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50 minutes ago, Omott91 said:

Op is correct.

Elite professional sport shouldn't allow part time teams to mix in the same competition.  

If they're not part time, would it be a disaster?

I agree that shouldn't be promoted if they're not full time. That is surely part of the criteria for being in the league. But if they are full time, I don't see it as a disaster any more than Castleford or Wakefield being in the league.

What would be a disaster would be to change the rules to deny them promotion just because you wanted the other team to go up. It would be rugby league shooting itself in the foot... again.

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10 hours ago, David Shepherd said:

I don’t think 5,000 rising as far as 9,000 for the local derbies would be far off the mark.

I know it’s been said countless times, but the relatively small population of the town is a red herring. Rovers have always been Ponte’s team too. There is a hell of a lot of latent support in Ponte, Ackworth and the surrounding towns & villages.

Don't believe it David, I too thought that when Leigh made SL in '17, Leigh got an average of about 5-5.5 K home fans for the season, and finished with a 6.5K overall average.

Only Saints brought any number of fans to comment on about 2.5K the rest of the away support was pretty dismal including Warrington and Wigan teams on our doorstep, travelling Yorkshire Fans except Hull FC was not very good at all, in fact I would say not as good as we got in the Championship from both Fev and the Bulls,  pretty fickle lot these SL fans.

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10 hours ago, Dallas Mead said:

Please.  Good God in heaven don’t make it Featherstone.  Another small pit town in Yorkshire being in the top league could just about kill the concept of the “Super League” 😶 it’s on life support as it is….we need something different or we’re goosed.

?

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1 hour ago, Omott91 said:

Op is correct.

Elite professional sport shouldn't allow part time teams to mix in the same competition.  

Agreed.

When did that last happen in SL? Not for a good number of years and especially since all teams are given funding to pay the player's it hasn't!

And who says when Fev get promoted SL will get a part time team?

 

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10 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Agreed.

When did that last happen in SL? Not for a good number of years and especially since all teams are given funding to pay the player's it hasn't!

And who says when Fev get promoted SL will get a part time team?

 

Who is going to leave a full time job for a contract that runs for 10 months (and almost certainly results in relegation)? Certainly not players at the older end of the scale. It is why a lot of players play in the Championship.

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43 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

If they're not part time, would it be a disaster?

I agree that shouldn't be promoted if they're not full time. That is surely part of the criteria for being in the league. But if they are full time, I don't see it as a disaster any more than Castleford or Wakefield being in the league.

What would be a disaster would be to change the rules to deny them promotion just because you wanted the other team to go up. It would be rugby league shooting itself in the foot... again.

I agree. However, a full time playing squad isn’t the only professional element as club should have to be in SL. I don’t have a clue about the off field set up at Featherstone. But it’s need to a professionalised set up as well, just as any other club in the division should be as well. The sport needs to drive up standards across the board.

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6 minutes ago, Scubby said:

Who is going to leave a full time job for a contract that runs for 10 months (and almost certainly results in relegation)? Certainly not players at the older end of the scale. It is why a lot of players play in the Championship.

As I said Scubbs, Fev in SL will be like all the other teams and will get funding to pay the player's they need to replace.

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42 minutes ago, GeordieSaint said:

I agree. However, a full time playing squad isn’t the only professional element as club should have to be in SL. I don’t have a clue about the off field set up at Featherstone. But it’s need to a professionalised set up as well, just as any other club in the division should be as well. The sport needs to drive up standards across the board.

From what I can gather, the backroom operation is not dissimilar to that of a Super League side.  Not least the training facilities, which are the best in the area by a country mile.

We're already a hybrid part/full time operation. Half the squad only play rugby as their jobs. Don't worry about us. 

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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Don't believe it David, I too thought that when Leigh made SL in '17, Leigh got an average of about 5-5.5 K home fans for the season, and finished with a 6.5K overall average.

Only Saints brought any number of fans to comment on about 2.5K the rest of the away support was pretty dismal including Warrington and Wigan teams on our doorstep, travelling Yorkshire Fans except Hull FC was not very good at all, in fact I would say not as good as we got in the Championship from both Fev and the Bulls,  pretty fickle lot these SL fans.

Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic about the derby games, but I don't think 4-5000 regular home fans would be unrealistic. 

And at that I think we're pretty sustainable. Non rugby income is good, hosting Wakefield AFC has been massive for the club's finances.

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25 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic about the derby games, but I don't think 4-5000 regular home fans would be unrealistic. 

And at that I think we're pretty sustainable. Non rugby income is good, hosting Wakefield AFC has been massive for the club's finances.

If you could acheive 4 - 5000 home fans averaged over a season from a relatively low population/catchment area would be absolutely fantastic, I think you may be setting the bar a tad high, but all the best of luck - when you win in Sunday.

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4 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

Ok, if challenging for and winning trophies makes clubs and their supporters snobs, we have no hope. Not everyone can finish 10th and have nothing to play for from June to the end of the season.

Who do you think Manchester United fans look forward to playing? It’s not Wigan, Burnley, Bolton, Blackburn, Preston, Blackpool and Stockport County who are the closest clubs to them, it’s their rival clubs who actually are contenders for winning trophies, it’s Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham etc 

I get what you're saying, do I get 'excited' when Leigh play 'certain' clubs in the championship, NO. But  when we do play Fev, Halifax, Bradford, Widnes etc I am 'more up for it' so to speak. That's just sport in general, not every game matches the other one for pre-match nerves or excitement.

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46 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

From what I can gather, the backroom operation is not dissimilar to that of a Super League side.  Not least the training facilities, which are the best in the area by a country mile.

We're already a hybrid part/full time operation. Half the squad only play rugby as their jobs. Don't worry about us. 

Thanks - wasn’t particularly directed at your club; more of a general point. But good to know about Featherstone.

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7 hours ago, Big Picture said:

You're overlooking the fact that Spezia, Furth and Watford are the exception rather than the rule in the major pro sports leagues known to the public at large.  The great majority of the teams in those major pro leagues are located in big cities and have been for decades.

Consequently the expectation which outsiders to RL have of what it means for a league to be a legitimate major pro league is almost certainly that the great majority of its teams are in big cities with an occasional exception located in a smaller city or a town.  In other words, that's where those other leagues have set the bar for a league to be a legitimate major pro league in the eyes of the public.

When those outsiders look at the so-called "Super League" they won't see a league which measures up to that bar.  What they'll see instead is a league which falls a good way short of it because most of the teams are in smallish towns, a couple are in cities and none are in the sort of cities where the majority of major league pro teams are located.

All that can achieve is to reinforce the negative stereotypes about RL being a small time regional sport with limited appeal because if conforms to those stereotypes.  A team from a little town like Featherstone getting into SL would just add to that reinforcement of those negative stereotypes.

Like it not, that's the way things are.

Thats the “way things are” if it’s a cold, clinical North American business-first attitude to sport where the “owner” lifts the bleedin trophy before the blokes that actually won the thing, while players come out with “it’s great to play for this franchise” like they are working for a company.

Sticking pins on a map with franchises (involving mergers, uprooting teams and moving them to more populous areas), this clinical attitude is alien to here where sports teams (not “franchises”) have a deep connection to the community they represent. Like a shopping centre, a restaurant (insert a business of your choosing) teams relocate at the drop of a hat in North America with little or no issue as they are devoid of any connection to the local area, and they can do so as fan culture in NA is transient. Such a move happened here once (Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes) and there was uproar. Move Liverpool FC “franchise” 200 miles down the road and your asking for WWIII. The three yank “owners” (they ain’t owners here, supporters are the owners, the “owner” is there to sign the cheques until the next fella takes over) tried to uproot Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal from the English league system and put them in a closed shop European Super Duper League...to widespread uproar and the concept was dead inside 24 hours. 

RL is predominately played in former pit towns in a geographic area across the north of England. That’s it DNA. It’s what has sustained it over 125 years, and it should be celebrated. A poster on here a few days ago said with the advent of Super League there was almost an attempt to hide RL’s history..”we are now Paris, London etc”. But for all those pit towns where the sport has a devoted and loyal following RL wouldn’t exist as a sport in England. New shiny things are all well and good, but turning your back on those that care most about the sport will leave you with nothing.

