Worzel

Don't you start coming here with a load of rational, analytical, well-argued stuff. We've no time for it! I agree, most of what he says is total b######, I just like the core structure part and would like to see it. I think we've made huge progress in the last 18 months by focusing in the areas where we're strong and doing what we're best at, and would like to take the final step we need to take.

Re: 4, wishy-washy corporate speak is my whole game, it's paid for my house, car, holidays plus many leather-bound books and an apartment that smells of rich mahogany just like Ron Burgundy

Better than that, it's my message board post, and that's why I love it. See above.

It wasn't the 2021 plan, I agree, but it is the 2025 plan. I'm not a fan of Richardson generally (I think he's a blowhard) but even a stopped clock is right twice a day... credit where credit is due his 2025 concept is clearly evolved from the 2021 one, and in the right direction. The 2021 plan is now a strawman, and we can ignore it. The 2025 plan is different from where are right now in many important ways: Reducing the comp size to 10 (and English clubs from 11 to 8), recognising how many sustainable "growth platform" clubs we have in this country and concentrating resources Recognising the value of having 2 French clubs, in both how that comp would be perceived collectively, and the impact of that comp in France No promotion or relegation, creating genuine certainty for investors to back long-term plans Integration of comp leadership with the NRL, enabling us to access resources, possible investment and creating a shared interest in the shared rewards of the international game These are important improvements on the current position, and absolutely better than the Beaumont/Nicholas/Wood revanchiste, counter-revolutionary concepts.

Blake Austin on the wing was the nadir of the "Aussies know best" culture that permeated our game for years, starting with the David Waite era of loose forwards playing at 6 to "counter the Aussies in defence", that Brian Noble then perpetuated.

I agree with an awful lot of this. Negging is a pretty immature wooing strategy, best left to Andrew Tate brainwashed teenagers. I'm certainly coaching my girls to be able to laugh at it. That said, the value on the table is clear: Ironically, it's the absolute clarity of what is needed at the elite level and the commitment to execute it come what may. We need a ring-fenced comp, shorn of any ongoing requirement to consider the individual interests of some club owners, and the smaller clubs. We focus on building the profile of that elite comp with a secure and equally-treated French component, whether 10 or 12, and through that creating value for the wider game that can then be cascaded to those other clubs via the 27% RFL slice being of a bigger cake. Non-selected clubs for "phase 1" can then be added later, when we have the central revenues to support them and selected on their own value-add. The English games lack of clarity on the need to do that, resulting in the watered down version we have now with its inherent limitations, is the "final boss" of this battle. It needs defeating. Only the NRL proposal offers that, all other ideas offer different flavours of the current diluted version of that strategy.

You might not be wrong The way he threw Galvin to the wolves with his press release, and then stood back and said “we were just being transparent” shows you precisely the type of operator he is. His success in the NRL versus his failure in England demonstrates precisely how much easier it is to sell rugby league Down Under. He’s like a living, breathing A/B test. Blake Solly is the same. Australian commentators, including some on here, would do well to reflect upon that interesting piece of benchmarking research before they flippantly dismiss decisions made in England under pressure with very limited resources.

Wakefield fans would have travelled, perversely.

The NRL need to start applying pressure to the journalists. The Bears benefit and part of the narrative is clear, but it doesn't need to be emphasised in such bald terms. I'm sure the people of Perth want a Perth team.

Yeah, er, I didn't. My only point, and I stand by it, is that Shane sets standards for others that he doesn't meet himself, in the same conversation. I say that as someone who is a fan of his Europe plan. I say it because I think he should also recognise the value Perth creates for the Australian competition (it will only be 'national' when the WA team is in there; the NRL runs a surplus so can afford to incubate Perth itself if it believes in the project, etc. etc. etc.), and whilst we're at it shouldn't flippantly describe how he's happy about PNG because his club got an extra $1.7m from it. Either you believe in the strategic bigger picture, and can think disruptively, or you cant. In this podcast he has his cake and eats it. It's easy to be "disruptive" and "creative" with other people's casino chips. There is a certain type of Australian who is happy to criticise northern hemisphere mistakes, whilst bristling at any critique of Australian administrators when they do similar things. Even when that criticism comes from someone who agrees with them. Nationalism does funny things at times.

