Paul Rowley on BBC Radio Manchester

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

What are you talking about Dave? of course its not fact based. Did anyone pretend it was or would be?

You can guess 3-5% if you wish, but i dont even believe that you believe that is a reasonable estimate, never mind believe it is a reasonable estimate myself.

 

1 hour ago, scotchy1 said:

 

So all in all we usually see about 30% vehemently and dead set against the inclusion of this new club, about half of those 'not against it but...'

Thats a pretty significant number

This above positioning gave  a sense of a factual point.

[GUBRATS]

Fans moaning about Catalans,Celtic Crusaders , Toulouse, Toronto ,London or anybody has no impact on what happens to those clubs whatsoever 

Wether somebody suggests it was 1% , or another suggests it was 50% is completely irrelevant to anything that happens or happened to those clubs 

 

[Oxford]

5 hours ago, Kayakman said:

Look when people meet each other on the street and during the morning commute do they say "Hi' to  each other and smile?...and do they really mean it?

if you didn't at  least do that here where I live it would be considered VERY rude.

Yes we have that too we call it London!

Brexit is a symbol and symptom of it, yes. But don't mention that or rugby yawnion or we'll all be whisked away by the mods without a by your leave or how's your father.

1 hour ago, Scubby said:

M62 fans when the Northern Union

Scubby either you're a seasoned time traveler or you're presently having a problem with past tenses or you've found a rent in the Universe! M62 and't Northern Union ? Do you get there through the door of that farm between the lanes of motorway?

[Scubby]

1 minute ago, Oxford said:

Yes we have that too we call it London!

Brexit is a symbol and symptom of it, yes. But don't mention that or rugby yawnion or we'll all be whisked away by the mods without a by your leave or how's your father.

Scubby either you're a seasoned time traveler or you're presently having a problem with past tenses or you've found a rent in the Universe! M62 and't Northern Union ? Do you get there through the door of that farm between the lanes of motorway?

I may be wrong but I believe by the end of WW2 the professional game of RL was pretty much dotted either side of the M62. Workington 1945 and Whitehaven 1948 were both post war clubs into the structure.

[Dave T]

4 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Yes, 10-15% is significant. If crowds fell 15% this year would that be insignificant? if revenue was up 15% would that be insignificant? if there was a 15% change in participation would that be significant?

Apparently, not in your book.

Absolutely brilliant.

The terrible examples you give could be significant increases, or significant changes, but that isnt anywhere near the same as a significant proportion.

Did you used to hurl abuse at the Whiskas adverts because of their refusal to address the 2 out of 10 cats who preferred other food?

But Gubrats is right, none of this is important so we can agree to disagree.

[Dave T]

13 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

I wonder why you left out the paragraph above that? Its a complete mystery. Who could ever know? I guess it will remain one of lifes great unknowables!

 

Because your positioning was changed markedly in the paragraph I quoted.

Its like a Parky post where opinions are brought into things and then that becomes fact somehow.

[Oxford]

2 minutes ago, Scubby said:

by the end of WW2 the professional game of RL was pretty much dotted either side of the M62.

The end of WW2 plus M62 just next door to the Narnia door?

[Scubby]

Just now, Oxford said:

The end of WW2 plus M62 just next door to the Narnia door?

Bit early for the sherry mate 

[Oxford]

1 minute ago, Dave T said:

Its like a Parky post where opinions are brought into things and then that becomes fact somehow.

Or where the NU uses the M62!

[Oxford]

Just now, Scubby said:

Bit early for the sherry mate 

Yes I think you need some water with it!

[Oxford]

20 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

I guess I must assume you have gone all parky on us!

You always turn into the thing you love most!

But I think being on a forum that resembles Leonard Cohen Land hasn't helped.

Paul Rowley and TWP do bring out the worst in some it seems perhaps now Derek and Marwan have gone they moved to the front of the Queue.

 

[RayCee]

2 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

The Saints stadium was in the pipeline long before licencing was suggested , what did Salford contribute to theirs ?

Yes you state the obvious , they are the only French club currently in SL , And ?

Stadiums are in planning for years if not decades. It’s no coincidence that clubs went ahead with these plans during licensing. 

