M j M

Only for programmes, for whatever reason. The rest of the stadium is card only.

That's very strange. Well for Leeds games it still isn't!

No the only thing at Headingley, for all RL games, which isn't cashless is the programmes. I've no idea why this is but buying a programme at Headingley is pretty much the only thing I use cash for now.

I'm a big holder of grudges and petty grievances myself but this is absolutely magnificent. I tip my hat to you.

Not sure that's quite right but looking at the availability it seems they have shifted more than 1,000 tickets today.

This is in the scenario of playing one game in Yorkshire. Time after time we've seen international games in Leeds perform well attendance-wise. It's simply a fact that you would get a bigger attendance at Elland Road than you would playing the same game in Sheffield.

Really... tell us more.

I don't think this is quite correct. What Cas and Wakey have both suffered from is a lack of certainty. Not, before the spreadsheet fans interject, about where they will be in the league system but more what their stadium strategy was. Fev knew they were staying at POR so could invest/work with fans to invest in that ground. Both Cas and Wakey have spent hundreds of thousands on legal and planning fees with the aim of moving away from Wheldon Rd and Belle Vue. They weren't in a position to plough money into spending more than the essential on the old grounds when they fully expected they were going to move away. The collapse of those schemes is where this has all gone wrong. They were both valid developments that should have given the clubs brand new stadia. I didn't personally believe the locations were the best but the failure of them - and the council's disinterest/bungling - is what really marks those two clubs out from every other club in the league which has been able to progress their stadium plans. Finger pointers from other SL clubs mostly don't take the time to understand any of the issues involved whilst simultaneously pretending their clubs either haven't had significant outside assistance or managed to clear all the planning and development hurdles, with council backing, that Cas and Wakey fell at.

The World Cup had years of promotion. I fully agree that the "three heartland" venue approach is wrong but you'll make more money, a lot more money, in Leeds than Sheffield if you're looking for a single Yorkshire venue.

Why on earth would you play one in Sheffield?

On the face of it ticket sales for the third game are at around 12,000 so far. With a bit of pushing, from Leeds in particular, they should hopefully be able to get that to 15 or 16k by next weekend.

So do we think Wane would have been as offended had it been someone other than an ex-St Helens coach, with a St Helens assistant, that made those comments?

What was the crowd in the end today?

The legend was that he was from Chorley. (Many years have passed and I now can't remember if this claim was other people winding him saying he was a pom or was him winding other people up.)

It's a lot more productive and worthwhile reading this thread if you just stick SUPERSTUD on mute.

All seating now appears to be sold out at Headingley unless they have neglected to open up all the areas. Total seating capacity at the ground is 7,886.

I agree, it penalises self-sufficient clubs. Here's the official logic behind it.

...

14 and they should be the 12 SL clubs plus two promoted from the Championship.

The company I worked for was bought by a private equity house in 2015. Three years later we went bust. In our best year we made profits of around £10-£15m. In the three years before going kaput we spent £18m on consultants, most of whom were amongst the most self-confident but, in the context of our business, utterly clueless people I have ever met. The combination of their costs and their recommendations were fundamental to our demise. My view on this: I'm sure IMG have got some smart people on board and there's definitely value to be got out of working with them. But we definitely shouldn't assume they have a clue how to administrate, market and grow a hyper-regional sport like Rugby League.

They're not.

Cas, the only club whose sugar family don't have much money.

I imagine a lot of clubs will get zero on the Balance Sheet metric. It's 0.5 points for a Balance Sheet of >£100k (presumably they are using Net Assets to assess this) and 0.25 points if it's >0 but less than £100k. Nothing if your Balance Sheet is negative. e.g. whereas Leeds have net assets of +£13m and Warrington +£8m, Wigan are -£9m Huddersfield -£19m and London -£27m. (Now even Net Assets is possible to manipulate to if you put your mind to it (e.g. switching debt to share capital, or revaluing property, both things St Helens have done in recent years).

It's still really boring seeing people attack Cas for the state of their ground when those people's own clubs have lucked into a new stadium, had one built for them by a rich benefactor or seen one facilitated by the local council. Cas unfortunately have been repeatedly let down - and the lack of certainty as to what will happen with their plans has been the biggest problem. (BTW people would be amazed at how much they have spent just keeping the Jungle going, they certainly can't be classed as having "spent nothing" on the ground when the high levels of maintenance are factored in).

I've updated my estimate of how the Leeds score breaks down. I can't quite get it to where they have ended up but it's close enough. NB for anyone thinking Leeds have poor on-field performance recently, that's true enough and there are no bonus points for winning stuff. But under the definitions used in the calculation the finishing positions over the last three years have been 8th, 2nd and 3rd so not as bad as might be expected.