M j M

Totally agree with this, Stevo was constantly misinforming people of what he thought the rules were, Cummings was a breath of rational fresh air. I still didn't mind him for factual input on obscure or marginal decisions but his key purpose has gone as the current Sky lot know and understand the rules a lot better than Stevo did.

FFS this is a ridiculous hypothetical debate. If we "added" another French team then that might mean you'd get more than a bag of beans for the French rights - you might get two bags of beans. Meantime what does it do to the value of the UK rights? I'm sure it's fun playing at being an RL administrator but every now and then you need to retreat back into the real world and at the moment the most important strategic thing for SL is the UK rights and how to preserve value there - which is exactly why Elstone was so cautious about Toronto in the first place. I'm happy with them and Catalan in SL but we need to keep our eyes open as to what it is that generates the largest slice of the game's income.

You're for some reason deliberatey ignoring the obvious: more viewers.

The French TV deal has always been a pretty hand to mouth job and the TV companies are not particularly interested either way. Yes if there was more than one French team it would be more attractive, but that's not some amazing insight, it's just stating the obvious. On the other hand it's also not on its own a good enough reason to push Toulouse or any other team into SL. But back to the matter at hand - the French TV companies aren't going to sign up to long, lucrative, multi-season deals just because Catalans are exempt from relegation. That's not how it works and is a total misunderstanding/misrepresentation of the reason there isn't much interest in a French TV deal. It's all about the numbers - viewers, revenues and costs. None of these are materially affected by promotion and relegation.

Shoehorning an anti-P&R agenda into this is pretty weak tbh. It's just another example of the SL clubs and their exec, who demanded control of things from the RFL, doing a worse job. It's not easy and it was never easy running Rugby League; there's much more potential to emerge with failure than with success and this is another example of that - albeit this one is worse than most.

Sir Les Patterson on his finest form. Check out the top of his left trouser leg.

Obviously it depends how much I won but I'd be open to putting some money in to buying the properties behind and building that fourth stand at Headingley's western end because I'm fed up of people complaining they get sunburnt out in the open over there. After that if I'd got any left for RL matters I'd probably think about what to do to help get the Bulls back up to the top flight.

I'm a big fan of McDermott, so glad this is working out for him. His coaching was sometimes a bit bewildering at Leeds but he held/holds the best press conferences I've ever seen. His ability to show how little he thinks of particular lines of questioning and his intolerance for idiocy was a joy to behold. I once saw him being heckled during a post game speech in the Long Bar at Headingley. He carried on talking, wrapped it up then made a bee line for the bloke who was calling him out, never breaking eye contact as he walked over. He asked "Are we alright mate?" with such polite menace that you could almost literally see the other fella bricking it.

I know DFTT and all that but for anyone else who believes this stuff, Merrin was excellent in his year at Leeds and will be a huge loss if it's true.

Allowing Trout to go the other way seems like Leeds were backed into a corner and Huddersfield wouldn't accept any of the other offers placed on the table. We urgently needed a British hooker (Dwyer is totally unsuited to being a starting hooker - he is suited to what was the Rob Burrow role off the bench) but letting a player who seemed to have great potential go seems foolhardy.

Looks like that Derwent Park rebuild is coming along nicely after all.

Declining to do something is not evidence of anything to hide.

I've no idea who this player is as such, but I've heard the name on occasion when I've been unable to avoid BBC news union segments and my only thought has ever been, what relation is he to Fereti?

Mike, used to play for the Blue Sox?

You can tinker with sporting rules to quite a degree but sometimes you go just that bit too far and lose focus of what the underlying point of your sport is. Forumula E is an interesting concept and I'd be open to watching it. But it should be a test of driver and car against driver and car. DRS in F1 is very close IMO but fans determining who can challenge and when nudges it too close too, in fact beyond, the Mickey Mouse line. Imagine if we could vote for Kendall to give less favourable calls to St Helens in the Grand Final; it would have made it more competitive and we'd have enjoyed it all but it's just wrong as a process.

What happens if England get thrashed 3-0 next autumn? Do we ditch that "concept" as a failure? Judging whether something important is worth doing based solely on the results on the pitch is the most Rugby League thing ever.

He's not running for election.

As a former constituent I'm a fan of Mulholland but I'm not sure this is appropriate. I believe he's still on the board of the Rhinos Foundation so I wonder to what degree he is continuing a bit of his role of being, quite actively, the club's political representative...

I think it's a bound-to-be unsuccessful attempt to quickly get to the cross code forum.

Grown ups are able to do two things at once. And the idea that anyone is in the RL club owning game to enrich themselves is somewhat laughable.

Given that I utterly loathed that 2006 Leeds shirt and feel its utter wretchedness brought upon us a terrible season this could explain why I don't like that Wire kit. Although it's not as bad as the 2006 Leeds abomination and at least Warrington have a history of Vs; but it's certainly unpleasant to my eye.

What's the relevance of the Leeds logo on the sleeves out of interest?

For various reasons Leeds fans made you into a bit of a scapegoat over the past couple of years. Did that get through to you and, if so, how hard is it to deal with when you sense some of your club's fans aren't fully behind you? How open were Leeds with their negotiations with you prior to your leaving? It looked like they were leaving you hanging on whilst they looked at alternatives/saw what was happening with Trent Merrin.

Churchill was MP for Oldham shortly after the split from RU, a time when Oldham was a rugby town. So I'm sure he went out and sought the Roughyed vote.

triple post.