I gave my reason for the second point but you must have missed it. 

[GUBRATS]

4 minutes ago, RayCee said:

Stadiums are in planning for years if not decades. It’s no coincidence that clubs went ahead with these plans during licensing.

I gave my reason for the second point but you must have missed it.

It is entirely a coincidence , or are you suggesting Leeds major investment right now is a consequence of P and R and the 8 system ?

As I pointed out in my PM , your understanding of UK RL is limited , maybe you can find me an announcement by Salford or Saints declaring the implementation of licencing was the catalyst for their investement , especially as you havent supplied what investement Salford supplied for the COS stadium ?

[The Parksider]

On 3/27/2018 at 12:27 AM, RayCee said:

Expansion doesn’t mean shutting out teams.

It absolutely does Ray, same to Tiger - please stop denying it Gentlemen. SL had to cut from 14 to 12, then confirmed 12 was a many as they could manage and are now considering 10 with a declining player pool. Perez accepted this but still articulated his plan where rich NA clubs are promoted replacing poor English ones until Superleague is Transatlantic. 5-6 NA clubs & 5-6 European clubs. This was needed to unlock the alleged massive American TV deal down the line.

His plan means destroying half the English pro-game. Face it Ray? Face it Mr. T??

John WP Hockey and Baseball are nothing to do with this debate at all, you say “When a league adds lots of new teams in a small number of years the quality of play may suffer short-term from dilution, but over time the increased opportunities draw more players in”. It's not true,  we have opened expansion clubs here like TWP but everyone's playing Union and any RL players are agreed as being ten years down the line at least with that being a trickle. London are best part of 40 years on and produce few players,

Big Picture “The model which you and I and everyone else over here knows is a model where there isn't any promotion and relegation, thus the leagues always grow when expansion teams are added, but that's foreign to the Brits”. Sorry BP It is NOT foreign to the Brits. In 2008 we had 12 clubs and we added two extra spaces going to 14 clubs to accommodate London, Crusaders (Wales) and Catalans. These expansion clubs suffered against mainstream rival sports and Union, and two collapsed, the third is in SL but struggling. This is what TWP and other NA clubs face with no player pools of their own.

Meantime viable English clubs will keep getting dragged into the Championship ruining their businesses.

17 hours ago, Dave T said:

Similarly, we need to be careful not to go over the top with the TWP point. Again, we hear a few noisy people who don't like it - but the vast majority of views I read are positive.

There are about 120,000 English RL fans who support the game with their money. Just what was the sample size of your straw poll? talk about "making it up" Dave.

Please read things up. It's not about being against TWP. I want them to stay in the Championship, and play Canadians and Americans so these countries can be strengthened for Mr. Moore's 2015 world cup. Jason Moore wants that, and he wants them in his league. 

It's about the plan to put NA clubs into SL until the league is "Transatlantic" then apparently cop a massive TV deal. I think it's phoney baloney, Perez has done a runner, and Moore is against this. Hence any NA clubs should not be pushing for SL. It won't work as Moore says and it will ruin the clubs they replace.

If you like them so much  to the point of wanting them in SL why not ask Mr. Moran to drop your club into the Championship and send your playing squad to Toronto, and send your academy lads to Widnes?

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, The Parksider said:

 

There are about 120,000 English RL fans who support the game with their money. Just what was the sample size of your straw poll? talk about "making it up" Dave.

Please read things up. It's not about being against TWP. I want them to stay in the Championship, and play Canadians and Americans so these countries can be strengthened for Mr. Moore's 2015 world cup. Jason Moore wants that, and he wants them in his league. 

It's about the plan to put NA clubs into SL until the league is "Transatlantic" then apparently cop a massive TV deal. I think it's phoney baloney, Perez has done a runner, and Moore is against this. Hence any NA clubs should not be pushing for SL. It won't work as Moore says and it will ruin the clubs they replace.

If you like them so much  to the point of wanting them in SL why not ask Mr. Moran to drop your club into the Championship and send your playing squad over there, and send your academy lads to Widnes?

ah, and here is one of the noisy few.

