Newcastle Thunder

[gogledd]

16 minutes ago, bromleybulldog said:

 The response from the RFL to the withdrawals of London Skolars and now Newcastle has been nothing more than a few statements of wishy washy platitudes (review, consultations etc) and it got me thinking about who is actually running the RFL these days. Not long ago there was more or less unanimous agreement that the likes of Nigel Wood and Ralph Rimmer were nothing more than overpaid and over promoted placeholders who contributed very little to the growth and development of the game but now - well I can't even name whoever it is in charge of the game. Whoever it is seems to have achieved an astonishing level of invisibility. Who is it? What is their plan for the game? Are they there to lead? Or just to collect a large salary and then move on to be replaced by someone else from the back office following an exhaustive world wide search and selection process? The game is falling apart and there appears to be no leadership at all coming from the RFL. Time to start earning their salaries, I suggest.

Spot on.

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

40 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

What's the potential catchment of both?

Not really relevant to the point I was making 

[NERugbyDad]

Got to say gutted today. Eldest was playing for the academy this season and we knew that it looked like that was disappearing but didn't think it was going to be this bad. Genuine concerns for community game now since Thunder staff were heavily involved in the administration of NERL.

 

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

28 minutes ago, RugbyLeagueGeek said:

Not really relevant to the point I was making 

Yes it was

[SUPERSTUD]

2 hours ago, NETIGER said:

Sadly the pathway was blocked by dual reg players of dubious ability getting first team slots after 2 training sessions. You cannot underestimate the effect it had on local talent except "why bother". Apparently lack of talent was made up for by the fact that they came from a fill time pro environment! So no matter what rep honours you had or offers from SL clubs Thunder chose not to play them and they left! Not all the fault of the RFL!

Let me be clear. I detest dual reg. Was it the individual coaches who took that route or club/both? Did the club actually have a strategy or any long term vision? When it went full time a certain agent thought it was Christmas and dispatched a fair few of his players up there. No loyalty to the club or catchment area. Now look where it is. Great club great people but and absolute tragedy. Is Alex Donaghy just about the only local left in the team?

 

 

 

[RugbyLeagueGeek]

4 minutes ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Yes it was

Please explain the relevance

[SUPERSTUD]

2 hours ago, NETIGER said:

It also needs to be noted that Thunder effectively blocked their academy pathway with dual reg players. IT wasn't uncommon to see representative players be 18th man or water carriers whilst the dual reg players turned up straight into the first team. 

Dual reg is an awful awful system. IMHO it is often mates looking after mates. Like a coach at a champ or league one club might be a mate of a SL coach or they may be a retired player associated with a bigger club. Lower club takes a few on as favour resulting in local lads etc being booted out of the team. Long term has massive impact re the overall development and sustainability of a club. Word soon gets around and no local wants to touch the club. Also affects attendances when people get to know the distainfull way in which the lower club is operating. 

[paul hicks]

3 hours ago, JM2010 said:

The only way RL is going to expand is if the community game expands both in the heartlands and elsewhere. It’s OK accepting a new club to League 1 and then just filling them with lads from Yorkshire and the NW and DR players but that won’t work long term. 
Any new areas where a potential professional club is based first of all needs its own local league establishing and even regular local school competitions. 
The professional club then needs to sit above that with an academy team attached to provide a pathway for local players

you would think so but its not always the case. take Melbourne storm when they started up you would have been lucky to find a junior team in the Melbourne area and it's still very much a minority sport at junior level. even now i don't think melbourne have had 10 melbourne born players in the team.

what Melbourne got that new clubs in this country don't get is piles of money thrown at them for a number of years. 

what is needed most is the money to finance a club in a new area.

perhaps a percentage of the sky deal can be put into a fund for establishing clubs in new areas. 

[Blind side johnny]

3 hours ago, ThunderLeague said:

Won’t be long for falcons to fold. Cheaper season tickets and words of being sustainable. We heard these words this season at thunder.

Premiership funding and P&R currently not a factor. They have slashed their playing budget as there is no threat of going down for the moment.

Neither club was funded by a Rugby (both codes) fanatic - simple hard-headed decisions to support a core business. (This is not an excuse, just a possible scenario for the decision.)

[tiffers]

27 minutes ago, paul hicks said:

you would think so but its not always the case. take Melbourne storm when they started up you would have been lucky to find a junior team in the Melbourne area and it's still very much a minority sport at junior level. even now i don't think melbourne have had 10 melbourne born players in the team.

what Melbourne got that new clubs in this country don't get is piles of money thrown at them for a number of years. 

what is needed most is the money to finance a club in a new area.

perhaps a percentage of the sky deal can be put into a fund for establishing clubs in new areas. 

This is the exact business model of McDonalds. They fund and set up the initial franchise business, establish it and then sell it on to an investor/franchisee.

It ensures that the underlying business is sound, profitable and has a long-term future for them. It's exactly how you would (at least on paper) set up a pure franchising model.

