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Too early to make a MC Hammer joke?

These discussions tend to depress me. The whole paradigm they are based on, is fundamentally flawed but it tends to steer the conversation down a very narrow track excluding what (really) needs to be done to grow the game here (or anywhere). The basic paradigm is, 1. set up shiny new club somewhere. 2. Buy in a lot of players from somewhere else. 3. Sign a short term agreement with the owner of some stadium. 4. Put up a poster to tell people the club exists. 5. Wait for the money to pour in. Whereas what really needs to be done, is to contact Bob Brown, of Hemel Hempstead and ask him how he built the club, from nothing, in a place completely devoid of any exposure to RL in the past and replicate his model far and wide. Then crucial to the whole plan - find more Bob Browns, loads of them. As supporters we need to treasure the likes of Bob Brown, who has proved that with the right approach it is possible to develop sustainable (participation) clubs anywhere. What these forums tend to do, instead, is treat them with contempt. As a young lad, I became school swimming champion, then I won the town championship, then imagine this, West Wales Champion and height of heights competed in the Welsh Championships. The pride I felt at achieving those titles and being ''all i could be'' was immense. My family were ''over the moon'' as i hope you can imagine. Never once, was my achievement diminished by the very real fact, that i couldn't compete with Mark Spitz. As a group, we've got the cart before the horse. What makes Australian Rugby League so successful is not the professional coaching, conditioning etc. at the top end, but the never-ending freight train of young talent arriving at NRL central, every season. The clubs that produce that talent are a big deal. They don't spit the dummy out just because they can't get into the NRL, they are motivated by the love of the game, the joy of competing ''at their level'' for the local trophy (like me as a swimmer). We tend to think, that all that, is just amateur sh.....te, which no-one is interested in and no-one cares about. That is the root, of all our problems. A hundred (more) Hemel Hempsteads would produce the players, the fan base, the sponsorship, the financial backing to create, nurture and sustain a Super League club in the South of England, (or in Scotland or anywhere else). We can ignore this fact and the basic wisdom of this post (or argue vehemently that it is wrong) but I'm saying unequivocally, there's no such thing as a short cut here. Increase the participation numbers or die. True lovers of the game, who administer our amateur leagues need to accept the responsibility to do more. No-one else is going to do this for us. Development needs to be on the agenda of every RL meeting, at every level within the game. Some time and effort must be found and exerted to keep spreading the game, or it'll never happen at the top end.

Locking this. Time to let the legal process run its course. If you want to comment further, do it on Elon Musk's social platform, whatever he's calling it this week. He's got more cash than we have to defend contempt charges. Ta.

Junior rugby league is booming in south Wales, record numbers for the last three years running. The trick now is ensuring the professional pathway remains in tact. Proof of it is below: 6 Welsh born and bred in Salford’s reserve side last week. 3 in London’s. 1 due to join Warrington.

Stop.

Was good to hear Finny thank Mark for giving him his big opportunity on Sunday evening as I reckon there’s a few too many that don’t appreciate what he does for the club and I certainly don’t think he gets anything like the credit he should. God knows where we would we be without him. Running a club like Dewsbury must cost him dear. We are hardly moneybags Utd and I suspect we can’t even guess the amounts of brass he’s put in over the years. He also runs a steady ship and has made sure that we are prudently managed. I know some would prefer a Derek Beaumont type character topping up our coffers and spending big but the chances of us getting someone like that at Dewsbury are remote at best. I’d like to say a big thank you and pray he stays around for many a year to come. If he doesn’t it’s bye bye Rams.

I don't think that is true at all. Both when I was a kid and now when I see children of my friends taking up sport, they do it because it is fun and enjoyable. They may admire the top players you mention but they are not focused on super star status at 8, 9, 10, 11 years of age... they just want to play a sport with their friends and have a good time.

By all means, criticise the referee's performance, but keep it constructive and balanced. Also, unless there's conclusive proof that the decision was in fact wrong, then accept that the referee is just as likely, if not more likely to be correct than either of the coaches. Shaw's coverage of the game did none of the above.