I watched it all. Of course there’s nuance, but fundamentally he applies a blasé standard to others concern for their own self-interest, and a more rigorous one to something that may impact his own. I agree with him on NRL Europe, but Perth already has a compelling business case (way beyond any Toulouse has) and yet he’d subject it to a far higher threshold. The difference amused me!

Thanks, great share Couple of thoughts: 1. Richardson is of course right about NRL Europe. We need to see the wood for the trees, TV companies don’t buy “Batley” level content but if we can get them to pay more money for a closed elite comp that those clubs aren’t ever going to be in, then those clubs will get more money from the centre. It’s the only way we will all succeed. 2. But like most people, he finds it easier to see the bigger picture for others, but in his own back yard is as self-interestedly parochial as the “Batley” clubs he criticises here: In this hemisphere we should have French clubs because of what they add to the wider value proposition we’re wrapping up and selling, but simultaneously he believes that in his own hemisphere a new market like Perth has to be guaranteed to pay for itself or create direct additional value (because that directly impacts his club). I love the cognitive dissonance, or as a less generous person would describe it, outright hypocrisy of those conflicting positions

I think there are a couple of factors, at least what it seemed to me as an expat living out there and working in both Sydney and Melbourne. Firstly, rugby league works really well as a TV sport, whereas with AFL the viewing experience is completely different when you're physically there. The lack of an offside rule means that you need to be there in order to really understand what's going on, watching on TV is a bit like watching something through a letter box: You can see the stuff you're looking at, but other important things could be happening outside your field of view. Secondly, the VFL and then AFL were much more focused on club memberships than the NSWRL ever was, which created a different culture of attendance. In part this might be because the NSWRL clubs didn't need the large attendances in order to run pro clubs, because they had huge poker machine revenues to support the sports teams (whereas Victoria didn't have the same "leagues club" element to the business model). Partly it was also aided by the VFLs shift to centralised stadia use, that a larger geography of customers could be drawn to more easily (with a far better "radial" public transport system), whereas the Sydney rugby league organisation didn't really do that in anything like the same way. That culture of attendance takes time to embed, the NRL has a had a really big membership drive for 10-15 years now, but you're competing with a sport who have always had that culture. Culture takes a long time to shift.

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose", as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr used to say at the early meetings of the French Rugby League Federation.

Interesting. So basically they’re in the same ball park as us though I think rugby league can sell the fact we’re a different, elite sport, and get a better deal that way. Ultimately everyone knows Scottish football is not a tier one competition.

Scottish Football gets £30m/season from Sky. Key figures in their game believe its undersold because other minor European leagues get more, but then those other minor leagues aren't in as close geographic proximity to the Premier League so that's probably a discount factor.

I doubt there’s anything wrong with Dodd in training. Different coaches want different types of half backs for their attacking strategies, and Bennett clearly has a different vision in mind for Souths.

Hired by the former coach, presumably for a different vision of Souths attack. It's not like he's had a chance and failed is it? Sod's law for him... hopefully at least his contract is decent!

The "daft rules we have today" are there to protect the players health, and ultimately the entire viability of the sport given increasing insurance costs. Cust was rightly sent off, and because he missed 65 minutes of the match didn't get a ban as he has already been punished. I'm fine with that. In fact I prefer that to a sin bin followed by a ban because he was punished in the match he did it in, against the player and team he did it to. But to pretend he wasn't negligent in this day and age is nuts. Driving at 30 miles an hour in a residential area isn't negligent. But it is when you're approaching a couple of parked cars and there's a kid bouncing a tennis ball against the wall near them. Risk relates to context. Cust made a poor judgement in the context of where he was.

