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3 minutes ago, M j M said:

I find that's just a product of ageing. I can name players and results from the late 80s to mid 90s, my first decade watching. After that, despite a slew of much more memorable and entertaining games involving my team, it all becomes a bit of a mush. I can more easily name the losing '92 Leeds Regal Trophy final side than the winning '04 Grand Final one and it's not because the former was more star studded.

I did consider that, especially since I could also name nearly every player in a photo of the York team from the late 1970s that was published in the York Press recently.

Still, that is my experience. 

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I'm not sure about disillusioned - I think part of it may be to do with who you watch regularly. It's been a close season and while a lot of teams haven't been that consistent, I don't think it has been poor/uninteresting. Maybe the RLWC stuff has put something of a downer on things in some people's minds, but it's still a quality game to watch. I have noticed a drop off in attendances from what I've seen, but what the solid factors are for that I don't know. Leeds for instance still seem to be doing OK, whereas yeah at Hull laat night there didn't look like too many were on. I can only speak for myself - I'm not personally disillusioned.

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31 minutes ago, M j M said:

I find that's just a product of ageing. I can name players and results from the late 80s to mid 90s, my first decade watching. After that, despite a slew of much more memorable and entertaining games involving my team, it all becomes a bit of a mush. I can more easily name the losing '92 Leeds Regal Trophy final side than the winning '04 Grand Final one and it's not because the former was more star studded.

People and events from your formative years leave intense impressions, as they are part of the person you grew up to become.

It is the same in other areas, like music. When I was younger, a record-buying trip was immediately followed by a listen to every single disc as the absolute first thing I did when I got home. Nowadays I still love music, but I can wait a bit before sitting down to enjoy a new purchase.

Other factors of life have assumed more importance than they had back then (work, kids, rent/mortgage, a wider awareness of the world), plus your memory bank of experience is fuller so you don't find so many things as novel or extraordinary as you once did.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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46 minutes ago, gavin7094 said:

I didn't particularly mean the year 2006.

For example, during the RL takeover on Sky just before the season started, I watched a Bradford Leeds game. Early 90s.  I could name nearly every player on both teams. From about 30 years ago. 

Nowadays I can hardly name any. 

I actually agree with you on well known players inna general sense, it’s a massive bug bear of mine we have personalities in our game, id encourage and reward clubs for getting their players more exposure, or take that responsibility off the clubs and market them centrally.

 

but you e now jumped back another 15 years to 30 years ago when the same things being said about RL were being said (low crowds, no exposure etc) i do think theres a bit of rose tinted nostalgia going on and a bit of it was better in my day attitude! Lets take your game from the early 90s was the crowd massive and the TV audience huge?

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1 hour ago, gavin7094 said:

I didn't particularly mean the year 2006.

For example, during the RL takeover on Sky just before the season started, I watched a Bradford Leeds game. Early 90s.  I could name nearly every player on both teams. From about 30 years ago. 

Nowadays I can hardly name any. 

we seem to balme all and sundry on the game today.

I can name the 1960's Liverpool team, I can name the 1966 world cup team... I can not name the Liverpool team of today or recent decades except for some players, I can not even name all the England team that just played in the euro finals.

It ain't the standard of rugby that's doing that... and just as a bye line we lost our TV transmitter in our area for last couple of weeks which meant I watched Youtube RL quite a few times... some of the games highlights were poor. particularly the ease to avoid the poor tackling.  One of the very early games had lots of kicking, every time someone caught the ball they kicked it back - yep it was RL

We need to be more objective when watching some of the earlier games of RL.

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9 minutes ago, redjonn said:

just as a bye line we lost our TV transmitter in our area for last couple of weeks

Bilsdale Mast?

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Another reason we had more big names in the game before the mid-Nineties is that there were plenty of RU converts, especially from Wales, and the UK media had already done their best to make recognisable names out of them before they switched codes and suddenly stopped getting column inches.

Other than them, Ellery Hanley would be a name or face that the average person outside the heartlands might have heard of. But he was still not that well-known outside the sport in my experience. Few, if any, other lifelong RL players had that much profile.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

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57 minutes ago, gavin7094 said:

I did consider that, especially since I could also name nearly every player in a photo of the York team from the late 1970s that was published in the York Press recently.

Still, that is my experience. 

Two old men, were talking about getting older. 

One says ''How are you getting on, in that clinic you go to?'' ''Which clinic?'' said the other fella. 

