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Sat 26th Feb: Toulouse Olympique v Warrington Wolves KO 6pm


Who will win?  

42 members have voted

  1. 1. Who will win?

    • Toulouse Olympique
      9
    • Warrington Wolves
      33

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  • Poll closed on 26/02/22 at 18:30

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13 hours ago, Scubby said:

Exactly, it just feels like the discussion pops up when people feel like it. I wouldn't be investing a fortune until I knew what the next 3-5 years looked like.

You would if you were a

1. A Championship club with ambition,

2. A SL club who really wants to avoid the drop, considering you had full funding or no other extraordinary financial commitments.

I think for the second year running the SL decision makers have handed a few club's who otherwise could have been fighting relegation an easier passage to safety than they should be entitled to.

Does your 3 - 5 years involve a 'licencing' period?

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13 hours ago, Desert Skipper said:

It’s also far too early to say Warrington are one of the best sides this year. We’re not firing on all cylinders. Not at all. However, that’s a good thing, because we have 3 from 3. If we can keep winning games when we do start to click we should be good for the second half of this season as well as being enjoyable to watch.

I know it should be to early to call, but I will predict a third place on the league ladder for the Wire and no GF appearance, CC the best opportunity for some silverware with favourable draws.

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11 hours ago, UTK said:

Just noticed TO had young Maxime Stefani debut (in the second row according to their social media lineup) and Paul Marcon played his first SL game on the wing. Would be handy if he showed something in his first start because they do lack backrow depth.

Some stability in the spine with Gigot/Albert in the halves and OAB at the back will be a big boost so the likes of Hankinson and Paulo don't have to play out of position (probably a strong case for the latter to play in the "left right out" position anyway). 

Add Schaumkel, Peyroux and Hansen (if he makes the side) in the next couple of weeks and we should get to see a more accurate depiction of how the season will unfold.

 

Lots of improvement in that game, almost felt like a win to be honest. There is room for optimism. 

Paul Marcon's first proper game in nearly two years, his come back was hampered somewhat as he kept catching COVID. I mentioned Stefani pre season as one to watch and he hasn't disappointed so far. The game got a lot better when Pélissier came on in the second half.

That Olly chap looks proper rapid.

If they had the two disallowed tries stand it could have got even more interesting.

Still, it's been a proper baptism of fire after a shocking start, so it can only really get better.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Just Browny said:

His mum Gwen will be very proud, no doubt.

Boo!

Not sure about her being his mum, she's just a girl.

With Halloween coming up I decided to go to my local fancy dress shop to see if I could get a Dracula costume. After a few minutes the assistant handed me a Hull KR shirt asking "Is this suitable?", I replied "I think you may have misheard me, I said I wanted to look like a count."
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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

You would if you were a

1. A Championship club with ambition,

2. A SL club who really wants to avoid the drop, considering you had full funding or no other extraordinary financial commitments.

I think for the second year running the SL decision makers have handed a few club's who otherwise could have been fighting relegation an easier passage to safety than they should be entitled to.

Does your 3 - 5 years involve a 'licencing' period?

I have no problem with P&R, the game is too much of a self-serving basket case to do licensing properly unfortunately.

14 clubs makes sense. What it can do is clearly identify clubs who are properly prepared for promotion and those who are not. Stop p*ssing around pretending clubs like Halifax and Bradford are eligible for promotion right now.

  • 14 clubs
  • Have the Championship GF in early September
  • One up one down if the Championship winner is a promotion eligible club.
  • Treat the French clubs with respect. Either make them exempt from relegation or, if not, you don't cripple them with costs of accommodating part time clubs. That should be paid by parachute or by the Championship clubs themselves via a RFL travel grant.
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8 minutes ago, Scubby said:

 

  • Treat the French clubs with respect. Either make them exempt from relegation or, if not, you don't cripple them with costs of accommodating part time clubs. That should be paid by parachute or by the Championship clubs themselves via a RFL travel grant.

Fundamentally the issue with this (and I know it has been discussed a lot) is that what we are talking about is the UK's competition. Forget any nonsense about the E in trading name of the shell company SLE, this is a direct progression of the RFL Championship, and has never been a y kind of partnership like the Pro14 or similar is. 

For the UK game to admit international teams, there is a cost associated. The question that needs to be answered is who should fund that?

If we expect the cost is around £3-500k per French team then the UK has to work out how to absorb that cost. Its easy to say the existing game should absorb this cost, but for what benefit? The existing game can make a clear case that they have invested millions in the French game through a UK TV deal and we are still in a place where French TV companies aren't interested unless they are gifted free content. 