What I don't understand is that there doesn't seem to have been any forward planning for next season. This season has been poor for League 1 after West Wales dropped out. The clubs may say that it was too late at that point to change things for this year; fair enough. What about next year? If we were to have three divisions of 12 for next year, the discussions about P&R should have been had as soon as WW withdrew. We could have said three relegated from the Championship and one up from League 1 this season - that would give us 12, 12, 12 next year. Instead nothing was changed so it's two up and two down and 12, 14, 10 again (assuming everyone makes the start line next year). If we wanted to go with everyone below SL in the championship with two conferences next year - that needed discussing months ago. As things stand, those discussions don't seem to have taken place - everyone has played the season expecting two up and two down and any changes to L1 for next year are therefore now limited to the ten teams adding in loop fixtures/playing each other three times. It may not come as a surprise to people on here, but where is the forward planning/strategic thinking? Even some medium term planning?

The strengthen the heartlands mantra has been spouted for years by some but its always hazy what is actually meant by that. Some seem to think there are mythical millions being spent outside the heartlands and in places like London when the reality is the game hasn't got a pot to **** in. I see no evidence of funding being diverted away from the heartlands to any meaningful degree and I don't see how what is sent elsewhere would make a difference if it was instead spent in Lancashire, Yorkshire or Cumbria. I would also argue in a strictly numbers game that you would get far more bang for your buck in targeting new areas close to the heartlands, or close to existing competitions elsewhere, that can play in existing competitions and move out from there. Work on clusters as opposed to a scattergun approach of isolated activity. So as an example I think it would be easier to get 100 kids (and more) playing in Sunderland or Middlesbrough (as an example I'm not sure if there is already RL activity but don't think there is) in the North East league than getting another 100 kids playing in Wigan or Leigh. I think there should always be plenty of activity in heartland towns anyway led by the professional clubs and it is in their best interest to engage with children, the schools and the community clubs. They are the future fan and player base and if the professional club isn't doing this then it is failing. So in short the game has to look to expand because a focus on the heartlands will see it shrink, and has seen it shrink. We do though need to do things much better in the heartlands too and it is a shame to see some proud RL clubs and towns shadows of what they once were.

I think we should concentrate on the Rugby until the end of season.The players are good enough it's up to them and the coaches to finish the job.

You are quicker off the MARK than an Olympic sprinter.

That's not why kids take up sport at all. It might be why some of them do, but certainly not all and not that many. They take up sport, because it's fun to play, with their mates. Providing a televised sport, that is played in big venues to capacity crowds certainly presents the game in a good light, but not every kid, playing park football, actually believes or even dreams they are going to be the next Gretzky, Jordan, or Beckenbauer. They play because it's an enjoyable experience, in the moment. Now i'll argue, that for a sizeable chunk of the population, playing rugby league, would be more enjoyable than playing anything else. What we need to do, is provide the opportunities for them to do so and make them aware that they exist.

Wales have absolutely done it the right way for a number of years now and focussing on making people RL players, rather than just relying on RU lads playing when they feel like it, has paid dividends. Their pathways are really good and I have heard some great things about the Welsh underage setups, such as u16s, and their regular training sessions.

The problem with this is that in NSW and QLD, league has been the dominant game for a long time. With a lot of the M62 corridor, football is still the dominant game and will never be displaced. This leaves us with areas that are almost exclusively league, such as St Helens, Castleford and Wakefield which all have fairly small populations so growing it beyond what it already is is fairly pointless. Expansion is key, especially if we are looking at the financial side of things. If we are all in agreement that broadcasting and sponsorship is the best source of income, Sky are going to sell more dishes (or whatever the equivalent is), to big cities. Another reason to expand the game is that bigger city names are more interesting to the casual viewer. Whatever you thought of them, not many were tuning in to watch Toronto vs Dewsbury because Dewsbury were playing back when TWP were in the Championship/L1.