And your point about 'making it up' is wrong. The claim I made was that the 'vast majority of views I read are positive' - and that is true. Your repetitive posts only count as one view, no matter how much you try.

Your schoolboy last sentence is why people don't bother engaging with you nowadays, leaving you to your own long rambling posts. I thought you were older and more mature than that.

[Dave T]

11 hours ago, GUBRATS said:

It is entirely a coincidence , or are you suggesting Leeds major investment right now is a consequence of P and R and the 8 system ?

 

This is absolutely right. If we are crediting licensing with improved grounds, we need to credit P&R for grounds like Warrington and Leeds to balance it out.

If all it took was licensing for Saints and Salford to go out and build grounds, then why didn't it work for Wakey and Cas?

It is a dishonest argument, isn't it?

[RayCee]

6 minutes ago, The Parksider said:

SL had to cut from 14 to 12, then confirmed 12 was a many as they could manage and are now considering 10 with a declining player pool.

Now Parky, you know very well the standard of many of the players in the Championship is very good. Player quality can sustain more than 12 teams. The number of teams were cut to giving more money to each club to stave off raids from RU and the NRL. 

So what's the real beef here? I've been around long enough to know that often the arguments (in your case one) are not about what is claimed to be the issue. So I'll speculate on what your real problem is.

Does it frustrate you to think that after 120 plus years of surviving as a sport, some upstarts across the Atlantic want to waltz in and basically take over an institution that is based in the North of England and survived quite nicely thanks? Their cheeky manner (at times) and enthusiasm rankles? They will want to start running things before you can say Jack Robinson! 

I speculate, but I'm sure what I just said is to some degree something that is driving your long winded, repetitive posts.  

I and many others feel RL needs to move forward and NA is a wonderful chance to do that. We'll probably never agree on that so let's agree to disagree. I would welcome your commenting on other aspects of the RL world, as I'm sure you have plenty of opinions in other areas you could share. 

[Dave T]

15 minutes ago, RayCee said:

Now Parky, you know very well the standard of many of the players in the Championship is very good. Player quality can sustain more than 12 teams. The number of teams were cut to giving more money to each club to stave off raids from RU and the NRL. 

So what's the real beef here? I've been around long enough to know that often the arguments (in your case one) are not about what is claimed to be the issue. So I'll speculate on what your real problem is.

Does it frustrate you to think that after 120 plus years of surviving as a sport, some upstarts across the Atlantic want to waltz in and basically take over an institution that is based in the North of England and survived quite nicely thanks? Their cheeky manner (at times) and enthusiasm rankles? They will want to start running things before you can say Jack Robinson! 

I speculate, but I'm sure what I just said is to some degree something that is driving your long winded, repetitive posts.  

I and many others feel RL needs to move forward and NA is a wonderful chance to do that. We'll probably never agree on that so let's agree to disagree. I would welcome your commenting on other aspects of the RL world, as I'm sure you have plenty of opinions in other areas you could share. 

I think we have seen over the last couple of years that there are more than 12 clubs that can add something to the season. 

[Just Browny]

When Catalans came in, views were split along the usual lines. Most fans of the more outward-looking clubs - your Leeds, Wigan and London - were very positive. Views were mixed for the smaller clubs, with a particularly visceral hatred from Widnes and Leigh.

As time went on, as Bob says, a lot of the naysayers went on to say that Catalans weren't 'really' an expansion club and it was a sensible move.

There was always a small pocket of negativity though. I attended the Catalans-Wigan cup semi at Warrington, and at the end a Wigan fan approached me and said 'well done, you should be playing in your own league though.'

I would be cautious about seeing the large numbers travelling to Perpignan as a sign of support for the project though. While I might see a trip to the SW of France as a pilgrimage in solidarity with our Treiziste brothers in arms, the three blokes next to me on the plane see it as a good opportunity for a p***-up in the sun watching their rugby team (and there is nowt wrong with that). Collectively, I think the city of Perpignan has been guilty of thinking the fans will rush back regardless of the fun of the trip, and people have either stopped going or decided to enjoy the cheaper options available in Spain. Not that I am necessarily saying that the café owners of Perpignan should have started sourcing John Smith's or HP sauce.

My post is entirely off-topic so I will stop there.

