is massive in the sub continent and does okay in half dozen other countries, Union despite what they want to believe is pretty small, and all other team sports are niche to some extent. Single player sports are a whole new can of worms, lets not go there!, and geez, I forgot Motor Sport , big eh?