Hela Wigmen

That’s no justification to effectively render the game part time.

Despite Martyn Sadler’s original idea being called out by the majority of people here, who’s clubs play at differing levels, rather than move on from another terrible idea (remember the halcyon days of cross division games he said everyone wanted?), he has doubled down and persists to push this agenda and idea of his.

Hi Martyn.

Could anyone describe Martyn’s proposal in a couple of sentences? I doubt it. I mean, for one, it’s in Leigh and not Wigan and two, I imagine that Wigan have ambitions of average crowds in excess of 12,000.

Doubling down on the daftest idea many have heard in Rugby League (which takes some doing in itself) is commendable.

If the best we can do to market a player is rhyme his name than that’s thoroughly depressing.

Why do Sky refer to him as “The Snake”? It’s weird.

Think his previous record has probably pushed it to three.

Yeah, expected 2-3 so it’s about right, really.

This.

When was the last time Saints, Wigan and Warrington lost in the same round? That can’t happen often.

Why would The RFL contact someone who’s not involved with a club? Did The RFL contact the current Skolars chairman?

I don’t think we ever saw the best of Shenton in a Saints shirt, which is quite sad as I was really happy when we signed him.

Yeah, a pretty big one or at least, was a pretty big fan. Someone dug up some anti-Saints stuff on his Facebook from about twelve years ago a few years ago but it was before the whole “cancel culture” thing really took off. I don’t know how often he gets Wigan games in all honesty or ever noticing him when he has done and they’ve been televised.

So you never agree with Miklauskas being given Wigan games, then?

Having been to the London Stadium and the Emirates but not Tottenham’s new stadium, I’m glad they’ve gone with Tottenham, I think the extra 2,000+ seats there compared with Arsenal probably helped swing it despite the Emirates being a bit more central.

You said that, not me. There’s plenty of options beyond loop games or padding the season out with poorly prepared clubs to prevent loop fixtures. Does Football put Bishop Auckland into the higher levels of the sport because they attracted thousands in the 50’s? What about Richmond RU, are they playing top flight rugby based on history and sentiment? The roots of the game is the amateur game, that’s where players are born and bred, on fields at Thatto Heath, Siddal, Leigh Miners, Wigan St Pats etc, not at Hunslet, Swinton or Doncaster. That’s where money should be sent, not some of the clubs in the lower leagues. Yeah but what about example x, y or z? You mean the rare instances that players make it having had to go backwards and down the leagues before coming back up? Rarities and with proper minimum standards, there’s Academies and Reserve grade to give these players a proper shot, instead of the cliff edge they find themselves at, at 18/19.

Meaningless games as in far too many rounds, for a start. 27-30 rounds, as we’ve flitted between in the past, is far too many and creates meaningless games. Lost a game? Never mind, there’s 29 rounds so it’ll be rendered meaningless because you’ve got so many games left. Watching Saints in 2019 become monotonous and dull. We were in the play-offs barring a minor disaster pretty early on into the year, the rest of the year was essentially training games, we went through the motions, invariably won, and rinse and repeat waiting for the proper rugby to start in September. Even our defeat to Cas on Friday, most people have just shrugged their shoulders as there’s little consequence to that defeat. We pad the season out with games, be it loop games, the 8’s or expanding the division to include sides way off being an elite level club on and off the pitch, it’s never worked regardless of 12 or 14 clubs in the competition. I’m a fan of the NFL (yeah, some people might not be, that’s irrelevant here), their short and snappy year of eighteen games is something I see plenty of positives in, for example. We had six years of fourteen and I really don’t think anyone improved that dramatically to use that as any kind of argument. The watering down comes from having a myriad of clubs at Super League and Championship level of pretty poor standards, I don’t see why you’d add to the issues you have by adding to it in the short-term (and most likely long-term, Wakefield’s ground looks like bomb damage from the war) just to lose loop fixtures. I would have no plans to increase from ten for at least ten years and even then, I wouldn’t necessarily do it, anyway. Rugby League has a succession of failed attempts at expansion and increasing league sizes and structures and most have failed. Having had no business plans and dropping clubs and formats into water and expecting them to swim, not sink only for the sport to have chucked them in ill-equipped. Going to two tens is the only way, for me. Minimum standards to be brought in alongside it requiring the twenty to have academies and possibly reserves too to bring in minimum standards we do desperately need, no more than twenty games in the league, do something with the cup to give that the lift it deserves, there’s space for internationals instead of Wakefield v Leigh three times a year and anything else they want to do whether that’s 9s, another tournament or whatever. Fourteen does all of the opposite of that, in my eyes.

We don’t need make believe rubbish. Rivalries go beyond Geographic locations. For me growing up, Saints v Bradford was a competitive rivalry based upon the success of the two and comfortably our biggest game besides playing Wigan. It was then replaced by Saints v Leeds when Leeds’ successful period took off.

We never had the quality for 14, IMO, and it was a long, long six years with utterly meaningless games and rewarding of mediocrity by extending the play-offs to flit between seven and eight sides. I think there argument for ten, certainly for me, goes beyond the quality of games. Ultimately, that’s the face of the sport and what we sell but we have plenty of clubs with ‘issues’ off the pitch (a lack of competent management, stadia issues, spending well below the cap, attendances, academies that are useless etc) and for me, widening the competition and watering down the competition just isn’t the answer and expanding the division only serves to lose loop fixtures and nothing else. The ‘issues’ I speak of at existing Super League clubs goes beyond Super League. For the positives the normal handful of golden geese clubs of the Championship have, there’s more issues to be added.

Just read Lam’s post match comments on social media and it’s actually astounding that he played for the club and has since coached them. “We’re trying to be a top four team” should not be words uttered from the mouth of a Wigan coach, for me, and I’m the furthest you could get from being a Wigan fan. He’s utterly clueless and out of touch.

What evidence is there that 12 is “worse” than 14?

I’ve not rated Lam in the slightest since he rocked up (I think they should keep him for a long, long time) but do they just let him get on with it, write the year off and go again next year with a new coach or do they sack him and hope there’s an upturn in form for the business end of the season? Surely, it’s the latter? I know Covid has had an effect and he’s only got a short time left on his contract but he’s almost certainly going, why wait? Even if who they want for 2022 isn’t available right now, you’d take a punt on someone else because they can’t do much worse than where Wigan are right now? That’s how I see it, looking from the outside in, anyway.

There’s definitely a bit of a competitive rivalry developing between the two over the last few years.

It’s how the wheels of economy works, it’s not a big deal but because it’s sport, it’s emotive and deemed “different”. Those clubs I mention are clubs with a purpose. They’re more than seventeen blokes on a Sunday and a result in the small print of the few nationals that print them. They’re hugely important community outlets, they have pathways, they have multiple sides, they have Academies. But yeah, let’s keep giving clubs like Swinton £75,000 a year. They’ve had well over £1m in the summer era and have what to show for it? They’re Swinton in name only. They own nothing, they have no pathways, no community ties (how many different grounds have they played at?), no real purpose or right being in the “professional game”. I say that as someone whose had a relative play for Swinton in finals and someone who spent a year of their time at Uni watching Swinton play out of Salford Red Devils’ Willows stadium in front of an ageing and declining support base. Now, Swinton aren’t the only club in that boat, there’s plenty of others and we’ve wasted millions on these clubs in 25+ years of summer rugby. Good businesses evolve. Rugby League doesn’t. I dare say, look at the makeup of Rugby Unions “elite”.