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Posted
Just now, The Blues Ox said:

It would be more exciting if the Oldham owner could come in and spend a couple of million pound and get Oldham in to SL within a couple of years though wouldn't it? I mean SL is pretty stale isn't it and just like Leigh have shook it up a little, there is no reason Oldham couldn't do the same. As nice as it sounds, I doubt waiting 7 or 8 years to get anywhere near SL status only to have SL teams do a rug pull, that can't be very exciting.

And yet Oldham have tripled their season ticket sales.

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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)


Posted
11 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

I should have been more explicit RP, the 'plan' I refer to was the clubs own plans not IMG's in the case of HKR and Leigh, and albeit Wakefield have vastly improved their facilities Mr Ellis is emulating what Mr Beaumont has done at Leigh, by preparing on the field for life in SL whilst still in the Championship.

Yet it is still the method that IMG want people to follow to get there.. the fact that others have done it before and it has worked proves that that method/plan (whatever you want to call it) has merit. No one has miraculously come up with it, no one has said its "IMGs master idea" but its a plan that some clubs seem unwilling to take even now when it has been proven to work they just want the quick fix of promotion on the field with no foundations.. That is the entire reason this has cropped up again so it isnt something we are just making up!

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

I apologise if you take it my reply to be rude, but I was answering what I believed to be the most relevant point of your post and a point that keeps being thrown up time and again, that promoted clubs will fail in SL unless we adopt IMG's methods, I was merely pointing out that this is not the case in the recent past, yes it once was but that way of doing things in the quest for promotion has also evolved, it happened on the field of play and progressed.

I dont "take it" as rude it is rude..  I had already addressed your "point" in the thread that you quoted.. it is rude and disingenuous to do what you did, you literally clipped around me explaining the exact point you were trying to make. 

 

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Posted
15 minutes ago, RP London said:

But they are following IMGs methods, you say it yourself "they have followed the 'plan' of preparing for life in the top division whilst sill in the championship". The danger comes from those that just finance on the field and go up (and there are examples of that at each level over the past 20 years, including Oldham, do I really need to name them?), as was pointed out in the rest of the quote that you decided not to actually quote..

You are selectively quoting to somehow try and "make a point" (not sure what it is, is it to for people to say "didnt Leigh do well.." or something?).. the point has already been covered and explained in the post that you have "clipped". 

 Its seems quite a disingenuous way to have a conversation to be honest.

As is your opinion piece. It seems to be that a lot of posters are missing the point. Yes Oldham are financing "on the field" but you miss out, either deliberately or through lack of knowledge or understanding that that the on field financing is only a small part of the project. The Melrose training facility,  the pathway, the relationships between amateur and professional,  Boundary Park and the relationship with Oldham Athletic. Mike Ford has said on numerous occasions that his number one priority,  bar none, is to get the public of Oldham enthused about Rugby League again. To get the kids of the town wearing the red and white of Oldham, not the colours of Huddersfield,  Leeds, Salford and wigan. Some people seem to think that we want promotion this year, that's not the case. We want to be on a parr with best of the championship. The club believes in the IMG partnership,  but they believe it needs to be enhanced.

Posted
1 hour ago, Wakefield Ram said:

But not at a cost that pretty much prevents any chance of promotion.

And most SL clubs have already had 20 plus years to get their act together. 

We live in the world as it is, not in the world as we'd like it to be. These are the clubs that we have.

There is a chance of promotion, if a current club is genuinely weak (London) or could be unstable (Salford) then they can get replaced. If a current club isn't genuinely weak, then why replace them with a club for whom we have no more grounds for confidence? When another strong club emerges, then if we have done the right hard work in the meantime then we can expand the comp to accomodate them. The NRL is adding new clubs because broadcasters have told them that they will pay more money for rights if they do. That's the model we're aiming for.

The one thing we know is that the old model didn't work. TV revenues were going down. Clubs with ambition and apparent resources (Featherstone etc.) were not getting added to the league, and other ones without resources (London) were being added to the league because they happened to have one good season. Or even not even that, but managed to scrape 4th place and then have two good matches.