''You know, the one you were telling me about, the one for the memory.''

''Oh yes'' he said, ''It's brilliant, they've got all the latest techniques, physical and psychological tricks for improving the memory, it's done me the world of good!''

His mate says, ''It sounds terrific?'' ''It is terrific'' said the first bloke, ''You should come''.

''Alright I will'' said his mate, ''What's it called?'' ''What's what called?'' said the first bloke.

''The clinic!!!'' said his mate, ''The one you were just telling me about''.

''Oh'' he said, ''It's um, it's right on the tip of my tongue''. ''If you hadn't asked me, I'd have told you straight away''. '' God, it's so frustrating!'' ''Uuuuum.'' ''That's it, I've got it!'' he said, ''What do they call those flowers, with the long stem with the thorns on?''

''A rose?'' said his mate.

''Yes, that's it!'' '' Hey Rose, what's the name of that clinic I go to?''

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Well, I watched last night's game and enjoyed it. 

Memory is a funny thing. It's all well and good saying we can name all of the legendary players from x year, but there are loads of players that we forget about. Time passes, we remember some things fondly, other things less so. 

20 years ago Wire played London at Wilderspool with 4.1k people there. This was the Wire team:

Felton

Smyth

Alstead

O'reilly

Briers

Rodwell

Laughton

Hulse

Fozzard

Burns

Marquet

Domic

 

Noone

Sturm

Guisset

Hilton

 

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Here is my take on the situation.

Despite the fact that modern Rugby League players are in general fitter, more athletic and more skillful than ever before, I find myself drifting away from many games on tv and even forgetting some are on - particularly in the UK. 

So why is this?

Well, I think Rugby League today is too much like a pizza and a cold beer.

I love pizza and a cold beer.  But I couldn't eat a pizza with a cold beer every meal; not just because it would be unhealthy but because it would become too familiar, too monotonous, too boring in fact.

There is a real paradox about Rugby League.  When we talk about scrums on here the majority opinion is nearly always that scrums were boring, scrappy and served no purpose and got in the way of the 'good stuff'... the good stuff being the running, the tackling, the passing... all the things we say is best about Rugby League... the pizza and the cold beer.  The universal view was that the sport was better without scrums.

Well, I would argue that the scrums (and other parts of Rugby League that have been eroded) were the meals between the pizza and the cold beer.  I find watching the running, the passing and the tackling to be just as familiar, just as monotonous, yes, just as boring as I would eating the same meal 3 times a day for the rest of my life.

We have evolved Rugby League to be a sport of executing possession and all teams execute in much the same way and there is very little to interrupt this.  They should be best parts of Rugby League but because they are the only parts they become boring just as everything does if you see it all the time without variety, without exception.

"The history of the world is the history of the triumph of the heartless over the mindless." — Sir Humphrey Appleby.

"If someone doesn't value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn't value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?" — Sam Harris

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19 minutes ago, Futtocks said:

Bilsdale Mast?

yep, still haven't got all services back yet... I guess you where impacted too. Watched lots of repeats programmes on netflix and iplayer, which we enjoyed watching again.

Only thing we really miss is Talking Pictures TV... all the old black and white films, not so much for the films but the street scenes... thinking about that sentence Its not surprising we watch RL as an alternative.

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Just now, Dunbar said:

Here is my take on the situation.

Despite the fact that modern Rugby League players are in general fitter, more athletic and more skillful than ever before, I find myself drifting away from many games on tv and even forgetting some are on - particularly in the UK. 

So why is this?

Well, I think Rugby League today is too much like a pizza and a cold beer.

I love pizza and a cold beer.  But I couldn't eat a pizza with a cold beer every meal; not just because it would be unhealthy but because it would become too familiar, too monotonous, too boring in fact.

There is a real paradox about Rugby League.  When we talk about scrums on here the majority opinion is nearly always that scrums were boring, scrappy and served no purpose and got in the way of the 'good stuff'... the good stuff being the running, the tackling, the passing... all the things we say is best about Rugby League... the pizza and the cold beer.  The universal view was that the sport was better without scrums.

Well, I would argue that the scrums (and other parts of Rugby League that have been eroded) were the meals between the pizza and the cold beer.  I find watching the running, the passing and the tackling to be just as familiar, just as monotonous, yes, just as boring as I would eating the same meal 3 times a day for the rest of my life.

