HawkMan

A possible solution to the P+R / growth of the game conundrum. Why not stop P+R for three years, allow teams to grow, nurture academy talent without fear of the cliff edge and then resume p+r after that. The Championship could be kept alive by having the points gained in season 1 of no promotion and of seasons 2+3 tallied up at the end of season 3, and whoever has the highest points total for the three seasons of no p+r gets promoted. Likewise in SL whoever has the lowest points total tallied up after three years of no relegation gets the chop. If you've been the worst over three years you deserve to be relegated.

Very good point. I've often wondered if SL teams sharing stadia or towns/cities with Premiership teams affects attendance figures. Did the Warriors figures drop when the Latics were in the Prem ? Or Hull FC or HKR. If the Elland Road mob get promoted will the Rhinos see a drop ? Possibly if they both have games on Sunday afternoon.

Actually a lot of soccer fans do have a favourite team in another sport, just not RL. In my youth I used to watch Essex play in the 40 over Sunday league cricket, BTW a great tournament, the number of West Ham fans there were astonishing . At The Oval it was Crystal Palace and Chelsea fans. At Headingley there were plenty of Leeds United fans etc. Today at Test and ODI matches you see soccer club banners, such as Manchester United barmy army. Cricket got there first for footy fans , of course copious booze consumption makes the cricket more appealing.

I don't think football has too many problems frankly. Petulant players ,some gobby unpleasant fans, yes, but in a crowd of say 40000 you'll get more of those then in a crowd of 8000 say. But none of this has stopped the spread of soccer. What countries do not have a professional soccer league? Not many, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc as cricket is king, India does have a football version of IPL. I can't think.of anymore. RL would love to have footy's " problems " Or would it? Is it better to be global but driven by greed or small but true to its roots of decency and respect.

I know Catalans have issues with French tv rights, but couldn't Sky have paid a one off fee to show this game ? It'll definitely have been a ratings winner. If Lionel Messi suddenly signed for Man United next week I'm sure Sky would pay to show his debut even if it's an outside of contract game. Is Sky prohibited from producing Les Cats home games.

Oh the delicious irony ! If there was anything positive out of Folau's signing it was publicity and people would be interested in seeing him debut if only to hope he fails, and it's not on TV. You couldn't make it up. We know Union would love to keep League down, and those running our game are doing a great job of mismanaging it, it's almost as if the top brass of the RFL are closet Uni.........no let's not go down that road.

C'mon guys give Merson a break. He's battled personal demons and come through the other side, and he's always entertaining. If RL had such a well known personable character we'd be in better shape as far as general recognition with the public. Typical Mersonism; " Liverpool leading 2-1, but City's Sterling headers it against the beans and toast and taps in the rebound so it's now Desmond "

Getting the ball out, as Jimmy Hill used to say, Will Liverpool go the whole season undefeated? Will Leicester stay in the top four? Will Solskjaer be United manager next season? Will Leeds balls it up again? I think, No, Yes, Yes, and Yes

Talking of palindromes: A man, a plan, a canal, Panama

In soccer I don't believe you can just rely on the refs asking VAR to intervene only. There's so much happening, much of it behind the refs back, that the refs themselves feel they need help. So many errors were occurring that VAR was necessary. Did a defender touch a player's ankle first then the ball, or the other way around? Did a defender move his arm to the ball or not,was it ball to arm, the refs just can't see everything. Of course for over a hundred years the game was doing fine without VAR, but once it came in it made sense to make full use of it. You can't have a ref giving a crucial wrong decision and not asking for help when VAR can see the mistake. Probably RL refs are more open to admitting that they're not sure of a decision, a lot of soccer refs seem arrogant to me and be less likely to ask for help. As for my newspaper comment, I meant the game gets more publicity because of controversy and in a small way, I stress small way helps to maintain the game's dominance. On Sky's Sunday Supplement journalists show, the guys on there repeatedly were worried that VAR would eradicate pub debates, arguments over match decisions, if every decision was squeaky clean and perfect then journos would have to stick to reporting on match action, very dull. Today Mourinho went berserk on the touchline over Sterling diving, very telegenic we'll be seeing that shot many times over the next week , and splashed over the papers. Publicity......priceless.

You obviously don't watch a lot of football. The VAR official checks every goal for possible offside or handball and alerts the ref if an obvious mistake is made. If no mistake is made the game goes on. Today at Spurs the VAR official decided it was a penalty and protocol required telling the ref after the next break in play. But Man City kept possession of the ball , as is their style, so the VAR official told the ref to stop play. The refs have been told not to go to the screen in matters of " fact" ie offside, line decisions etc., but possible red cards is another matter. The refs can go to the screen if VAR suggests he missed an offense, or mistaken identity cases. The thing that surprises me is that fears that controversy would disappear has proved to be wrong. THIS IS GOOD, CONTROVERSY SELLS. Tomorrow's papers will be full of VAR chat, from a number of games.

There's a really nice pub in the west of London that always has a SL match on one of their screens on Thursday or Friday evenings. Not been there at weekend though. The Black Bull in Victoria Road Ruislip, nearest station Ruislip Gardens. Good luck finding any pub on Sunday showing the games, particularly in North London, Arsenal and Tottenham are both on Sky this Sunday.

Brilliant! The new season is upon us, the media is actually doing a decent job of promoting SL, there's real interest in Wolfpack, SBW, great publicity, so much to look forward to, THEN BANG! TGG shoots itself in the foot again. Oh well, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I did say this is for fun. But there's a serious point, people do get confused, in the business world if a product isn't reaching the required number of customers a name change is an option, ie Marathon to Snickers. It's 100% certain in 2021 when the world cup starts some folks will be puzzled, they'll wonder why there's a WC when the last was in 2019 in Japan. Some may even start watching thinking they'll see line outs and contested scrums. I'm not for one moment saying I want a name change and throw a hundred years of history under the bus, but marketing strategists will tell you name changing is a valuable tool.

The new season is upon us soon, so here's a silly idea to bow out the close season. My brother is pretty sports savvy, regular Arsenal watcher, good golfer, plays off a low handicap, laps up the Olympics and Tennis and watches Yawnion, well okay he's got his faults! But he had NO IDEA what RL was. He actually thought Union meant international competition and Rugby league was Union club matches. The public do get confused with union and league, I regularly come across this, we may all do. It's the word " Rugby" in both sports. Nobody confuses Basketball and Netball and they're similar sports. But supposing Netball was NEVER called that, but called British Basketball, right from its inception, yep British Basketball, what confusion what reign now. " Basketball ? Sorry pal do you mean American or that British game" So here's a question could TGG benefit from a total split from Union, even NAMEWISE, call it something else, nobody would ever confuse the two again. This is just a bit of fun, it'll never happen, but what would you call TGG ? It's not easy to think of something, I've thought long and hard and come up with POWERBALL. Any ideas ?