This whole idea that promotion and relegation led to 'fair' outcomes based on genuine strength and potential is patently nonsense. We have the evidence of our own eyes to prove it.  

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Posted
8 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

A point that has nothing at all to do with what I said. 

If it was all very dull then that wouldn't be happening.

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)

Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, The Art of Hand and Foot said:

As is your opinion piece. It seems to be that a lot of posters are missing the point. Yes Oldham are financing "on the field" but you miss out, either deliberately or through lack of knowledge or understanding that that the on field financing is only a small part of the project. The Melrose training facility,  the pathway, the relationships between amateur and professional,  Boundary Park and the relationship with Oldham Athletic. Mike Ford has said on numerous occasions that his number one priority,  bar none, is to get the public of Oldham enthused about Rugby League again. To get the kids of the town wearing the red and white of Oldham, not the colours of Huddersfield,  Leeds, Salford and wigan. Some people seem to think that we want promotion this year, that's not the case. We want to be on a parr with best of the championship. The club believes in the IMG partnership,  but they believe it needs to be enhanced.

So you didnt read my post where I said earlier that I agree that things need to be tweaked as you were harshly done to, and that I believe that on field P&R between the Grade Bs would have been something I would have kept..

I am well aware of what you are doing having a few very good friends who are Oldham fans and are telling me all the good things going on.. 

edit: I even say "Oldham are doing all the right things"... the post it is in points out that what he wants is unclear, that the weighting needs to change but how becuase the way he phrases the issues doesn't make clear what he wants tweaking and how that would work. The rest of the post is not Oldham specific but is about the dangers of making the on field too weighty becuase then we are just back to exactly where we are where the "minimum standards" are either so low its irrelevant or they are just ignored. 

 

Edited by RP London
Posted
11 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

It would be more exciting if the Oldham owner could come in and spend a couple of million pound and get Oldham in to SL within a couple of years though wouldn't it? I mean SL is pretty stale isn't it and just like Leigh have shook it up a little, there is no reason Oldham couldn't do the same. As nice as it sounds, I doubt waiting 7 or 8 years to get anywhere near SL status only to have SL teams do a rug pull, that can't be very exciting.

We don't need short-term excitement. That's just a sugar rush, and the crash that follows does more damage than the pleasure was worth.

Super League isn't pretty stale. We had a new club last year, a new one the year before, and there is a promoted club joining the league next season. Leigh won the cup a year ago, for the first time in 50 years. My own side Hull KR have been in 4 semi finals and 2 finals having been nowhere really for decades. Wakefield are rejuvenating. More clubs are attracting inward investment in a way we haven't seen for a long time, in fact perhaps not ever. That money will strengthen the game in the long term, because for once it is not all being blown on additional player wages. 

 

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Posted
13 minutes ago, RP London said:

I dont "take it" as rude it is rude..  I had already addressed your "point" in the thread that you quoted.. it is rude and disingenuous to do what you did, you literally clipped around me explaining the exact point you were trying to make. 

 

Why do we have a "quote selection" facility in making replies to posts, it is to get over the point that someone believes to be most relevant to them, sorry if you you believe that I was rude and disingenuous, there are many many posts that are 'quote selection' don't take it to heart.

Posted (edited)

Enhanced, tweaked...Evolved is maybe a better word. 

The fact that Leigh, Hull KR, Oldham, maybe Bradford even,  are on the same track as IMG is to be welcomed. The IMG proposals, formally agreed and adopted by the sport as a whole, are not "big bang" proposals where at IMG day  0 there was nothing and at IMG day 1 it was all there, set in concrete designed to endure for all of eternity. The proposals were based on things like, well, let's see now...both focussed and cross-disciplinary knowledge, experience, benchmarking, research, consultation, Hegelian dialectics, proven track-record, and dare I mention it in the same breath as Rugby League....long termism.

Perhaps there are other reasons for opposing the RFLs "Re-imagining Rugby League" 12 year project in this age of demagogic populism.

Edited by JohnM
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Posted
28 minutes ago, Harry Stottle said:

Why do we have a "quote selection" facility in making replies to posts, it is to get over the point that someone believes to be most relevant to them, sorry if you you believe that I was rude and disingenuous, there are many many posts that are 'quote selection' don't take it to heart.

