Worzel

I swear any feel good factor is only in the minds of blokes in their 50's and 60's, not today's much-larger NRL audience The game has moved on a long time ago. The Bears are an irrelevance and a distraction and I've no idea why a Perth franchise would entertain the idea of giving away some of their home games to be played at North Sydney Oval... the team is already going to play 9 or 10 matches in Sydney every season as it is!! In an ideal world we'd have more games in Western Australia than one team's home games can provide, not less.

It was worse, you have no idea. Give it time though, give it time... I hope!!

I think the issue with the BBC is the lack of cross-promotion. The *only* reason to be on the BBC is to reach audiences who wouldn't otherwise be actively looking for rugby league. We should have insisted on a certain framework of cross-promotion of the matches in exchange for selecting them as a broadcast partner, and if we didn't then we've been a bit negligent I think. Channel 4, whilst notionally having a smaller reach, clearly worked much, much harder to let their general audiences know that they broadcast rugby league and when matches were. They even created custom trailers advertising the respective stories of the two participants. Their approach was night & day to the BBC's approach. Think we've dropped the ball here in allowing the Beeb to get away with cursory efforts.

It isn’t an each-way bet, far from it: The defending team can run the ball out, or far worse if you kick long you concede a 20m restart (and potentially a fast one where your defence isn’t set). It seems clear that the addition of an extra tackle to the latter downside has been sufficient to discourage the grubber, which means we see less positive attacking kicks on the 5th tackle now, and I think that is a bad thing. I’ve always been indifferent to the 2 point field goal. It’s very rarely attempted anyway.

The short grubber is predominantly designed to create a try-scoring opportunity. It only creates a repeat set if a side defends it. However, even if it only created a try-scoring opportunity a minority of times (perhaps that’s the case), that amount of times is infinitely greater than the final drive and surrender tackle designed to turnover the ball tight in the corner, or the final kick floated to the corner but rarely contested. Those two options are both designed to get the same result: A boxed-in yardage set which can be defended by a compressed umbrella defence. I vote for incentivising the option which at least creates a try-scoring opportunity some of the time.

That's entirely irrelevant, and not even true (we have many rules where the sanction depends on the grade of mis-step). But as I said it is irrelevant because rugby League is a game with rules designed to increase the level of entertainment. It's very far from a "pure" sport, and consistency between different rules' relative sanction is not a requirement. The rules are a calibrated balance between incentives and disincentives, designed to optimise attractive play. My judgement about an "unfair punishment" is precisely that, a judgement made in that context: Increasing entertainment. I'm simply arguing that short kicks to the in-goal are almost always attacking motions, with positive intent to create a scoring opportunity. That is what people pay for: To see those, and to watch teams defend against them. It makes perfect sense to better reward (or reduce the penalty for error) that action, to encourage it to happen more often. At present the fear of a 7-tackle set reduces the incentive to be progressive, and increases the incentive to be conservative. Our sport has continually evolved rules in the interest of the former, and it'd be perfectly consistent to do so in this case. That's why rugby league isn't always the best sport for a pedant

Perhaps, but to be fair he said "pretty much dead", so not quite the full parrot. I think sometimes in order to have any chance of moving forwards it helps to fully admit where you are, no matter how sad or confronting that may be, and then make an active decision that you want a better outcome and so will have to do things differently. Otherwise "pretty much dead" really does evolve into "dead", which is what we all want to avoid?

The fact that some 7-tackle sets don't get called 7-tackle sets doesn't materially change the fact that in sets from a 20m restart you are given 7 tackles, so they are quite clearly "7-tackle sets". Now if you want to argue that the other instances should always be described as such by commentators, then sure I'll help you right some nice placards, or perhaps sign your change.org online petition. That's fine. But making the argument that a set with 7 tackles in it isn't a set with 7 tackles in it is pretty difficult. Like you, I won't apologise for my pedantry on this topic.

