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Sylvain Houles says Toulouse should be exempt from relegation


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1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Tommy I absolutely fail to see what having a preference for P&R (me) in Rugby League has got to do with not caring to much about the round ball game, and this obsession some posters have (inc. you) with comparing this, that or t'other in Rugby League with a host different sports especially football.

"Its the sporting culture" 

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1 minute ago, Tommygilf said:

"Its the sporting culture" 

Now I think most sports and football certainly are over rated.

"Sporting culture" having watched football at Old Trafford, the Baseball Ground and St Andrews and Rugby League almost anywhere and everywhere is not really a single or shared understanding.

TGG culture is quite distinct due to the make up of the fans and what they share about the qualities of the thing they love.

If you fall into more than one group the sense of belonging because of the shared enjoyment means the only constant in the equation is .... well you!

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1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

Tommy I absolutely fail to see what having a preference for P&R (me) in Rugby League has got to do with not caring to much about the round ball game, and this obsession some posters have (inc. you) with comparing this, that or t'other in Rugby League with a host different sports especially football.

Harry the point was, I believe, that people are inconsistent barstewards who can't tell when they're arguing for their anus or their elbow.

Edited by Oxford
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1 minute ago, Oxford said:

Harry the point was, I believe, that people are inconsistent barstewards who can't tell when they're argiung for their anus or their elbow.

Well I have been very consistent Oxy, I have never wavered from my preference to maintain P&R and I am most vehemently against a closed shop SL, even if my team was included in it. I honestly couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to go and watch fixtures knowingly that the result in the way of earning points even for survival didn't have any meaning or significance.

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9 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Well I have been very consistent Oxy, I have never wavered from my preference to maintain P&R and I am most vehemently against a closed shop SL, even if my team was included in it. I honestly couldn't summon up the enthusiasm to go and watch fixtures knowingly that the result in the way of earning points even for survival didn't have any meaning or significance.

Well I don't think the inconsistent meant you, Harry.

The problem is that believing in P&R or being anti is one thing but paying no attention to the consequences is quite another.

I also understand your point about irrelevant fixtures. Though to be honest I'd trade knowing where my team stands for the next decade over even the drama of SRD v HKR golden point moments..... and we won that time!

If the signicance is survival (or even promotion) that can't be a positive for the sport on the whole and far too many negative things for the game can stem from this. The emphasis of both these is short term fixes, thinking and culture which means clubs can't think long term and undertake sensible economic planning. Leigh and Fev, at the moment show classic signs of this as much as Sylvain Houles and Leeds.

My feeling is that just playing a game in order to win it should be "significant" enough for any side in the competition and any fan of any side. If the drama is not enough between winning and losing what is sport for?

 

 

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35 minutes ago, Oxford said:

Well I don't think the inconsistent meant you, Harry.

The problem is that believing in P&R or being anti is one thing but paying no attention to the consequences is quite another.

I also understand your point about irrelevant fixtures. Though to be honest I'd trade knowing where my team stands for the next decade over even the drama of SRD v HKR golden point moments..... and we won that time!

If the signicance is survival (or even promotion) that can't be a positive for the sport on the whole and far too many negative things for the game can stem from this. The emphasis of both these is short term fixes, thinking and culture which means clubs can't think long term and undertake sensible economic planning. Leigh and Fev, at the moment show classic signs of this as much as Sylvain Houles and Leeds.

My feeling is that just playing a game in order to win it should be "significant" enough for any side in the competition and any fan of any side. If the drama is not enough between winning and losing what is sport for?

 

 

I can't agree with that.  Playing in (or watching) a friendly is completely different to a league game and the reason for this is the consequences of winning/losing. I appreciate that this is entirely subjective, but it is an essential part of the sport for me.

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41 minutes ago, Oxford said:

My feeling is that just playing a game in order to win it should be "significant" enough for any side in the competition and any fan of any side. If the drama is not enough between winning and losing what is sport for?

In the last franchised period, I felt there should have been more reward for being the best team in the second division in respect of moving up a division, it became stale in my opinion, then we had the 8's and whatever anyone says about it it certainly improoved the Championship, and being a fan of the club I support we probably had as much expierence in the 8's as anyone, but this is were we differ I would sooner have the excitement and dissapointment of losing in MPG in '17 than just trundling on till the end of the season.

Your last sentance "If the drama is not enough between winning and losing what is sport for" in a closed shop it can carry an overriding "well it doesn't really matter if we do lose", is that sport?

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Just now, Tubby said:

I can't agree with that.  Playing in (or watching) a friendly is completely different to a league game and the reason for this is the consequences of winning/losing. I appreciate that this is entirely subjective, but it is an essential part of the sport for me.