Stop being obtuse.. of course I understand "selection quotes" but when you clip around the section that answers the very question you are asking then its just disingenuous and rude.. its not a hard thing to comprehend. 

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Posted
3 hours ago, gingerjon said:

If it was all very dull then that wouldn't be happening.

Context.

Oldham are spending a lot of money on players, their fans are getting to see some new grounds. Its really no surprise they have seen a rise in season ticket sales given how bad the league below is. This has nothing at all to do with where the club could be in a decade.

3 hours ago, Worzel said:

We don't need short-term excitement. That's just a sugar rush, and the crash that follows does more damage than the pleasure was worth.

Super League isn't pretty stale. We had a new club last year, a new one the year before, and there is a promoted club joining the league next season. Leigh won the cup a year ago, for the first time in 50 years. My own side Hull KR have been in 4 semi finals and 2 finals having been nowhere really for decades. Wakefield are rejuvenating. More clubs are attracting inward investment in a way we haven't seen for a long time, in fact perhaps not ever. That money will strengthen the game in the long term, because for once it is not all being blown on additional player wages. 

 

3 Grand final winners in SL at the moment since SL started. Im afraid that is as dull as it gets but I am glad that you used two teams who won promotion on the field as examples. Makes you wonder where those 2 teams would be if they were unlucky enough to have been in the Championship over a sustained period where promotion was either unavailable or unlikely.

Posted
4 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

3 Grand final winners in SL at the moment since SL started. Im afraid that is as dull as it gets but I am glad that you used two teams who won promotion on the field as examples. Makes you wonder where those 2 teams would be if they were unlucky enough to have been in the Championship over a sustained period where promotion was either unavailable or unlikely.

The number of Grand Final winners was during the P&R era, so it's a bit perverse to use that as a stick to beat the new operating model with isn't it? It clearly wasn't the great structure you think it was... cognitive dissonance at work there I think

Wakefield just got promoted. Toulouse may well have replaced Salford if their financial pinch point had come to light 6 months earlier. So yes on that evidence I'm very confident Hull KR would have been promoted more quickly on this new set of criteria, compared to the way we had to do it under the "buy promotion by over-spending on your squad one season" lottery that you're advocating a return to. 

The evidence doesn't support your argument. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, Wakefield Ram said:

But not at a cost that pretty much prevents any chance of promotion.

And most SL clubs have already had 20 plus years to get their act together. 

Trinity just scored more points than Salford, Huddersfield, Hull FC and Cas. I accept we had two years of awful SL seasons prior to last year to add to the average, but the other four have had unbroken seasons with Salford performing excellently on the field. 

 

It can be done. Oldham, if they get there crowds up and get some success will push under performing SL clubs, and if nothing else it will keep the incumbents on their toes on all aspects of being a SL club, rather than focusing on not being the worst on the field.

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Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, Harry Stottle said:

I should have been more explicit RP, the 'plan' I refer to was the clubs own plans not IMG's in the case of HKR and Leigh, and albeit Wakefield have vastly improved their facilities Mr Ellis is emulating what Mr Beaumont has done at Leigh, by preparing on the field for life in SL whilst still in the Championship.

Hi Harry , I do understand what you are saying , however the plans put in place by Leigh and HKR , although they may have been their own at the time , have , perhaps inadvertantly , became the same as those needed to succeed under IMG . 

I think that any Championship team now following the IMG criteria in the same way as HKR and Leigh (eg 5 year plans etc) , can achieve promotion to SL . 

The key , whichever way you look at it , is to achieve a strong foundation built , not only on the field , but also off the field with a sound financial footing . 

What the IMG criteria does is to make sure that teams are , not only ready for SL , but strong enough to stay in SL once they get there.

Wakey have managed to outscore 4 other SL teams this season in the IMG gradings , and there can be no doubt that they have done so by following the new IMG criteria . 