We have evolved Rugby League to be a sport of executing possession and all teams execute in much the same way and there is very little to interrupt this.  They should be best parts of Rugby League but because they are the only parts they become boring just as everything does if you see it all the time without variety, without exception.

I'd agree with the principle of this. We have tinkered too much, and tbh this is an outcome of the NRL having a few people there just wanting to tweak it to make it a top tv sport.

We are constantly moving to a 7 tackle game, and there is another proposal now that if you kick into touch it will lead to a 7 tackle set, why Ffs? 

These things make yards too easy, and 6 drives and a floated lick to the corner is a challenging watch at times. 

I believe we may end up having to do something with the scoring system for certain tries, something I have always been against. 

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26 minutes ago, M j M said:

Was it this ?

 

chuckle... no it was a very old black and white but the one you have just posted was very similar. Wonder what got into their heads - seemed like a duel, I can do better than you... particular amusing was the players all standing and surrounding watching as he readied for one of the kicks.

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3 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

Here is my take on the situation.

Despite the fact that modern Rugby League players are in general fitter, more athletic and more skillful than ever before, I find myself drifting away from many games on tv and even forgetting some are on - particularly in the UK. 

So why is this?

Well, I think Rugby League today is too much like a pizza and a cold beer.

I love pizza and a cold beer.  But I couldn't eat a pizza with a cold beer every meal; not just because it would be unhealthy but because it would become too familiar, too monotonous, too boring in fact.

There is a real paradox about Rugby League.  When we talk about scrums on here the majority opinion is nearly always that scrums were boring, scrappy and served no purpose and got in the way of the 'good stuff'... the good stuff being the running, the tackling, the passing... all the things we say is best about Rugby League... the pizza and the cold beer.  The universal view was that the sport was better without scrums.

Well, I would argue that the scrums (and other parts of Rugby League that have been eroded) were the meals between the pizza and the cold beer.  I find watching the running, the passing and the tackling to be just as familiar, just as monotonous, yes, just as boring as I would eating the same meal 3 times a day for the rest of my life.

We have evolved Rugby League to be a sport of executing possession and all teams execute in much the same way and there is very little to interrupt this.  They should be best parts of Rugby League but because they are the only parts they become boring just as everything does if you see it all the time without variety, without exception.

The same reasoning applies to a ten team league, watching the same (few) teams bumping into each other time and again, leads to a sense of monotony, which explains the nervous, excited murmurings about Toulouse getting in next year and the tsunami of interest/argument about Toronto.

We need some novelty, some unexpected element (fairly regularly) to brighten the outlook, (which was one positive in Martin Sadler's plan).

 

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It's increasingly rare that I watch an entire game, I turn off any overtly one-sided mismatch or one where the ball is dropped with a frequency that's reminiscent of the lower levels of amateur sport. Last night I abandoned my viewing to go to the supermarket, the standard of play was off-putting (but not as risable as the Wigan "effort" vs the Rhinos earlier in the week. That was car crash stuff, how could one of the games great clubs play so badly? ). The abomination known as the play-the-ball reached new levels of sloppiness in the Hull-Cas, the rest of the RL world make contact with the foot but our so-called Super League players don't give a toss and neither do referees. It shows how low standards have fallen when something so fundamental to this sport can be disregarded. It looks dreadful on TV.

Large swathes of empty terracing tend to spoil the sense of occasion too and the commentators and pundits have got stale. Post-match pitchside interviews with the coaches are predictable and banal.

If that's the best product Super League can deliver with it's full-time professional players then it's not going to survive as entertainment or even as an "elite" sport.The games need spectacle, a sense of occasion, and genuine star quality on the pitch...we aren't getting any of that.

Do the powers that be read these forums and recognise the problems or will they just march on to the abyss? 

 

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7 minutes ago, Pigeon Lofter said:

It's increasingly rare that I watch an entire game, I turn off any overtly one-sided mismatch or one where the ball is dropped with a frequency that's reminiscent of the lower levels of amateur sport. Last night I abandoned my viewing to go to the supermarket, the standard of play was off-putting (but not as risable as the Wigan "effort" vs the Rhinos earlier in the week. That was car crash stuff, how could one of the games great clubs play so badly? ). The abomination known as the play-the-ball reached new levels of sloppiness in the Hull-Cas, the rest of the RL world make contact with the foot but our so-called Super League players don't give a toss and neither do referees. It shows how low standards have fallen when something so fundamental to this sport can be disregarded. It looks dreadful on TV.

