Hello

Yep, Argentina would love to play Brazil at football with a Brazilian ref, they'd have no problem at all.....

That conversation doesn't happen because the person talking would assume the ref is from a neutral country

Deep holes in the ground with water at the bottom make me feel sick. I am not a well man.

Any idea on any attendance figures?

I agree to an extent, though I don't think that it would require massive determination for Toronto at that point as they would have been a success for themselves and SL because they were already touching 10,000 crowds in the championship. By now, they would likely have moved to an increased capacity stadium in SL and good chance been getting the best crowds in the league, if covid hadn't intervened. The knock-on effect in terms of interest would have been great for the sport and Super League and potentially have helped boost televison income. However, though Cornwall's efforts and crowd levels are very impressive for what they are, and I truly respect that, it's brilliant, the population of the entire county is far smaller than Toronto, so the potential for crowds is far lower. To get the crowds they have been getting in such a spread out, low population area, with an awkward-to-get-to stadium has been amazing, but has massive limiting factors. Sadly, I can't seem them sticking around for long under the circumstances presented by League one with its funding and travel costs. I, for one, couldn't understand why Perez went from the ambition of choosing a massive place like Toronto to choosing a club in a location which has such said limiting factors on potential crowds. If he were to go for expansion in the UK, i would have thought he might have chosen somewhere less remote with a greater population nearby and therefore greater potential such as e.g. Bristol. That's my two pennies-worth.

I really respect your work Gomersall with all your posts about the developing nations, but, with all due respect, as a fan of Liverpool FC who has been to Anfield a number of times I've never felt like I would be crushed there. As I say, total respect to you as a poster who goes the extra mile to highlight the positives that no one else seems to at e.g. reporting on the Netherlands I love reading abouting that stuff..............

No chance!

Let's see how this pans out in the next 10 years

I don't agree with the argument that some make that SL should not have more teams because they would be weaker than the teams that are already in the league. All leagues in all sports have stronger and weaker teams - e.g. Fulham, Sheffield United, Burnley etc were never expected to challenge for the Premier League in football this season, and yet these teams get big crowds and pretty much no one suggests that the Premier league should be reduce from 20 teams. The very act of having these teams in the top league creates interest at these clubs and increases attendances and interest for their fans, investors, and players. Also, the big teams would enjoy having more variety in the places that they visit as opposed to boring loop fixtures. This, along with the three up three down PR system increases interest across the board. The people running RL and many of the fans just don't seem to get it.

OK so those who are in the majority are contributing far less on this thread and particularly with their voting on the BBC thread then. In fact, they are strongly outnumbered in their contributions.

That's one way of looking at it.

Yep, nearly every fan voting on posts regarding this on the BBC is against what's been announced today and rightfully so. Check out the comments section at the bottom of the link. https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-league/67215216

Fair play to Netherlands, they are showing the way forward with a "can do" attitude and playing game after game at international level.

I seem to remember reading, and I'm totally prepared to be corrected on this because I'm questioning myself, that the 'A' grading teams would be protected from relegation from SL but that other teams wouldn't. On this basis, I conclude that if London finish second bottom and another 'B' team below them then London would avoid relegation. But according to what people are saying here, there's no point in them trying because they are ranked 24th and lowest of the SL teams and therefore would go down whaterver. Only one of these scenarios can be true - can anybody pitch in with some clarification?

It's the same in all sports Blues Ox - money talks. The hope would be/is to get more teams talking

Hope so, to see such large enthusiastic crowds at a new domestic club in a new country would be fantastic for the sport!

Short term 14 would not be unrealistic. Of course some teams would be weaker, like any league ever.

Absolutely, you are right. But that's not the answer to the question why do people (in general) want 14 The union world cup is breaking records in attendance, viewing etc left right and centre, while RL contracts more and more. Action is urgently needed to try and reverse this, surely?

Because they want to expand the game

I agree with this, but I hope that they can get themselves in gear to reverse some of this decline.

Sorry to ask, but not wanting to trawl through lots of pages to find the answer, can someone tell me the latest ticket sales for the final? From what I've gathered they have been promising figures so far.......

But Leauge 1 in football is the third tier, like in RL, but unlike RL it is below 44 teams in the Premier League and Championship. Plus, this is a very personal level of competition to the teams involved, not like the Challenge Cup, which equates to the FA cup, or the Grand Final, which equates to winning the Premier League. So there's no comparison. RL would bite your hand off to have 5% of 54k attending the RL League 1 play-off final. In such a hugely popular sport, why would many neutrals choose to go to the play off final of the third tier, more than 44 teams down the pecking order?

True

If that's close to true, then proportionally that s solid progress on two or three years back I think

One thing is, at pretty much any given point in the season nearly every squad can rightly say that they have key players injured. That`s the nature of such physical sport. For sure there is luck in who gets the most key players injured, but it´s not always easy to judge who has been the "unluckier" with injuries because so many players get injured during the course of a season.