bowes

How on Earth are you including Leigh in Lancashire but not Widnes? Makes no logic whatsoever either they're both Lancashire or neither is. That's before we get onto the facts that if Yorkshire exists then Barrow is in Lancashire making it: Yorkshire 7, Lancashire 3, France 1

Administratively Cheshire doesn't exist at all, there's West Cheshire & Chester, East Cheshire, Halton and Warrington with no county council. Likewise Merseyside doesn't exist administratively it is separate boroughs one of which is St Helens

They have Barrow Laikers in the National Youth League but nothing professional

Their reserves packed in midseason

In this case there is only one possible absolute fact that RU is wider spread than RL at the professional level. You can't have an opinion on it. An opinion is whether RL will ever catch up with RU on this spread or not

Actually no 2nds (3rds, 4ths...) play in merit leagues.

One issue not often mentioned is RU traditionally had more senior clubs up north than in any other region so because there were so many near each other there was less support for any individual one and thus it was harder to attract enough support when the game went pro (Leeds are a merger of Headingley and Roundhay think of in RL terms how big crowd the equivalent would get and would supporters of other West Yorkshire clubs go watch them?) Twickenham and surrounding areas was the other area with too many clubs hence mergers, relocations and clubs dropping down the leagues, historically there was not a single senior club in the entire South East outside of London but 10 in London!

I doubt it's lots more, but is a bit more I'd have thought

I was thinking attendance wide but fair point though RL has more of a TV culture than RU so more complex with regards to it being an indication of interest.

County cricket is overrepresented but I wouldn't say international is as there is a lot of interest. Club RU should in honesty get more coverage than club RL but not to the extent it does as the crowds are only a little higher on average and big RL crowds are very big. Depends on how well a particular paper sells in the north as well I suppose as people from RL areas are more likely to buy a left leaning paper I would have thought, hence the Guardian gives more RL and there's much less in the Daily Mail

The difference is whether something is measurable, which something like spread of teams is, but there's no point carrying this on of course. You can't have an opinion on whether a cow or elephant is bigger

Season tickets aren't valid for playoffs. But yes you'd think people would want to go anyway. Their crowds aren't great but next to Salford or Quins they're okay so it's all relative.

Because they are, 30 miles from Widnes. A matter of debate on them and Scorpions of course depending on whether you're including Wales or not.

Stop abusing the rules to avoid admitting you were wrong. A lie is a deliberate mistruth by definition and I had already debunked this myth earlier in the thread before you repeated it. If you want to try to oppose my claim with facts then I will welcome that as this is a discussion board, instead you said a meaningless comment and made no attempt to debate whatsoever that if I wanted to push the rules I could claim is equally an abusive comment. RU played full time professionally in 9 out of 9 English regions, including 1/4 of the top flight in the north where there's 1/4 of the population. RL played full time professionally in 3 out of 9 regions, all bar one of these clubs in a straight line and the other club being very poorly supported. What in that do you disagree with? If you don't want to debate then this stops here, but I'd rather you debated my points on an individual basis then we could have a more civil debate.

3/4 of the population is in what you're calling the south though and Harlequins would kill for any of those crowds, not great admittedly. Rugby League isn't even well spread in the north (nor is RU in the South East in fact, the 2 areas RU is insignificant are in fact East Anglia and the South Coast (excluding South West of course)

I have no issue with that, at schools level RL has a better spread (it gets worse as you move up the pyramid, things will improve as these players grow up) but he said at the professional level which is just a lie

Well okay then explain to me how RU having full time professional teams in all 9 regions of England is just as regional at the pro level as RL only having full time pro sides in 3 regions, and even including semi pro sides only has them in 4 out of 9 regions and that's a stretch including a side that is semi-pro in little more than name. Seriously how can your statement be anything but an extreme lie, not just a small one, but an absolute extreme black is white level one? You may as well say RL is bigger than soccer on the grounds you like it more and it would be no more a lie. I know you obviously like RL more than RU, as do I, but that's no excuse to make up childish lies

You have to admit you were lying though? It is beyond the wildest dreams of even Parksider that RL outside the north could be even nearly as big as RU in the north

If you're going to tell lies at least make them believable, talking rubbish ruins your whole argument, soccer is actually less national at premiership level than RU if anything, the South West, Yorkshire and East Midlands are hardly premiership soccer hotbeds (used to be for the latter 2), where's most clubs are London or North West. RU has Premiership teams in 8 out of 9 English regions and a team from the 9th region (West Midlands) just got relegated.

Are you for real? The RU Premiership has 1/4 of its teams in the north where 1/4 of the population is. Sounds pretty fair representation of the north. The only major skew from the country's demographics is the South West is overrepresented, London and the South East is believe it or not slightly underrepresented per capita

South East has too little RL for now and South West is just RU off season players with the partial exception of Bristol. Midlands I'd like to see eventually one each east and west midlands once juniors have come through for a while, but it's perhaps wrong to talk about the semi-pro/amateur split still being in the same place then.

Rubbish, while the best teams outside the pro league are in the NCL Premier, Bramley wouldn't be out of place on the field in the NCL (off it they'd fail almost every criteria but that's a different issue, they're set up on a different basis), their league is a lot higher standard than it was (partly due to clubs shipping in winter players admittedly) but struggles for numbers and has no minimum criteria so you do get rubbish in, but the 8 remaining sides are decent enough on the field and some are good off it too especially Hemel, Nottingham and Featherstone Lions. Of course Bramley wouldn't be as strong without their players that double up at winter clubs but they'd still have a decent enough side. Look at Bradford Dudley Hill and remember they were about the same standard as Bramley when they played together. Clearly the small size of the league and the reliance on winter players is going to be harmful but the likes of Bramley, Warrington Wizards, Hemel and Nottingham would be alright; as for the other 4 would depend whether they prioritise their summer or winter sides and how many players they lose. It will be fine to run next year with 8 or 9 teams that will be it.

The exact structure has far too much consultation and ifs, buts and maybes to say exactly but the following are expected: single division Championship (format and size TBC but expected to be licensed) 2-3 further national divisions (mostly NCL sides and the remaining semi-pro sides plus some better RLC sides) Then some form of structure below depending on how many sides switch, at one stage they were considering north west, north east and south but this is very much subject to change especially south of Sheffield depending on who switches etc. Some form of pyramid is planned below this, how much is linked by P & R, how much is standalone etc. is to be determined though the RLC may well split into separate regions within this pyramid as different regions have different development needs. What these regions would be I don't know for example not sure if we'll be midlands or west and east etc. That's the most I know at the moment though I've been told to expect good things

Ground quality and I believe they still need to put a big bond with the RFL. Expect a big change in the league structure in 2012 that leaves this discussion irrelevent if the RFL can pull it off