I can’t speak for Hull, but clearly they have brought some good talent through over the years. However I can speak for Rovers: I know some people with a kid in the KR system, and they tell me it is brilliant now. They looked at both options and said Rovers was now far better resourced. Our Academy team, which is mainly full of first years, have just beaten both Wigan and Hull away and this years Scholarship squad also looks good. I’m confident that with the new 3G pitch integrating us better with pathway clubs, and the forthcoming development hub with 3 full size pitches alongside Craven Park and a refurbed Waudby Centre, we’ll be able to attract really good talent. The club is certainly throwing resources at it. It just needs more time.

Yes you’re probably right in Lancashire and West Yorkshire. In the city of Hull however no kid is going to pick any club outside of Hull, because of the distances. This is why Hull FC’s exclusive membership of Super League for 11 years gave them a huge advantage, the whole city’s pathways fed into that club, and why it is taking Hull KR time to reverse that long-standing advantage. But reverse it we are. Hull FC and their fans convinced themselves that they were somehow “better” at youth development, and Rovers were somehow poor at it or not interested in it. But the reality was they were playing cards with a loaded deck, just as you’ve described, and now they no longer have that advantage things will soon be different. That’s good for our sport, because Hull can be a bigger nursery for talent and more kids will get access to more opportunities with two genuinely elite pathways. For a sport where participation growth and expanding elite pathways is a strategic priority, that can only be a good thing.

Look, it’s an opinion, of course it rests on an assumption. All I have is the evidence of previous performances to go on, and what I saw with my own eyes yesterday (versus how we normally structure sets), but it’s just a viewpoint. Peters’ KR side play in a very rigid framework though, one that even Wigan don’t disrupt (even when beating us), so I think it’s pretty obvious that our poor attacking performance and high resulting error rate probably came from the disruption of what facing 12 did to our mindset. It took until the final 15-20 mins to get the rhythm back.

Ah, you’ll have to forgive some over-enthusiasm at full time. We’re all human. My underlying point, clarified in calmer later posts (), was that Rovers would have performed far better against 13 men because when Hull went down to 12 we left our structures, overplayed and tried to score off every ball when we were inside your 30. The errors and penalties that then flowed were the only reason FC were in a position to score so often. Teams with 12 men are no less of an attacking threat, our only advantage is when we had the ball, but you need rigour to take advantage. That’s as much a criticism of Hull KR as anything else. But yes I do believe Rovers would have scored more points against 13, for these reasons. I also believe we’d have defended better, because most of Hull’s field position came from our ill-discipline, which came because we lost our patient structure. Maybe the word “stuffed” is excited hyperbole, but I stand by the point.

I said that Cartwright was just what Hull FC needed when he was appointed. I was in Australia when he had the Gold Coast job, and his teams over-performed. I was a Manly fan because I lived there, and you could see the improvement in their resilience when he was Assistant Coach. I know some Hull and Rovers fans want the other club to be 12th at best, with their team winning everything, but personally I’d like nothing more than FC and KR to be the new Wigan v Saints for the next decade, contesting matches that matter and even finals together.

I think FC did brilliantly with 12 men, and it’s a really good sign for the team’s resilience, their culture and how they’ll perform for the rest of the season. I also genuinely would have preferred 13 v 13, and think Rovers would have done a much better job against FC in that situation. FC have made great progress, but Rovers are currently a totally different class (and that is truly the only time I’ve thought that since 1985… ironically enough) In terms of the red card, if a Hull KR player had smashed a full backs head with their shoulder, at that speed, not contesting the ball, with no wrapping motion then I’d have been absolutely fine with a red card. Anyone looking for that to be a yellow card has been asleep for the last 5 years. Cust is accountable for his decisions. That doesn’t mean it was a malicious act, but it was dangerous and as clear a red as you’ll see.