Wakey have shown that a Championship team can outscore a SL team , although I do accept that having spent  2 of the 3 years taken into account for 3-year average is a big advantage , but with an extra 0.35 points available for winning Championship GF and 1895 Cup , and with strong foundations in the other criteria , there is no reason why a Championship club can't outscore the weakest SL team again . Depending on the Salford situation , that could happen at the end of 2025.

 

Is the IMG system perfect , absoultely not , but even RFL and IMG acknowledge that and have already made some changes for next year . I do think that we will see future changes and some of those may reflect the concerns that others have around the weighting of points in favour of SL clubs . Either way , I don't think that the ultimate aim is to make SL a closed shop .

Edited by Taffy Tiger
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Posted
3 hours ago, Worzel said:

The number of Grand Final winners was during the P&R era, so it's a bit perverse to use that as a stick to beat the new operating model with isn't it? It clearly wasn't the great structure you think it was... cognitive dissonance at work there I think

Wakefield just got promoted. Toulouse may well have replaced Salford if their financial pinch point had come to light 6 months earlier. So yes on that evidence I'm very confident Hull KR would have been promoted more quickly on this new set of criteria, compared to the way we had to do it under the "buy promotion by over-spending on your squad one season" lottery that you're advocating a return to. 

The evidence doesn't support your argument. 

Quick point of order Mr Chairman, if I may:

Really weird that @Harry Stottle and @The Blues Ox just laughed at this, without comment. I think the two points made are pretty well supported by evidence. But if you disagree, as you're entitled to, then please be an adult, say so explicitly and support your counter-argument with evidence. That's how good faith discussion between grown up works, who knows you might even be right and win me over. 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Taffy Tiger said:

Hi Harry , I do understand what you are saying , however the plans put in place by Leigh and HKR , although they may have been their own at the time , have , perhaps inadvertantly , became the same as those needed to succeed under IMG . 

I think that any Championship team now following the IMG criteria in the same way as HKR and Leigh (eg 5 year plans etc) , can achieve promotion to SL . 

The key , whichever way you look at it , is to achieve a strong foundation built , not only on the field , but also off the field with a sound financial footing . 

What the IMG criteria does is to make sure that teams are , not only ready for SL , but strong enough to stay in SL once they get there.

Wakey have managed to outscore 4 other SL teams this season in the IMG gradings , and there can be no doubt that they have done so by following the new IMG criteria . 

Wakey have shown that a Championship team can outscore a SL team , although I do accept that having spent  2 of the 3 years taken into account for 3-year average is a big advantage , but with an extra 0.35 points available for winning Championship GF and 1895 Cup , and with strong foundations in the other criteria , there is no reason why a Championship club can't outscore the weakest SL team again . Depending on the Salford situation , that could happen at the end of 2025.

 

Is the IMG system perfect , absoultely not , but even RFL and IMG acknowledge that and have already made some changes for next year . I do think that we will see future changes and some of those may reflect the concerns that others have around the weighting of points in favour of SL clubs . Either way , I don't think that the ultimate aim is to make SL a closed shop .

To be honest we've already covered this and Harry knows the answer, but just doesn't like the facts because they don't fit his preferences...

Hull KR's growth over the last 3 years has been a direct result of the IMG environment. We were making progress before, but the new model enabled us to attract new investment that has taken the club to the next level. We wouldn't have had repeat Top 4 finishes and consistent semi-finals and finals without it. Specifically the funding from Paul Sewell, but more importantly James McNichol. Whilst Neil Hudgell still owns the club, he couldn't support the "salary cap plus full cap allowances" playing squad needed to compete with Wigan, Warrington and Saints consistently (especially given Hull KR need to pay an "end of the M62" premium in player wages), nor the far deeper coaching infrastructure needed.

Ideas and energy, which we already had and you saw the benefits of, only get you so far. Or at least only get you one good season at best. IMG enabled a turning point in our budget level, because investors knew we were planning for the long term. 

I know this to be true because I asked people involved the direct question. 

 

Edited by Worzel
Typo
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Posted
8 minutes ago, Worzel said:

Quick point of order Mr Chairman, if I may:

Really weird that @Harry Stottle and @The Blues Ox just laughed at this, without comment. I think the two points made are pretty well supported by evidence. But if you disagree, as you're entitled to, then please be an adult, say so explicitly and support your counter-argument with evidence. That's how good faith discussion between grown up works, who knows you might even be right and win me over. 