I'm absolutely sick of this witch hunt against match officials by fans, coaches, players but alarmingly so "journalists". The whole Rohan Smith crying about a drop goal thing has seemingly triggered a whole host of "journalists" and media accounts slaughtering the officials, questioning every minute decision, especially it seems in favour of Leeds. I've seen references to "client journalism" many times over the last 48 hours, even League Express and TotalRL have been accused of reporting on the side of Leeds with damning and damaging headlines such as " 5 more decisions unearthed that angered Rohan Smith" etc. Not to mention the habit of taking coaches comments out of contexts and sensationalising them for click bait. It's pathetic, damaging and disgusting, especially from such formerly respected publications and sites such as League Express and TotalRL.com. For what?

Well it would at least show SL isn’t a closed shop

Shaw's 'journalism' on the Hudds Leeds game has been bizarre to say the least. Quite how listing individual decisions, at the behest of the losing coach can be called scrutiny is beyond me. What makes it even more strange is that he seems to have a good accuracy rate when it comes to transfer stories, so on that front he must do the necessary work to verify the information that he's relaying. Yet here, he just relays the opinion of a losing coach on 4 decisions made (out of thousands), three of which seem like perfectly reasonable decisions frankly. Least he could do is get the opinion of a referee or former referee to add some balance if he's going to go ahead and write such a piece.

Matt shaws latest piece is pretty disgraceful. No self awareness for the contribution the press have made to this situation. It's the actual opposite of what it should be.

Just read Matt Shaw's defence of "scrutiny of referees" but missed the entire point that putting a video up and asking if the decision was right or wrong isn't scrutiny, it's encouraging those already enraged by a decision to get angrier. They know that when then put out those social media posts, and if they don't, they're being woefully unaware.

I listen to a couple of non league football podcasts and stumbled across this. It's a podcast from a volunteer at Nairn County in Scotland explaining how he markets the club. It starts from scratch and explains things step by step. He had no budget and most was done remotely as he lives in Glasgow. He's managed to grow attendances and increase sales etc. For context, Nairn have an average attendance of about 300 I thought If anyone here is involved at any level with their club, or knows someone who is, then this may be an interesting listen and a helpful resource.

Absolutely endorse your comments 100%. It’s clear to me that there is some superb work which takes place behind the scenes to ensure that the club can operate and function on a day to day basis. BIG thanks to everyone concerned . Massive thanks to each and every sponsor. Hope the club have done you proud this season . Finally it goes without saying get well soon Ray Abbey. A fine gentleman whom I know is well respected by all the players.

Great post. If only the Rugby League Conference was supported and stuck with we could have had a whole development league of Hemel Hempstead like clubs.

I think this too, I think the biggest clue is comparing the Toulouse promotion-winning team of 2021 to this year's version which is miles weaker across the board yet is still in second place well clear of the remainder. It's a worry in terms of the SL performance next year for whoever gets promoted, Fev have been by some way the most consistent team but are likely to lose at least three of their better forwards to retirement. Fev will certainly spend money if they do go up but if it isn't Fev (and we haven't been especially convincing lately) then it's going to be an even weaker team on paper - Toulouse are far worse off than they were prior to the 2022 season even accounting for how they lost Ford and Kheirallah in pre-season, and if it's not either Fev or Toulouse that go up then we're potentially looking at teams that have lost 10+ games in a sub-standard Championship season suddenly being elevated to SL and with most of the better SL players already signed up for next year. The reason for this is not hard to find, the slashing of Championship club budgets at the last Sky money reduction means it's even tougher for them to compete with SL clubs for those fringe players. This is always going to be an issue when there isn't a club with a vastly wealthy owner trying to make the leap from Championship to SL when the previous year they only had around 10% of the funding of SL clubs.