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1 minute ago, DC77 said:

fan culture in NA is transient

Is such absolute nonsense that it renders questionable even the good points you make.

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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8 hours ago, Niels said:

Half the league are in large sporting cities. Leeds, Hull x2, Wakefield, Perpignan, Toulouse (if promoted) are all large cities. Salford is a city also. 

Many here class Castleford (and Featherstone) as part of Wakefield when it suits, so we can add them also as you can't have it both ways.🙂

Wigan, Warrington, St Helens are all famous enough whether they are cities are not. That leaves Huddersfield which is a large town.

There is also the potential for London, Bradford, Sheffield, Newcastle, York etc to be promoted.

Therefore there is plenty of room for Featherstone to be an exception. 

The only people I hear  describe league as a small town sport are the the odd few on here who seem to look at everything with a negative slant. 

Wakefield (pop. 99,251 in the 2011 census) and Perpignan (pop. 120,158 in 2017) are certainly not big cities and neither is Salford (pop. 103,886 in 2011) which is really just a suburb of Manchester.  They're all small towns.

I think you'd find that none of Wigan, Warrington or St Helens are well enough known that the average Brit even knows where they are without looking on a map and if that was not the case it would simply reinforce the negative stereotypes about the game because the minority of the population which knows anything about those towns doesn't rate them as the sort of places which they associate with big time major pro sports.

Leeds and Hull are the only places with SL teams which would qualify in terms of size, but as their soccer teams rarely get to the big time it's open to question whether the public would consider them major league sports cities.

If the only persons you hear describe RL as a small time sport are some posters on here, you evidently haven't paid attention to the posters who've described their experience trying to talk the game up with neighbours and work colleagues in places away from the heartlands and found that the majority don't even know that two versions of rugby exist and most among the remainder who do perceive it as a small time regional sport with limited appeal.

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14 minutes ago, DC77 said:

Thats the “way things are” if it’s a cold, clinical North American business-first attitude to sport where the “owner” lifts the bleedin trophy before the blokes that actually won the thing, while players come out with “it’s great to play for this franchise” like they are working for a company.

Sticking pins on a map with franchises (involving mergers, uprooting teams and moving them to more populous areas), this clinical attitude is alien to here where sports teams (not “franchises”) have a deep connection to the community they represent. Like a shopping centre, a restaurant (insert a business of your choosing) teams relocate at the drop of a hat in North America with little or no issue as they are devoid of any connection to the local area, and they can do so as fan culture in NA is transient. Such a move happened here once (Wimbledon moving to Milton Keynes) and there was uproar. Move Liverpool FC “franchise” 200 miles down the road and your asking for WWIII. The three yank “owners” (they ain’t owners here, supporters are the owners, the “owner” is there to sign the cheques until the next fella takes over) tried to uproot Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal from the English league system and put them in a closed shop European Super Duper League...to widespread uproar and the concept was dead inside 24 hours. 

RL is predominately played in former pit towns in a geographic area across the north of England. That’s it DNA. It’s what has sustained it over 125 years, and it should be celebrated. A poster on here a few days ago said with the advent of Super League there was almost an attempt to hide RL’s history..”we are now Paris, London etc”. But for all those pit towns where the sport has a devoted and loyal following RL wouldn’t exist as a sport in England. New shiny things are all well and good, but turning your back on those that care most about the sport will leave you with nothing.

Like it or not, pro sport is a business dependent on being able to generate enough income to sustain it and in the years since RU went pro RL has fallen behind.  Those former pit towns are in an economically disadvantaged area where the sort of money needed for a big time major pro sports operation doesn't exist and consequently English RL's traditional clubs face issues which the management of their counterparts in other sports can't even imagine.  Those are Sean McGuire's words, not mine, and he's someone who would know.

Like the North American model or not, it works very well.  Franchises make money and their values are steadily going up year by year.  It works so well that the major pro North American leagues have gradually expanded to encompass just about all the cities of suitable size available to them.  And no, franchises don't just move on a whim, such moves are in fact not common and they're usually a last resort.