[Dave T]

15 minutes ago, Just Browny said:

When Catalans came in, views were split along the usual lines. Most fans of the more outward-looking clubs - your Leeds, Wigan and London - were very positive. Views were mixed for the smaller clubs, with a particularly visceral hatred from Widnes and Leigh.

As time went on, as Bob says, a lot of the naysayers went on to say that Catalans weren't 'really' an expansion club and it was a sensible move.

There was always a small pocket of negativity though. I attended the Catalans-Wigan cup semi at Warrington, and at the end a Wigan fan approached me and said 'well done, you should be playing in your own league though.'

I would be cautious about seeing the large numbers travelling to Perpignan as a sign of support for the project though. While I might see a trip to the SW of France as a pilgrimage in solidarity with our Treiziste brothers in arms, the three blokes next to me on the plane see it as a good opportunity for a p***-up in the sun watching their rugby team (and there is nowt wrong with that). Collectively, I think the city of Perpignan has been guilty of thinking the fans will rush back regardless of the fun of the trip, and people have either stopped going or decided to enjoy the cheaper options available in Spain. Not that I am necessarily saying that the café owners of Perpignan should have started sourcing John Smith's or HP sauce.

My post is entirely off-topic so I will stop there.

In reality, and I don't mean to be mean spirited to those fans, but there are probably two clubs who have pretty vocal negative fans with a pretty large chip on their shoulder.

I can't think of much in the world of RL that doesn't have a section of its fans against, and that includes things like:

Playoffs and Grand Finals

Challenge Cup Final at Wembley

Magic Weekend

P&R

Licensing

There will always be people who don't like certain things, we shouldn't allow these noisy naysayers to be seen as the voice of RL. If we wanted to create the narrative, we could easily find segments of fans who are against the playoffs and want the League Leaders to be Champions and then claim this as the view of RL fans.

There will always be disgruntled people about probably every single decision, but I have personally found RL fans pretty accepting of expansion in the main.

I do think the biggest split I have experienced was around licensing v P&R tbh, with the opposition and anger towards each much bigger and more aggressive than anything else I have personally witnessed in my 35 years watching. But I do think the internet skews that somewhat.

And I do take your point somewhat on the Catalans trip, but a wise director who I have worked for always encouraged us to take customer survey's and opinion pieces with a pinch of salt, and focus on their behaviours over their views. I expect people who are vehemently against their inclusion probably wouldn't spend a small fortune going to Perpignan. 

[dkw]

4 hours ago, Dave T said:

I thought you were older and more mature than that.

No you didnt, none of us ever thought that....

[Dave T]

2 minutes ago, dkw said:

No you didnt, none of us ever thought that....

i'm saying nothing...

[Dave T]

25 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

A dishonest argument would be to argue because it didnt work for Wakey and Cas it can't have worked for Saints or Salford.

A dishonest argument would be to argue that people have stated ALL it took was licensing for Salford and Saints to build grounds.

Those would be dishonest arguments.

To argue that licensing, which at the time was attacked for being too focused on facilities by some of the same people arguing here that it had no effect on facilities, acted as a catalyst for the moves of Saints and Salford and the significant improvements at Hull KR and Les Catalans (which are being conveniently ignored)  is not dishonest. In fact its a pretty obvious argument.

Here are some facts that some on here are ignoring.

Licensing was established in May 2005. Clubs knew, and had agreed, at that point that we would be moving toward this system and that facilities would be an important part of it.

Clubs applied twice for licences before the licence system was implemented and those 4 clubs (and crusaders) were told that their stadiums werent up to scratch.

They were also told post in 2009 that those stadiums had put their licence in jeopardy.

Gary Tasker, the RFL's Director of Development, said yesterday: 'Since we awarded the Super League licences 12 months ago we have continued to monitor all 14 clubs to ensure they are progressing with plans they put in their original applications.

'Five clubs put forward their intention to build new stadiums. Some are at a more advanced stage of the planning process than others so we feel it is appropriate to remind all of the clubs of their commitment to upgrade or move to a new stadium.

'Clubs need to be aware that we are raising the bar for the next licence period, and showcasing Super League in high quality stadium facilities remains a key objective.