Large swathes of empty terracing tend to spoil the sense of occasion too and the commentators and pundits have got stale. Post-match pitchside interviews with the coaches are predictable and banal.

If that's the best product Super League can deliver with it's full-time professional players then it's not going to survive as entertainment or even as an "elite" sport.The games need spectacle, a sense of occasion, and genuine star quality on the pitch...we aren't getting any of that.

Do the powers that be read these forums and recognise the problems or will they just march on to the abyss? 

 

Pvt. me, I know a good therapist. 

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42 minutes ago, fighting irish said:

The same reasoning applies to a ten team league, watching the same (few) teams bumping into each other time and again, leads to a sense of monotony, which explains the nervous, excited murmurings about Toulouse getting in next year and the tsunami of interest/argument about Toronto.

We need some novelty, some unexpected element (fairly regularly) to brighten the outlook, (which was one positive in Martin Sadler's plan).

 

This is where a mid season break for internationals would come in handy to refresh things. 

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28 minutes ago, Dunbar said:

There is a real paradox about Rugby League.  When we talk about scrums on here the majority opinion is nearly always that scrums were boring, scrappy and served no purpose and got in the way of the 'good stuff'... the good stuff being the running, the tackling, the passing... all the things we say is best about Rugby League... the pizza and the cold beer.  The universal view was that the sport was better without scrums.

This is the nub about scrums. RL inherited and clung to a conviction that they "served no purpose" unless they were a contest for possession. This flawed reasoning has been on borrowed time ever since the introduction of limited tackles.

How to make scrums function intrinsically, to fit the modern game, is a separate debate which we`ve gone through on many threads. Solutions are available, if there is a will to seek them.

I have no doubt UK RL currently appears, and probably actually is, more dull and repetitive because of the absence of scrums. A scrum doesn`t just present an alternative set-up on tackle 1, it visibly affects the pattern of play on tackles 2 and 3. In fact, I would contend that the whole of a set that starts with a scrum is discernibly different from one initiated by a slow-motion handover.

If the RFL continue to dispense with scrums, they will neglect their role in the provision of variety at our peril. 

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1 minute ago, unapologetic pedant said:

This is the nub about scrums. RL inherited and clung to a conviction that they "served no purpose" unless they were a contest for possession. This flawed reasoning has been on borrowed time ever since the introduction of limited tackles.

How to make scrums function intrinsically, to fit the modern game, is a separate debate which we`ve gone through on many threads. Solutions are available, if there is a will to seek them.

I have no doubt UK RL currently appears, and probably actually is, more dull and repetitive because of the absence of scrums. A scrum doesn`t just present an alternative set-up on tackle 1, it visibly affects the pattern of play on tackles 2 and 3. In fact, I would contend that the whole of a set that starts with a scrum is discernibly different from one initiated by a slow-motion handover.

If the RFL continue to dispense with scrums, they will neglect their role in the provision of variety at our peril. 

I didn't think I missed scrums but I've changed my mind, I think it does add something different to the game and is worse off for not having them, I thought the shot clock improved them aswell

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3 hours ago, Chrispmartha said:

I agree with a lot of this I don't see this massive shift in the actual games that are making them unwatchable, I think the quality is a bit down this year but that's because a lot of teams have played a lot of games in a compressed amount of time and because of that there seems to be a lot of injuries to the top players.

Agree about the CC final but more so the 1895 game beforehand that was absolutely top draw sporting entertainment that IMO no other sport can achieve

The Hull derby at the weekend was also a cracker

Every sport has poor games, all the time, I didn't watch any of it but apparently the Lions tour in RU recently was absolutely terrible

It was, but barring the odd game here and there RU mostly is terrible. NZ are the major exception as they still produce excellent back play, albeit they are playing in a much more attritional sport than it was when I first started watching it. Aus still try to throw the ball around, and as a result they tend to get beat up by the more one dimensional, forward orientated sides. 

The profile of RU I don’t think has ever been lower. There’s not one bloke playing today, in the UK, who the man on the street could name.

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4 hours ago, Live after death said:

I don’t watch  any other games anymore except my team. Used to watch pretty much every fame when in TV

I was the same with the Premier League. Would rarely miss a game. Still never miss a Liverpool game of course, but other than big games involving the other top clubs (or a relegation decider) I rarely watch the others.

I think there may be a bit of fatigue setting in and that apples to all sports. We are saturated with sport and have so many options now that we pick and choose far more than previous.

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