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19 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Wakefield (pop. 99,251 in the 2011 census) and Perpignan (pop. 120,158 in 2017) are certainly not big cities and neither is Salford (pop. 103,886 in 2011) which is really just a suburb of Manchester.  They're all small towns.

I think you'd find that none of Wigan, Warrington or St Helens are well enough known that the average Brit even knows where they are without looking on a map and if that was not the case it would simply reinforce the negative stereotypes about the game because the minority of the population which knows anything about those towns doesn't rate them as the sort of places which they associate with big time major pro sports.

Leeds and Hull are the only places with SL teams which would qualify in terms of size, but as their soccer teams rarely get to the big time it's open to question whether the public would consider them major league sports cities.

If the only persons you hear describe RL as a small time sport are some posters on here, you evidently haven't paid attention to the posters who've described their experience trying to talk the game up with neighbours and work colleagues in places away from the heartlands and found that the majority don't even know that two versions of rugby exist and most among the remainder who do perceive it as a small time regional sport with limited appeal.

But the cities you want to attract are not interested. You have to work with what is available. 

If you keep downplaying all the current locations and writing that people perceive it as "a small time regional sport" then this will be perpetuated. 

As Martyn remarked, no other sport has such insecurities. 

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5 minutes ago, Niels said:

But the cities you want to attract are not interested. You have to work with what is available. 

If you keep downplaying all the current locations and writing that people perceive it as "a small time regional sport" then this will be perpetuated. 

As Martyn remarked, no other sport has such insecurities. 

You're wasting your time mate, Negative negative, negative ad infinitum. He's never (ever) come up with a single suggestion (not one, in dozens and dozens of posts) as to how the game can grow from where it is. He's just about the biggest troll on this forum. 

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21 hours ago, Pigeon Lofter said:

The population of Penrith, who lifted the NRL Grand Final this morning, (from Wikipedia, quoting the 2016 census) is 13,295.

A disaster for the NRL surely.

😀

@Fevrover@clogdance@Gooleboy@Bedfordshire Bronco@faithfulbyname@DEANO@roversspud@Wellsy4HullFC@GUBRATS@Sir Kevin Sinfield

This is a gross inaccuracy and should be corrected. 

Penrith City Council region( which is made up of several suburbs ) has over 216 000 residents, neighbouring Blacktown City Council region which sits between Penrith and Parramatta, has another 370 000+ residents.

Many of the Panthers players come from clubs that fall under the Blacktown City council region, you may have heard them regularly mentioned on the call: Doonside; Rooty Hill: Minchinbury et.al.

I should add that is an area made up of many young families and has a very high growth rate.

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2 minutes ago, The Rocket said:

@Fevrover@clogdance@Gooleboy@Bedfordshire Bronco@faithfulbyname@DEANO@roversspud@Wellsy4HullFC@GUBRATS@Sir Kevin Sinfield

This is a gross inaccuracy and should be corrected. 

Penrith City Council region( which is made up of several suburbs ) has over 216 000 residents, neighbouring Blacktown City Council region which sits between Penrith and Parramatta, has another 370 000+ residents.

Many of the Panthers players come from clubs that fall under the Blacktown City council region, you may have heard them regularly mentioned on the call: Doonside; Rooty Hill: Minchinbury et.al.

What's a difference of over 500,000 between friends when you've got an inaccurate point you want to prove?

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. (Terry Pratchett)

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I’ve told you all before Toulouse are the saviours of Rugby League in Europe. When they beat Featherstone next week and get promoted to SL the french TV stations will be throwing millions of euros in our direction, SKY will be desperate to re-negotiate our paltry TV deal and all the clubs will be awash with cash!

Honestly it will be brilliant, much better than when Toronto came in.

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1 minute ago, binosh said:

I’ve told you all before Toulouse are the saviours of Rugby League in Europe. When they beat Featherstone next week and get promoted to SL the french TV stations will be throwing millions of euros in our direction, SKY will be desperate to re-negotiate our paltry TV deal and all the clubs will be awash with cash!

Honestly it will be brilliant, much better than when Toronto came in.

Got a feeling they’ll bring slightly more than another (former) pit village in Yorkshire pal.

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