I have watched a lot of NCL over the last 4-5 years. All levels from prem to div 3, and I can honestly say that the top 4 teams in NCL prem (Hunslet, West Hull, Rochdale and Wath Brow) would beat the bottom 4/5 teams in league 1. Can’t be expecting people to pay £15-£20 a ticket when there’s similar quality for £3. I do agree with some regionalisation/conference split for L1 clubs. The league feels like a no man’s land. Teams aren’t good enough for the championship and can’t sustainably regress into NCL. I think the game needs to be built from NCL up, rather than SL down. SL and to an Extent the championship is sustainable now, and the IMG gradings will secure that. The amount of late bloomers who develop between 18-21 who either missed out on, or dropped from, academy level and play in the NCL is astonishing. You see huge fluctuations with people playing semi pro and NCL and it’s a really untapped market. NCL acts as our national league, if you look at the football equivalent, and while that sport has considerably more money ect you wouldn’t believe it. I think giving the NCL more exposure and a clear pathway for players who want to make that semi pro step would lead to a more sustainable league 1 in time.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that but is it necessarily a bad thing that dreamers are less dreamy? Perhaps the British professional rugby league garden would be rosier if it had tended to its existing plants better, instead of planting ever more exotic species in the same thin soil. Maybe we should ask whether expanding the game’s professional footprint with clubs who tend to have the smallest gates and the furthest distances makes financial sense when resources are scarce. I want to see rugby league flourish in new places as much as the next TRL poster - I play for a newly-created south London masters side - but that doesn’t necessarily mean professional clubs.

Marcus himself has re-Tweeted a couple of examples of the abuse and threats he's received. I'm not posting the actual abuse, due to the NSFW language, but it can easily be found online. But, next time your team concedes a penalty that you can't bring yourself to admit may have been deserved, think a second or two before posting a red-mist tirade. Otherwise, you're on the first step towards this sort of behaviour yourself.

One post deleted already. Stick to discussing THE GAMES ONLY in here please. No hilarious puns trying to shoehorn other subjects in, or I'll get really bored, really quickly of having to step in and moderate, and it'll be easier just for me to suspend your posting rights for a while instead. Thanks.

I thought it was basically lowest placed B gets relegated. The only way to be safe from relegation is to become a grade A

Don't be surprised, it is only anoraks like us who populate platforms such as this who knows anything about IMG and their plans, most others are just fans of the game who get along to the grounds to cheer their team on, until all this spreadsheet rugby comes to fruition most will have no idea about it.

In the same way that if you speed you have to go on a speed awareness course, if a coach criticises a referee, they should have to go on a referee course... and then referee an under 11's game, where all the parents can come up to them afterwards and explain every wrong decision they made.

Spot on Nick! Mark will have lost a considerable amount of money this season, yet we still hear the "no ambition!" comments on Facebook etc. If anyone has the cash to invest in Dewsbury, I am sure Mark would love to hear from them.

On another note , next year if we still have 10 Teams in our league .Why not play the season out as normal , then split the league into 2 fives . Bottom 5 revert to zero points , play each other home and away and the winner gets a trophy and some cash if the tight people who run RL can put some up . It would give the lower Teams more competitive games and a chance of actually winning something .....Top 5 keep their points play each other home and away , top 2 get promoted . No need for a play off plus it gives every Team 26 fixtures which would solve the lack of games problem .

His latest article is a shocker. Trying to justify the unjustifiable springs to mind. When in a hole etc

Yep I have been saying that on this forum for months. Current SL occupancy has a massively favourable factor in terms of so many things that score IMG points - on finances, on crowds, on social media followers, plus on knock-on effects such as merchandise sales etc. The idea that clubs get points based on a 3,000 home crowd threshold regardless of whether your home crowds are aginst Wigan, Hull, Hull KR, Leeds and St Helens or Keighley, Whitehaven, Newcastle, Barrow or Swinton is so patently preposterous - you have only to look at Leigh's crowds this year compared to some very moderate ones when they were dominating the Championship last season. That's before you take into account that finishing bottom of SL three years in a row will still score you more IMG points than finishing top of the Championship three years in a row (unless you win the Grand Final). As you say, Leigh's amazing year probably wouldn't have happened under the IMG system, and Fev have made no bones about the fact that they see this as the last chance for the club to get into SL. It's not hard to imagine Derek Beaumont would have lost interest if this system had been in place a couple of years ago, and whether Mark Campbell will feel motivated to continue with the huge amount of work he has put into Fev remains to be seen if they don't go up.