It is not an unreasonable position for the UK game to insist that if international teams want to join SL that they bear the brunt of the costs. Whether that is individual owners, or the French Federation or whoever, but moving into markets with zero commercial value makes little sense from a business point of view. 

We shouldn't be afraid of charging people to sit at the top table, everyone seems to want freebies all round (but not for the moaning backward Northerners - they should put their hands in their pockets. 

Now, my personal view is that there are wider benefits, and I'd prefer a shared approach, share the costs of staging the comp and share the benefits, but I won't be too critical of people who think otherwise, and I certainly won't be insisting that people put their hands in their own pockets to fund something I care about. If the game can't afford to have teams in a territory with zero commercial value, then it can't afford it. 

I'm not sure of what Toulouse's funding arrangement is this year, but let's assume it is standard funding, we are investing more money than ever overseas with two French teams. That is money that is not being invested in UK Rugby league. That can't be done on a whim. 

 

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3 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Fundamentally the issue with this (and I know it has been discussed a lot) is that what we are talking about is the UK's competition. Forget any nonsense about the E in trading name of the shell company SLE, this is a direct progression of the RFL Championship, and has never been a y kind of partnership like the Pro14 or similar is. 

For the UK game to admit international teams, there is a cost associated. The question that needs to be answered is who should fund that?

If we expect the cost is around £3-500k per French team then the UK has to work out how to absorb that cost. Its easy to say the existing game should absorb this cost, but for what benefit? The existing game can make a clear case that they have invested millions in the French game through a UK TV deal and we are still in a place where French TV companies aren't interested unless they are gifted free content. 

It is not an unreasonable position for the UK game to insist that if international teams want to join SL that they bear the brunt of the costs. Whether that is individual owners, or the French Federation or whoever, but moving into markets with zero commercial value makes little sense from a business point of view. 

We shouldn't be afraid of charging people to sit at the top table, everyone seems to want freebies all round (but not for the moaning backward Northerners - they should put their hands in their pockets. 

Now, my personal view is that there are wider benefits, and I'd prefer a shared approach, share the costs of staging the comp and share the benefits, but I won't be too critical of people who think otherwise, and I certainly won't be insisting that people put their hands in their own pockets to fund something I care about. If the game can't afford to have teams in a territory with zero commercial value, then it can't afford it. 

I'm not sure of what Toulouse's funding arrangement is this year, but let's assume it is standard funding, we are investing more money than ever overseas with two French teams. That is money that is not being invested in UK Rugby league. That can't be done on a whim. 

 

Nobody has ever come forward (from SL or the RFL) and said what the strategy is for having clubs like Toronto, Ottawa, Catalans, Toulouse and even New York in the Championship/SL competition. This has to come from the host competition as part of a wider vision for the game. This is not an expansion strategy atm it seems to be an invitation risk averse approach.

When the AFL wanted to expand into Brisbane or Western Sydney it pumped money over and above the other existing clubs to make it a success (and for a sustained period). 

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17 minutes ago, Scubby said:

Nobody has ever come forward (from SL or the RFL) and said what the strategy is for having clubs like Toronto, Ottawa, Catalans, Toulouse and even New York in the Championship/SL competition. This has to come from the host competition as part of a wider vision for the game. This is not an expansion strategy atm it seems to be an invitation risk averse approach.

When the AFL wanted to expand into Brisbane or Western Sydney it pumped money over and above the other existing clubs to make it a success (and for a sustained period). 

You know I agree on that 100%, but it is a slightly different argument. Although I would say a fully risk averse approach would be to exclude international clubs. 

The reason I don't believe in giving Toulouse an excuse for everything, which I feel bringing up travel costs does is that their central funding is far higher this year than last (based on the assumption of proper central funding), they should be commanding higher commercial income, and their crowds will be higher. Yet I don't think we are seeing that translate into any strengthening on the field. 

I appreciate the challenges, but it's all a very lacklustre approach to getting promoted. They've made a bit of a balls up so far tbh. It feels rather TWP, I hope they can fix it before long, maybe the performance yesterday will give them some confidence that they will pick up some home wins against lesser teams like Wigan and Saints. 

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6 minutes ago, Dave T said:

You know I agree on that 100%, but it is a slightly different argument. Although I would say a fully risk averse approach would be to exclude international clubs. 

The reason I don't believe in giving Toulouse an excuse for everything, which I feel bringing up travel costs does is that their central funding is far higher this year than last (based on the assumption of proper central funding), they should be commanding higher commercial income, and their crowds will be higher. Yet I don't think we are seeing that translate into any strengthening on the field. 

