Jughead

And right on queue, the same old. Pot and kettle Edward, pot and kettle.

The more I think about it, the more I would probably support an eight if it meant the women’s and wheelchair tournaments were saved. As a standalone, I’m less convinced but I could probably get behind it if there was a genuine plan to expand. The idea of a second right team competition running beneath the proposed one may sound like it’s interesting and giving the other nations a like-for-like competition with games against relative nations but financially and public interest levels, I’m not sure it’s remotely viable. We got okay crowds for games between the smaller nations last year but I’m not sure in a Not The Real World Cup Cup that there would be the same interest levels in this country, let alone on the other side of the equator. Would Wales v Cook Islands pull 6,000+, Lebanon v Jamaica pull 5,000+ etc? I’m not so sure they would. There were some questions about Scotland, Ireland, Italy and it may have also been Greece (I feel like they were also mentioned but I cannot be sure) regarding the legitimacy of the places in the 2022 tournament given the rulings about domestic clubs and leagues, so why are we beating the drum for their inclusion in the proper tournament when they have little to no infrastructure in many cases (though I know the Greeks are getting the building blocks in place now)?

Semantics. The Eddie Way.

I find highly odd that you picked on the Lebanese yet Wales, also mentioned in your post, were not mentioned despite having players in the 22 WC side born in famous Welsh towns such as Wollongong, Widnes, St Helens and Hamilton, New Zealand.

What does the ancestry of the Lebanese team have to do with anything?

One home game in Wales in five years might be a decent starting point.

They just don’t look right without the sponsors. That last one with the sponsors was a nice shirt.

Are they? There was a spike in ticket sales post England pumping Samoa on day one of the World Cup. Or at least that’s what we were told. England games certainly did well and that result harmed nobody.

It’s better for who? The people that watch England RL? I’m sure the casual and sports even crowd are bothered a little less by how close a game is.

An eight team men’s tournament of England, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, PNG and Lebanon sounds quite good in theory. There should be some good, close and hard to predict games within the pools and then the semifinals. It’s the best eight nations on the planet and there’s some real uncertainty around outcomes of games there. It’s the sort of international tournament we should be behind and looking to create. The above replacing the World Cup and that World Cup, locking out clubs from even being able to qualify and not including a women’s or wheelchair tournaments, however, is not so good. I don’t think I would be as disappointed if the drop to eight meant we maintained the women’s and wheelchair tournaments but to drop to eight and to not include them does feel like a kick in the stomach, when those two tournaments were the shining lights of the 2021 iteration.

Luke Gale had a great year at Cas in 2017. He’s been pretty poor since.

Worst performance in Super League history is quite the stretch. The Salford team that had eighty odd put on them by Bradford, the Wigan team that lost by 70 to Leeds, most London performances in 2014, most Halifax performances in 2022 and probably many other heavy scorelines are probably up there.

I think it’s a pretty poor look for an already poor looking sport (thankfully because of the profile of the sport, an elite sportsmen and his mates having to flog personal stuff to pay for an operation won’t be picked up by any media outlet). It’s also not a dig at anyone, just re-using a thread title that got clicks. Call me Callum Walker, if you will, please.

Yes mate, I’m Tetevano’s accountant. Of course not. Just reporting what is out there in the public domain.

Blake Austin is selling a signed NZ All Blacks shirt to raise money for this “hefty bill”. I would say that they are some pretty solid facts.

Blake Austin has posted to his instagram that Zane Tetevano “has been left with a hefty bill” following heart surgery. It begs the question, why have Leeds not picked this up?

The key to improving the experience at Magic, to gain further public and broadcaster recognition is to target…the people of Sunderland.

All a bit directionless at Widnes at the minute, they just seem to be bumbling along from week to week without any semblance of a plan or strategy.

Superten always shows up every few months with another madcap idea. I’m off to think of a chant for the St Helens Liverpool Saints with all my Viking friends.

Think Walters and Chan are good signings, four years on a bang average Leeming is farcical but then again, Powell has been around for ten.

And yet some still occasionally cheerlead for a Koukash return to the game.

A final 25 years ago when media consumption was very different? Jesus.

Wigan v Huddersfield - Big club who’ve won it more than anyone else v underdogs, hadn’t won the cup since 1953, from where the game was invented Saints v Cas - B2B League champions v massive underdogs who haven’t won it since 1986. Leeds v Salford - Covid cup final, big club v massive underdog who haven’t won it since 1938. Saints v Warrington - two big clubs in modern times, though trophies have not quite matched the investment at Wire, Wire were underdogs and a relatively local derby. Catalans v Warrington - Catalans were underdogs, only the second time they’d been to a final, French side at Wembley etc. That’s the last five finals and they mainly follow the narrative you think the media would like. Now, I don’t remember there being the media pile on for any of those finals and I don’t see how Leigh v Wigan, Saints v Wigan, Leigh v Hull KR or Saints v Hull KR are going to suddenly do what the previous five finals didn’t.

Just for reference, there’s been four Saints v Wigan finals in the past twenty years (that’s 40 finals, by the way), so hardly “yet another”.

What is this “boost” people talk of when saying that the game would receive one if [insert club name] won a trophy? Would I struggle to get a ticket for Wembley in 2024 for the first time ever? Would the game suddenly be awash with new investment and sponsorship? Would broadcasters sit up and throw cash at the sport? Would playing numbers swell significantly?