Morning Tubby.

The friendly comparison is fine but my point was Winning or losing is the point and the drama.

It's a bit like reading, an avid reader will peruse bus tickets and Tesco reciepts ( other supermarkets are available ! ). Yoy either love the thing itself or you don't. If your excitement comes for the double jeopardy of losing and being relegated for the want of a win is important that's fine.

But when I turn up at a match I'd prefer if my team can compete, put the wind up someone unexpectedly and would still be there next week.

It's lucky we didn't lose Bradford altogether but to not understand that the fate of the Bulls and several other clubs for that matter was the direct consequence of short termism and fear failure and relegation makes no sense. It's the logic of doing the same thing over and over again and not caring about the results.

 

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5 minutes ago, Oxford said:

Morning Tubby.

The friendly comparison is fine but my point was Winning or losing is the point and the drama.

It's a bit like reading, an avid reader will peruse bus tickets and Tesco reciepts ( other supermarkets are available ! ). Yoy either love the thing itself or you don't. If your excitement comes for the double jeopardy of losing and being relegated for the want of a win is important that's fine.

But when I turn up at a match I'd prefer if my team can compete, put the wind up someone unexpectedly and would still be there next week.

It's lucky we didn't lose Bradford altogether but to not understand that the fate of the Bulls and several other clubs for that matter was the direct consequence of short termism and fear failure and relegation makes no sense. It's the logic of doing the same thing over and over again and not caring about the results.

 

Honest question Oxy, if SRD got relegated on the eve of a new closed shop/licensing/franchise would you happily spend the next 10 years with no chance of regaining SL status, if your answer is no, why do you desire and want to subject other clubs to that fate?

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7 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

In the last franchised period, I felt there should have been more reward for being the best team in the second division in respect of moving up a division

I agree.

 

7 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

it became stale in my opinion

It did to some extent

 

8 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

this is were we differ I would sooner have the excitement and dissapointment of losing in MPG in '17 than just trundling on till the end of the season.

Yes we certainly differ here, Harry.

You see it as trundling along and I see as my team playing whoever.

And as far as this idea is concerned there are many ways in which you could adress these points. However, most of the arguments are for P&R without any regard to what happens.

 

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Just now, Harry Stottle said:

Honest question Oxy, if SRD got relegated on the eve of a new closed shop/licensing/franchise would you happily spend the next 10 years with no chance of regaining SL status, if your answer is no, why do you desire and want to subject other clubs to that fate?

Honest answer Harry

No.

But there's a bit more to it than that.

As I've already said you could do lots of things to alleviate all the problems of the issues in ways that P&R never will.

A closed shop ,in and of itself,  is not and will never be the answer. It's not even the answer for those who would be in SL.

The way it's looked on is the usual closing down, downsizing jiggery pokery of the RFL who couldn't ask for water if they were thirsty.

 

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16 minutes ago, Oxford said:

Morning Tubby.

The friendly comparison is fine but my point was Winning or losing is the point and the drama.

It's a bit like reading, an avid reader will peruse bus tickets and Tesco reciepts ( other supermarkets are available ! ). Yoy either love the thing itself or you don't. If your excitement comes for the double jeopardy of losing and being relegated for the want of a win is important that's fine.

But when I turn up at a match I'd prefer if my team can compete, put the wind up someone unexpectedly and would still be there next week.

It's lucky we didn't lose Bradford altogether but to not understand that the fate of the Bulls and several other clubs for that matter was the direct consequence of short termism and fear failure and relegation makes no sense. It's the logic of doing the same thing over and over again and not caring about the results.

 

I do understand all the arguments against P&R with regard to finance, but in my opinion, it's a risk worth taking to maintain the competition and it's up to the clubs to make sure they work within their own budgets.  The disparity of funding between the leagues is in my opinion the major problem which needs to be resolved.

I'm not sure the analogy of bus tickets works either, is that comparing games with no P&R with reading bus tickets?  (maybe I misinterpreted).  I love to read and devour both fiction and non-fiction, but I don't have any interest in bus tickets.

The loss of Bradford would have been due to mismanagement, not P&R.  I appreciate that P&R could be considered a catalyst, but the fact remains that financial management is the responsibility of the clubs.

If your team was stuck in the Championship, having topped the table for four years running, or a few years later they were well-funded and mounting a challenge for SL, would you want that 'promotion' to be in the hands of the clubs in SL (one of which would be replaced by your team)?  If so, fair enough, I admire your love for the sport over the love for your club. Me?  I want my club to be able to play at the highest level of the sport when they achieve that right on the field, not when the Clubs of SL deem it suitable for their purposes.