I laughed simply at your closing sentance, it was the same but for obviously different reasons as I said to RP London re both our teams journey into SL, now I would not expect that either team would be anywhere but where they are now if IMG and their methods did not exist in Rugby League. 

Posted
6 minutes ago, Worzel said:

To be honest we've already covered this and Harry knows the answer, but just doesn't like the facts because they don't fit his preferences...

That's sweet Worzel, and you and others of a different opinion are correct?

Posted
11 minutes ago, Worzel said:

Hull KR's growth over the last 3 years has been a direct result of the IMG environment

Would you please remind me what Mr Lakin said a couple of months ago re the clubs input into how they have got where they are.

Posted
4 hours ago, Worzel said:

The number of Grand Final winners was during the P&R era, so it's a bit perverse to use that as a stick to beat the new operating model with isn't it? It clearly wasn't the great structure you think it was... cognitive dissonance at work there I think

Wakefield just got promoted. Toulouse may well have replaced Salford if their financial pinch point had come to light 6 months earlier. So yes on that evidence I'm very confident Hull KR would have been promoted more quickly on this new set of criteria, compared to the way we had to do it under the "buy promotion by over-spending on your squad one season" lottery that you're advocating a return to. 

The evidence doesn't support your argument. 

Unless Im missing something it would have been very unlikely for Hull KR to have been in the top 12 clubs back when they were in the Championship without spending some significant money which again unless I am wrong, they did not have at the time. If they did then they could have simply outspent the other teams especially in the first year when their competition was Haven and Leigh. I think there is a good chance that KR might not have even been promoted in 2006, who would they have scored higher than in SL?

I think KR are a great example of a team building correctly for promotion but maybe they would have been unlucky under IMG and would have found themselves stuck in the Championship. I don't think people are seeing how much luck has played a part in some teams been at the top table. At least 3 teams won the Championship when there was no promotion and relegation, who is to say that if they had been promoted it would be them that were keeping other teams out of the competition.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Harry Stottle said:

That's sweet Worzel, and you and others of a different opinion are correct?

I have the benefit of direct, first-person knowledge of the answer about my own club. So I know the impact at Hull KR as a fact. 

Can't speak for other clubs to the same extent, although I can certainly say that it's an amazing coincidence how many new investors have come into clubs recently otherwise. Certainly if anyone thinks Matt Ellis for example would have invested in Wakefield, or done the progressive things he's done there (rather than just buying better players), having been relegated under the old model then they're more naive than I give them credit for. 

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Posted
29 minutes ago, The Blues Ox said:

Unless Im missing something it would have been very unlikely for Hull KR to have been in the top 12 clubs back when they were in the Championship without spending some significant money which again unless I am wrong, they did not have at the time. If they did then they could have simply outspent the other teams especially in the first year when their competition was Haven and Leigh. I think there is a good chance that KR might not have even been promoted in 2006, who would they have scored higher than in SL?

I think KR are a great example of a team building correctly for promotion but maybe they would have been unlucky under IMG and would have found themselves stuck in the Championship. I don't think people are seeing how much luck has played a part in some teams been at the top table. At least 3 teams won the Championship when there was no promotion and relegation, who is to say that if they had been promoted it would be them that were keeping other teams out of the competition.

No, you're incorrect about that. Neil Hudgell had already spent £500k on a brand new pitch in 2005. He had the money to be a Super League standard club, and the insight and intelligence to do different things with it (as Matt Ellis has at Wakefield) in order to achive the IMG criteria. What we didn't have was certainty that if we spend X, Y and Z we'd get promoted. Widnes could have beaten us in the Grand Final. Anyone following Featherstone knows how "unfair" P&R can be.

Rovers had the facilities and had already reactivated the fanbase in the championship, with larger home crowds than several Super League clubs. We'd have dislodged one of the existing clubs and got into the 12. It might have taken another year or two maybe, but that's kind of the point. 

 

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