To confirm Caine has had an operation on a pectoral injury and Earl Hurst has has successful surgery on bicep tear. Both will not play again in 2023 season due to the recovery periods involved. Graeme Director Workington Town RLFC

Yeah I agree there certainly seems to have been a leveling off in standards this season with only Fev who I think have performed to a similar standard as last year near the top of the table. For me Toulouse have been of a similar standard to the likes of Batley and Fax last season. I think Bradford have improved without a doubt but in my opinion not to the point where they would have challenged for 3rd or 4th last season.

Yes and no. It's not about a local rivalry though, more about leaving the lower half of the table and joining the play-off contenders pack. In the olden days though there were local rivalries between Coventry Bears and Hemel Stags, Nottingham Outlaws, Leicester Storm. Coaching staff and players moving between the Midlands clubs fed this. As much as I would like those teams back in League 1, and I think those games would help with building crowds, the thrill of supporting a club like Cov Bears / Midlands Hurricanes is in bridging the gap and competing regularly with the likes of Oldham, Doncaster and (eventually) Dewsbury. There has to be the ambition and potential of promotion to the Championship and Super League beyond that.

There seems to be a suggestion on social media that referees are not accountable. They are. Performances are reviewed and teams have an opportunity to feedback on the performance of the officials after the game.

I’m sure Matthew Shaw is happy that his click baiting reporting of the Huddersfield v Leeds match has contributed towards this sort of abuse. Maybe the RFL should consider revoking his press accreditation for a while.

Yep the offending tweet is vile. I've criticised/discussed decisions I dare say we all have at some point, however I've never made it personal about any particular referee. I do think refs have a ridiculously hard job and Ive never really understood why people think they are biased or why they think personal abuse is OK. I also think the media need to stop with the clickbait articles and fans should stop analysing every detail, and I realise I have been guilty of this this weekend, however I do think talking about it in a specific game thread is slightly different to general Social Media.

Nope. Grading will then come into full effect from 2025, with the top tier league comprising of 12 clubs including all ‘Category A’ clubs and the highest-ranking ‘Category B’ clubs. All gradings will be re-assessed annually, meaning it is envisaged that promotion and relegation between the tiers would continue, but no longer wholly determined by on-field performance.

It should have been a straight red because for me it was deliberate. He lives a charmed life does Ferres because when we played them earlier in the season at our place he threw the ball at the referee and got away with it.

If someone like JHF doesn't understand how it will work at this late stage I think there could well be an awful lot of surprised folk come the end of the 2024 season.....

The most deplorable thing is that there are those who consider the IMG thingy should be called sport in the effort for gaining promotion.

That would be the funniest outcome

The club I run in our area of the Midlands have a committee team consisting of the following ages: 25, 26, 28, 30, 32 How grateful I am for all of them as only two of us are ‘rugby league’ people as such, despite all 5 still putting the boots on.

It depends if Japan are still competing the world cup. The semi final matches won't be played in Toulouse but the Japanese team are using it as a base

From my point of view as a Thunder season ticket holder. Yes playing numbers at a community level have dropped off, this is about the same as the average across the country. But with fewer numbers to start with will always look worse. Can that be re-built? Yes it can but that takes time and the club is aware of this. Can't say too much about off the pitch, owners etc but we have to be more realistic and honest on what we can afford to do and that doesn't involve winning Super League by 2030. As relegation looks likely we have to take our medicine and regroup. The players under Chris Thorman are fighting and look like they care From my point of view as a fan, albeit a relatively new one, there's so much potential here and yes football is king. But St James Park sells out every week, there's an opportunity for parents to bring their kids to live sport at a reasonable price, so yes it's a challenge but not unrealistic. In terms of people around the club, we have a small group of people day to day who care about the club and we're in good hands there. What we're starting to see is a better link between the University game and Thunder which could bring players through, but these players need time. If anyone knows anyone visiting or coming to live in Newcastle get in touch with Thunder and come down to Kingston Park and get involved.

I don't think giving the feral youths of Featherstone guns is going to help things.