I think that cynically kicking the ball out on the full, enabling you to set your defence ready for a 20m tap, should be disincetivised and a 7-tackle set reasonably does that. With a long kick out of yardage you have the whole pitch to aim at, and an additional 8-10 metres of in-goal safety valve so you're already given a decent contingency for slight 'good faith' error. It also isn't game play I pay my money to watch. If I liked watching long tactical kicks I've watch the other lot. Grubbers on the other hand are more-times-than-not an attempt to score a try. Even the possibility of them keeps a line defence on edge, which again makes try-scoring actions more likely with ball in hand too. So I think that is game play we do not want to discourage. How do you feel about it?

I missed the bus on that one, clearly

This would be a sensible evolution. We even have the red lines to police it already, although I'd say 20m rather than 40m. I really do think that a 7-tackle set is an unfair punishment for a slightly long grubber, and the consequence has been that it has disincentivised attacking kicks like people say, resulting in more conservative last play options in the red zone. Our game should be about encouraging positivity near the try line, not discouraging it.

Can't you get the train instead? Oh.

I'm not sure constructive assessment is knocking them? The reality on the ground is that London Broncos will be back in the Championship next season, with an uncertain pathway back into Super League and no surety that the club's economics can ever add up below the top-level. I think that's worth discussing, especially as the biggest challenge for rugby league is talent pipeline and London - for all it's imperfections - has demonstrated its clear potential to be the biggest single driver of increased participation in our game. There is an opportunity there, one worth considering how we pursue it as a sport.

This is all true. I think what I would have liked to have seen was, in the 1997-2012 period I described, the RFL and David Hughes sit down and design a coherent London/South pyramid. One with the Broncos at the top, and then Skolars and Hemel etc running as proper feeder organisations as the Broncos development pyramid, with an integrated London Academy running through that organisation. Ideally with a 5 or 10 year Super League guarantee for the Broncos, to enable all of this long-term planning to not be undermined by one bad season on the pitch. The resources existed at that point to do so, but it seemed to me at that time that neither the RFL, London Broncos and indeed nor the Skolars and others wanted to do that. Politics and short-term thinking abound I'm afraid. Once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.

Brentford and Twickenham - which were realy only a stones throw apart - were the big chance to get it right. For 15 years between 1997-2012 the club played pretty consistently in the same part of West London, in decent-ish facilities and for a lot of it coinciding with Sport England-funded development officers. Unfortunately during this time David Hughes wouldn't listen to the voices in the club suggesting a better mix of investment, with more in marketing and community/pathways development, and his focus remained almost entirely on the first team playing squad with only token efforts made in other directions. If either David, or frankly also the RFL, had taken a more strategic-minded path in that decade then we could have seen Broncos develop into a club rather than a team. Unfortunately neither did, and now we are where we are. It could still be done now, but David is 25 years older and the RFL has even less money now than it did then, so I genuinely think the moment has passed.

Indeed. Much as I find this all quite amusing, it’s genuinely baffling how the club has got to this spot, given the heritage of the club and the size and engagement of the fanbase. I know Pearson isn’t the super-wealthy benefactor you’d ideally have, but he’s put enough money in to get a solid “compete for the playoffs” squad. Not this shambles. Huddersfield and Salford I’d understand, those are husks really, that punch about their weight. But Hull FC should be more like Wigan and Saints. This did make me laugh earlier though…

Can’t believe they posted that on their own socials

I think I’ve spotted the issue. Hull FC have been practicing letting people through the defensive line as a warm up

This soap opera gets better every week

I only came here to make this comment Waite-Noble-ball, the innovation that bored thousands of people to death

Game over. You can’t give 4 yardage penalties and 3 soft tries from a weakness in defensive structure and still expect to beat a good side. Basically gave Wire an 18 point handicap, and then started to play. Ah well, we learn the lessons and move on to next week.

Video ref was gagging to not give that. Maybe he could have watched it another 5 times?

It’s clearly a designed defence, but Sam B has done his homework and decided to trigger it with a well-architected edge attack.

Hiku has jumped out of the line 4 times. Warrington have scored 3 tries as a result. Unless he’s been told to do that during the week, I’d genuinely sub him off at this point.

I have to say, I am enjoying this season’s unexpected soap opera. Who needs the “excitement” of a relegation battle when you can have this instead? More twists and turns than Eastenders in the peak Den & Angie years. All it needs now is for Adam Pearson to buy out Derek’s caravan decking business for Hull FC to get the full set of Leigh assets. You heard it here first.