I appreciate the challenges, but it's all a very lacklustre approach to getting promoted. They've made a bit of a balls up so far tbh. It feels rather TWP, I hope they can fix it before long, maybe the performance yesterday will give them some confidence that they will pick up some home wins against lesser teams like Wigan and Saints. 

I get that, but also who needs friends when you are stuck with their biggest French derby lodged on a Thursday night in August and a run in like this. This is Toulouse's last 6 league games of 2022.

Hull KR (a), Warrington (a), Wigan (a), Catalans (h), Hull (a), St Helens (a)

In the RU off season and the school holidays, they get one home fixture and run in from hell. They have to play Saints and Wigan 3 times too as part of their 4 loop fixtures. 

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36 minutes ago, Scubby said:

When the AFL wanted to expand into Brisbane or Western Sydney it pumped money over and above the other existing clubs to make it a success (and for a sustained period). 

BUT, there is a big but in that those club's you mention are Australian club's playing in the Australian System and that is even before the affordability of financing such an excersize is mentioned.

I have nothing against the French teams applying for and being accepted into the RFL/SL divisional system but as @Dave Tsays it has to be good for all the parties involved to exhibit and return  commercial benefit.

Also ring fencing French club's from relegation gives them an unfair advantage in my opinion, I just can't understand why some believe that having teams in a competition in the same league in which each game has points to be won to avoid the  risk of relegation, realistically the prize to be won by avoiding relegation is whatever the value of the funding is (currently in the region of £1.6M?) therefore every team without exception should be subject to the same jeopardy.

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1 hour ago, Scubby said:

I get that, but also who needs friends when you are stuck with their biggest French derby lodged on a Thursday night in August and a run in like this. This is Toulouse's last 6 league games of 2022.

Hull KR (a), Warrington (a), Wigan (a), Catalans (h), Hull (a), St Helens (a)

In the RU off season and the school holidays, they get one home fixture and run in from hell. They have to play Saints and Wigan 3 times too as part of their 4 loop fixtures. 

I'm not sure what the reason for that Thursday is, but are you sure that Toulouse haven't requested fixtures structured this way? Do they have stadium availibility issues at certain periods? Is the pitch being redone? 

You last line is basically asking for us to handpick easier fixtures for them. 

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Just now, Dave T said:

I'm not sure what the reason for that Thursday is, but are you sure that Toulouse haven't requested fixtures structured this way? Do they have stadium availibility issues at certain periods? Is the pitch being redone? 

You last line is basically asking for us to handpick easier fixtures for them. 

They had wanted more home games in that period, was in a TotalRL article.

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30 minutes ago, Scubby said:

They had wanted more home games in that period, was in a TotalRL article.

There would tend to be a reason for fixtures not broadly in line with home, away, home. We won't ever fully be told I expect. 

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A question...and i've not watched a lot of SL over the last 8 years so be gentle...:

During the match there was a little fat bloke in an Orange bib thingy who would run on at odd times and sort of hover around the back line for a few minutes whilst the game was going on, sort of like a 14th player...but not getting anywhere near the pointy end of the match.

Similar sort of short fat bloke during the Giants match as well

What's that all about ? What are they doing ? 

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2 minutes ago, kiggy said:

A question...and i've not watched a lot of SL over the last 8 years so be gentle...:

During the match there was a little fat bloke in an Orange bib thingy who would run on at odd times and sort of hover around the back line for a few minutes whilst the game was going on, sort of like a 14th player...but not getting anywhere near the pointy end of the match.

Similar sort of short fat bloke during the Giants match as well

What's that all about ? What are they doing ? 

Water carriers officially, but probably being used to pass messages on to the players. 

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1 minute ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Water carriers officially, but probably being used to pass messages on to the players. 

OK. not sure about that, my son was a water carrier for TO for the match and he actually did the water thing, with a proper water carrier. This bloke was carrying nothing. Just odd to me that people are allowed to pootle about the pitch whilst the game is carrying on. 

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18 hours ago, kiggy said:

A question...and i've not watched a lot of SL over the last 8 years so be gentle...:

During the match there was a little fat bloke in an Orange bib thingy who would run on at odd times and sort of hover around the back line for a few minutes whilst the game was going on, sort of like a 14th player...but not getting anywhere near the pointy end of the match.

Similar sort of short fat bloke during the Giants match as well

What's that all about ? What are they doing ? 

sounds like a ghost on the toulouse pitch,

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18 hours ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

Water carriers officially, but probably being used to pass messages on to the players. 

this, officially, they're water carriers, and letting players know if they're due to be subbed off.

 

the matchday threads in here will eventually start complaining about them staying on for full sets and coaching attacks and not getting off the field straight away.

 

you've also got physio's and team doctors, who all wear different coloured tops so the ref can distinguish which personnel is on the field

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