 

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2 minutes ago, Tubby said:

I do understand all the arguments against P&R with regard to finance, but in my opinion, it's a risk worth taking to maintain the competition and it's up to the clubs to make sure they work within their own budgets. 

But P&R are the root causes of the financial turmoil clubs consistently find themselves in.

This is especially true in a sport that lacks the funding streams of other major organisations.

Does well funded mean living withing their budget or having a benefactor? Does it mean trying to compete with better funded sides or lacking ambition?

In the same way that the American Football maintains a general level of equality, quality, on the whole, RL can find solutions that don't threaten the very existence of clubs.

P&R has shown no signs of being anything but a sacred cow, untouchable no matter what damage it might cause.

 

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1 hour ago, Oxford said:

But P&R are the root causes of the financial turmoil clubs consistently find themselves in.

This is especially true in a sport that lacks the funding streams of other major organisations.

Does well funded mean living withing their budget or having a benefactor? Does it mean trying to compete with better funded sides or lacking ambition?

In the same way that the American Football maintains a general level of equality, quality, on the whole, RL can find solutions that don't threaten the very existence of clubs.

P&R has shown no signs of being anything but a sacred cow, untouchable no matter what damage it might cause.

 

The root causes of financial turmoil are mismanagement, it may be that the mismanagement is chasing a promotion at all costs, it's still ultimately down to the clubs in question, not the structure of the competition.  If clubs need to have their spending controlled by telling them they won't be promoted howerver well they perform on the field, we're back at licencing, which can't work without having very low minimum standards (so low as to be pointless), because we're a financially poor sport.

Well-funded in my opinion is maximising your income flows and working within realistic projections.  If, as a club, you are constrained by your finances, work on improving them, but above all, live within your means.

Comparison with other sports in different cultures & environments doesn't provide any useful data, in my opinion.  NFL is a very different sport in a very different market.

P&R is far from untouchable.  It's a relatively new addition to the sport and has been removed and reintroduced.  Obviously, I can't claim to speak for everyone who supports a club outside the top flight, but all of my friends and I in lower tier RL lost interest during the licencing era and would mostly be lost to the game with no way of earning a place in SL on the pitch.

Maybe the RFL/SL are content to lose support and therefore clubs outside SL in order to maintain the clubs within.  If so, then by all means they should remove the threat and carry on with the 12 clubs currently in there.

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2 hours ago, Oxford said:

Morning Tubby.

The friendly comparison is fine but my point was Winning or losing is the point and the drama.

It's a bit like reading, an avid reader will peruse bus tickets and Tesco reciepts ( other supermarkets are available ! ). Yoy either love the thing itself or you don't. If your excitement comes for the double jeopardy of losing and being relegated for the want of a win is important that's fine.

But when I turn up at a match I'd prefer if my team can compete, put the wind up someone unexpectedly and would still be there next week.

It's lucky we didn't lose Bradford altogether but to not understand that the fate of the Bulls and several other clubs for that matter was the direct consequence of short termism and fear failure and relegation makes no sense. It's the logic of doing the same thing over and over again and not caring about the results.

 

That's the crux of the matter, in an ideal world maybe P&R in Rugby League could work but in reality you are risking killing off a club that our game can ill afford for some ideology that P&R is in our sporting culture. Which in reality is wrong. Our sport has not had P&R for the majority of its history. Its only when we started trying to emulate soccer in the 70's and 80's that we brought it in. 

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18 minutes ago, Tubby said:

The root causes of financial turmoil are mismanagement, it may be that the mismanagement is chasing a promotion at all costs, it's still ultimately down to the clubs in question, not the structure of the competition.  If clubs need to have their spending controlled by telling them they won't be promoted howerver well they perform on the field, we're back at licencing, which can't work without having very low minimum standards (so low as to be pointless), because we're a financially poor sport.

Well-funded in my opinion is maximising your income flows and working within realistic projections.  If, as a club, you are constrained by your finances, work on improving them, but above all, live within your means.

Comparison with other sports in different cultures & environments doesn't provide any useful data, in my opinion.  NFL is a very different sport in a very different market.

P&R is far from untouchable.  It's a relatively new addition to the sport and has been removed and reintroduced.  Obviously, I can't claim to speak for everyone who supports a club outside the top flight, but all of my friends and I in lower tier RL lost interest during the licencing era and would mostly be lost to the game with no way of earning a place in SL on the pitch.

Maybe the RFL/SL are content to lose support and therefore clubs outside SL in order to maintain the clubs within.  If so, then by all means they should remove the threat and carry on with the 12 clubs currently in there.

Mismanagement is certainly rife in this sport but you cannot blame a club or its directors for getting financial turmoil after relegation. 