Both Castleford and Salford publicly mentioned their attempts to get a new stadium as an important part of their applications.

Richard Wright We are moving to a new ground at the back end of 2009. Hopefully we will get a licence on the back of that.

David Tarry The new ground is going to shift us from being a small city club marketed to a Salford audience to one that becomes a regional team for the Greater Manchester area.

It is probably the first purpose-built rugby league stadium constructed in decades, so it puts us in a slightly different position to most clubs applying for a licence.

We hope the stadium will host major semi-finals, internationals and we think it needs a Super League team in there.

For these reasons I think it would be unthinkable for Salford City Reds - and also for the game - if we did not get a licence.

 

 

So what about the point about those who sorted their ground without licensing.

So we have

a) clubs who sorted their grounds before licensing

b ) clubs who sorted their grounds during licensing

c) clubs who have done neither

That makes it pretty difficult to spot any kind of trend.

TBH, I agree with the principle that licensing will improve these things more quickly than a P&R environment, but we just didn't have it long enough for us to be able to prove that hypothesis. Common sense would suggest to me that it should be easier to secure investment in a licensed structure, but I don't think that is what we saw over the last 15 years, as I think we would need a couple of decades experience to be able to prove it.

[Dave T]

12 minutes ago, scotchy1 said:

Its a false argument. Putting in place a system to improve something doesnt preclude it from happening outside that system, and the fact it can happen outside that system doesnt mean that what you have done hasnt improved the situation.

Its a ridiculous bar that is being set, that the stadia needed to be conceived of, designed and built between 2009 and 2013, that it had to happen to a huge number of clubs and that it couldnt happen outside that system.

From 2005 to 2013 we had in place a provision to push an improvement in facilities. There was  a pressing need for facilities to be improved. This was implicit within the criteria for franchising and an explicitly stated aim. In that time we saw massive improvements at Leeds, Hull KR and Les Catalans, significant improvements at Warrington, some improvements for Wakefield  new stadiums for St Helens, Salford and Leigh.

Would some of those happened without licensing? almost certainly. Did licensing provide the impetus, space and an environment conducive to allow 8 of 14 clubs to make at least relatively large investments to their facilities? obviously so.

There is a rewriting of history going on and its silly. During and in the lead up to franchising the argument put forward by the anti-franchising crowd was that the only thing that mattered was a shiny new stadium. We heard all about how Wakefield and Castleford lied about new stadiums to get licenses. We heard how it was a conspiracy that Leigh werent allowed in on the basis of their new stadium which was being built.

The problem is, when you look at the trend over the last 20 years and see that facilities all over the place have been improved, it sort of questions the theory that licensing was the driver.

People belittle minimum standards from 20 years ago, but id argue those and the relatively large investment in RL from Sky and the move to a more professiknal environment was a bigger driver than licensing.

And as I said, I do think licensing would have delivered many of the benefits in this area had it been given enough time.

But claiming licensing was the driver behind the current state of facilities is hard to buy into.

[Dave T]

1 hour ago, scotchy1 said:

Have facilities been improved all over the place prior to franchising? Which ones? Widnes and Warrington?

Leaving aside Crusaders, 6 of the 14 SL clubs who competed in SL during the franchise era saw either a new stadium or a significant improvement in their stadiums in the period from when franchising was agreed in 2005 and when it was ended in 2013. Saints, and Salford moved in to new stadiums, Leeds, Warrington, Les Catalans, Hull KR. Of the 8 that didnt, 4 were shared stadiums that were less than 20 years old, and london played at the stoop.

So 6 of the 9 that needed improvement either saw substantial improvement or a new stadium and the other 3 (bradford, Wakefield and Cas) all had well publicised attempts and failures to either substantially improve or move to new stadiums. If that isnt strong enough evidence for you, i really can't imagine what would be.

 

Do you honestly, hand on heart think Warrington filled in two corners, Leeds buily a new stand, and Catalans built new facilities due to licensing?

In advance of licensing, Wire, Widnes, Hull, Wigan, Hudds all moved into new facilities. 

Catalans had work on their stadium ongoing as part of them joining SL, although fair to describe them as a special case.