Archie Gordon

I think there are two main issues: (a) squads won't be announced until the week of the game (I believe) so who knows what kind of game we're looking at, (b) no tickets are on sale. (b) will obviously get sorted eventually but it kinda indicates how hard the FFR intend to push the event. It's precisely the event I would have loved to go to - I've done Toulouse several times - but there's just too much uncertainty surrounding it for me to be bothered this time.

SL as a whole - C- Failure to follow through on pre-season feel-good factor or take much advantage of every game on TV. BBC deal just hasn't delivered. SL+ subscriptions look low. London feels like an albatross. Some sensational encounters at the top of the comp. Wigan are WC champions.

3k, announced as 5.5k.

I'm now firmly behind a WotR series coming back, just to pee off all these Lancastrians who dare not speak their name.

I would prefer to have rep teams at the top of a pyramid that allows men, women, academy, u14s, girls, boys, wheelchair, etc., to identify with a region/nation. I think you have sliced the regions up too thinly in the above. I think the community game regions would work: Cumbria, NW, Yorkshire, London/SE, (South) Wales to start with. Get some buy in from u7s upwards.

This is the crux of it. SL, and the SL Cup, become a chore after a while; what should our mid-season event be, because we really do need one.

They are still playing games in the stadium rather than the grass pitch over the road so I imagine that costs them. I wonder what kind of turn out they expect to get.

Not many (any) on here are against minimum standards. Also, a bit odd to use that example in support of the IMG system given Salford's impressive rating with only months left on their tenure. I can only guess that people who regard ground tenure as important are pretty disappointed in the IMG criteria being so lax on that.

They went to Brentwood with just 11 players. Fingers crossed that it is an upwards trajectory from here.

Could of. Hate, hate, hate listening to O'Connor.

A new high for the VR.

Kennedy hard done by there.

The thing is we've trained really hard for the new regs but players quickly revert back to what they know when the refs aren't strict on it.

Yeah. I haven't noticed a massive difference from 2023. We were told that having a defenders head at the same level as the attacker would get pinged - but it hasn't happened in any of the SCL or LJL games I've been at. Strange.

I don't think they are getting any benefit from their year in SL. They'll start the Championship without adding a single fan, income stream, business activity, anything. I heard that their reserves fixture yesterday was postponed due to lack of medical cover. Above, someone says they have no home shirts for sale. It's dispiriting that they have turned up for SL with a L1 operation off the field. I've applauded the Brewdog sponsorship but I think that was for this year only. On the plus side, the Southern Conference League looks like it might be stepping up in quality in 2024 and the London Junior League got underway this morning. But at the top of the pyramid, the Broncos just aren't grasping their SL opportunity at all. I say that even if they do manage to sneak this one - though Salford just need to add a bit of composure and switch on.

Not Kendall's best 4 minutes.

About as poor as it gets.

Flicking between some kits tonight. Why do we allow it?

Of course they should. They have plenty of decent players to choose from. To start with they would be well beaten but not embarrassed. This is the route that lots of successful sports take who don't seem much concerned by running comps that include a mix of close games and blowouts.

You say that like it's a bad thing. SL doesn't need a 27-game regular season. Agree on the other stuff. It would need a decent budget and TV interest to launch it - that is difficult to envisage but not impossible. RLC ought to exist for this very thing. By that, I don't mean this particular plan but I do mean (a) finding a way to bring representative (international) rugby into the mid-season calendar in a regular/permanent way and selling it and (b) developing new comps (assets) to monetise. It seems easiest to me to try and crack both (a) and (b) in one go.

I return to the idea of a regional comp: Cumbria, South Wales, Occitanie, London/SE, Yorkshire, Lancashire Top players get games against each other; comp has a cosmopolitan feel rather than a Northern one, with 3 countries involved.

The jury must still be out on Wane. But not his fault that England haven't crossed paths with NZ or Aus yet or even played a game outside of Europe.

There's a podcast series that uses Anthony Seibold to analyse positions/plays - look up NRL The Game Plan.

There is a message on the TO site that roughly translates to "Tickets? You'll be the first to know when we get around to it."

I read a response on facebook where some dude asked about tickets and some kindly random Frenchman said he would look into it and report back. That is how RL ticket sales work!