Its like you going from a 100k a year salary professional job to a part time supermarket Assistant on 10k a year overnight. How would you deal with that?

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15 minutes ago, Mattrhino said:

Mismanagement is certainly rife in this sport but you cannot blame a club or its directors for getting financial turmoil after relegation. 

Its like you going from a 100k a year salary professional job to a part time supermarket Assistant on 10k a year overnight. How would you deal with that?

 

15 minutes ago, Mattrhino said:

Mismanagement is certainly rife in this sport but you cannot blame a club or its directors for getting financial turmoil after relegation. 

Its like you going from a 100k a year salary professional job to a part time supermarket Assistant on 10k a year overnight. How would you deal with that?

If I knew it was a reasonable possibility, I'd be putting away some of my 100k to make sure I didn't lose my house (been there, although not ot those extremes).  I'm not suggesting it's an easy thing to do, but the responsibilty lies with the club to balance ambition with expectation.

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I regards to the 8’s, and the MPG, I for one enjoyed the concept of it even though my side got relegated not finishing bottom. 
 

I can’t help but feel the main reason for this was to keep SL a closed shop, yet soon binned it when Championship clubs were getting promoted with ease to the extent 2, or maybe 3 could have been promoted meaning a bail out ?

What a shame that it won’t exist this year. It would have been a great end of season comp to decide P&R which should exist in some form of all professional sport. 

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2 hours ago, Tubby said:

The root causes of financial turmoil are mismanagement,

That can be the case but I think you're ignoring the present situation economically. I don't think it is the sole reason and certainly not always. The pointing finger of blame and the lack of trust can't help.

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2 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

That's the crux of the matter, in an ideal world maybe P&R in Rugby League could work but in reality you are risking killing off a club that our game can ill afford for some ideology that P&R is in our sporting culture. Which in reality is wrong. Our sport has not had P&R for the majority of its history. Its only when we started trying to emulate soccer in the 70's and 80's that we brought it in. 

This is much the way I see the situation. As I say we were lucky not to lose Bardford completely and although they "may" have strecthed themselves too far in search of repeated success, to put all the blame on that goes no where near the total explanation.  It may be this is a thing beyond critism or even discussion at times and a part of "UK Sport's Culture" but that does not mean it should go unquestioned.

In any case I like to say thanks to everyone who's taken part in this thread ...... proper discussion like it's been!

T O as much as I thing they're gtreat can't have the rules changed cos it doesn't suit, And Sylvain mon pote you should asked for this before the season began or even earlier.

And I still wouldn't put past the management to change the rules, once Leeds are safe of course!

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2 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

That's the crux of the matter, in an ideal world maybe P&R in Rugby League could work but in reality you are risking killing off a club that our game can ill afford for some ideology that P&R is in our sporting culture. Which in reality is wrong. Our sport has not had P&R for the majority of its history. Its only when we started trying to emulate soccer in the 70's and 80's that we brought it in. 

Two points on that, 2 divisions were first tried in the early 60's, but for the majority of Rugby Leagues existance we operated with a East and West of the Pennines Format every club in the league did not play each other, so no requirement to operate a P&R system, the main reason that we could operate 2 divisions properly was the often mentioned 'M62' coming into being, it made trans Pennine games far more easy and accessible.

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2 hours ago, Mattrhino said:

Mismanagement is certainly rife in this sport but you cannot blame a club or its directors for getting financial turmoil after relegation. 

Its like you going from a 100k a year salary professional job to a part time supermarket Assistant on 10k a year overnight. How would you deal with that?

Is the reason for a club being relegated in the first place not mismanagement, either in the boardroom and the playing roster it provides for the coach, or the coaching team not being able to prepare their charges well enough, over the course of a season would injuries and suspensions  be a root cause to finish bottom.

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1 minute ago, Harry Stottle said:

Two points on that, 2 divisions were first tried in the early 60's, but for the majority of Rugby Leagues existance we operated with a East and West of the Pennines Format every club in the league did not play each other, so no requirement to operate a P&R system, the main reason that we could operate 2 divisions properly was the often mentioned 'M62' coming into being, it made trans Pennine games far more easy and accessible.

I can see where you're coming from with that argument Harry but it is far more likely that with each change made it was sold and accepted as the only way forward and then it was followed by a load of tinkering, messing about , shilly shallying and then finding a new way forward five minutes later. Every one of them came with a free bottle of snake oil medicine.

The M62 coming into being just meant people set off too late and arrived often as not after the kick off.

2 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

a season would injuries and suspensions  be a root cause to finish bottom.

I've come to the conclusion that injuries in particular may result in relegation and suspensions are just the icing on this cake.

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