There's a couple of reasons it wouldn't work in RL:

1) The financials - there is no way on earth you'd get the clubs to agree.
2) The RFL personnel - there isn't the commercial ability and nouse to do it.

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by tiffers

[Gomersall]

3 hours ago, Derwent Parker said:

They shouldn't be allowed "to go and cherry pick the talent that some of the so called lesser clubs produce" They should pay a "Transfer fee" to those clubs who produce the players.

Do the lesser clubs produce that talent or is it the community clubs? Do the lesser clubs pay the community clubs for the players the community game produces?

[Budgie]

This feels like a policy of managed decline from the governing body and strategic partner.

If it is, it is both bold and brutal.

[Gomersall]

2 hours ago, Gooleboy said:

The Gateshead operation was moved to save Hull.

Gateshead were skint. No Sky money compounded that. Hull should have been allowed to drop a division but the chairmen of the lower league clubs vetoed that.

[Death to the Rah Rah's]

I wonder if any approach was made to the owners of the football club to take over the RU and RL sides and brand them both in newcastles famous black and white colours.

they could run both clubs for less than the annual cost of one of United reserve player!

[Griff]

5 minutes ago, Budgie said:

This feels like a policy of managed decline from the governing body and strategic partner.

If it is, it is both bold and brutal.

Nonsense.

[The Future is League]

1 hour ago, SUPERSTUD said:

Dual reg is an awful awful system. IMHO it is often mates looking after mates. Like a coach at a champ or league one club might be a mate of a SL coach or they may be a retired player associated with a bigger club. Lower club takes a few on as favour resulting in local lads etc being booted out of the team. Long term has massive impact re the overall development and sustainability of a club. Word soon gets around and no local wants to touch the club. Also affects attendances when people get to know the distainfull way in which the lower club is operating. 

 

1 hour ago, SUPERSTUD said:

Let me be clear. I detest dual reg. Was it the individual coaches who took that route or club/both? Did the club actually have a strategy or any long term vision? When it went full time a certain agent thought it was Christmas and dispatched a fair few of his players up there. No loyalty to the club or catchment area. Now look where it is. Great club great people but and absolute tragedy. Is Alex Donaghy just about the only local left in the team?

 

 

 

Duel Reg does nothing to a club who should be developing their own players

Its just a short solution

[The Future is League]

2 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Sad but inevitable 

Can we now avoid Saint James Park for events seeing as it hasn't cemented any lasting impact to sustain a pro team ? 

It puts off a lot of southerners as it's so far and hotels are absolutely ludicrously expensive 

I thought the idea of having the Magic weekend in Newcastle was to underpin the game there. How wrong i was

 

 

[Griff]

12 minutes ago, The Future is League said:

 

Duel Reg does nothing to a club who should be developing their own players

Duel registration would be great.  Much better than dual registration.

[Damien]

51 minutes ago, Budgie said:

This feels like a policy of managed decline from the governing body and strategic partner.

If it is, it is both bold and brutal.

Not really managed decline. More sink or swim.

[del capo]

52 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Do the lesser clubs produce that talent or is it the community clubs? Do the lesser clubs pay the community clubs for the players the community game produces?

They are supposed to.

Compensation (transfer ) fees are payable from the point of Scholarship upwards as a player develops aii the way up. 

Operational Rules for Tier 1-3 covers it all including the actual fees in C1. C1 (3) is particularly instructive.

Most talent is produced by the Community game, Very few these days come from outside it

[David Shepherd]

9 hours ago, Griff said:

You reckon that's down to IMG?

Who knows? Doesn’t look great though, does it?

I wasn’t actually attributing it to IMG, just pointing out that it’s the worst possible start to their involvement in the game. 

[Angelic Cynic]

8 minutes ago, David Shepherd said:

Who knows? Doesn’t look great though, does it?

I wasn’t actually attributing it to IMG, just pointing out that it’s the worst possible start to their involvement in the game. 

From this - https://www.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12196/12125231/newcastle-thunder-aiming-to-cause-a-storm-with-super-league-ambitions

An Elite Academy Licence for numerous years...

Just what IMG apparently desire as they try to sell Super League 

To extinction...

Empty words.No surprise players butterfly around flitting from club to club.

What a sport.

[Derwent Parker]

2 hours ago, Gomersall said:

Do the lesser clubs produce that talent or is it the community clubs? Do the lesser clubs pay the community clubs for the players the community game produces?

A bit of both

[Derwent Parker]

1 hour ago, The Future is League said:

 

Duel Reg does nothing to a club who should be developing their own players

Its just a short solution

It should be scrapped - it was made to provide an outlet for SG teams to send the youngsters that they hoover up from elsewhere to get a game of rugby.

[Derwent Parker]

1 hour ago, The Future is League said:

I thought the idea of having the Magic weekend in Newcastle was to underpin the game there. How wrong i was

 

 

They were not in SG so the RFL was not interested in them.

Putting it at Newcastle was just a plan for more cash for SG