Cerulean

Thank you for the response. The competitivity and profile of a second division should be enhanced by the annual opportunity of 1 of the 10 being promoted, but this alone would be nowhere near enough. It's an issue that needs examination: but starting with a belief that teams 11 to 20 in the Northern Hemisphere are of some value to the sport, might help.

Sorry: I was being flippant, and I apologise. There are some sensibly thought out responses here, and mine doesn’t deserve to be amongst them. I like your possible sugestion of a 10 team Super League as a way forward: 5 games each round, closely matched, hard fought, with a 1 team promotion and relegation to a competitive and high profile second division: it could raise the look of the sport, and encourage ambition.

"... and how do we fix it?" A 9 team Super League, it seems. And if a further gap opens up, move to a 6 or 7 team Super League. Any other ideas? Suggesting bringing the lesser teams up to the standard of the top ones is not an answer to the question. Perhaps if we call the lesser teams "passengers" loud enough and often enough, that will do it.

And I genuinely know pensioners for whom £40 for a couple is pretty close to their food spending for a week, and certainly exceeds their discretionary income. These are folk who worked continuously for 50 years, paid taxes, were significant net contributors to society, and lived a particularly frugal life for a good part of it. They save every penny - literally, every penny - for a one week a year holiday, if they were fortunate. If you have no personal memory of growing up, taking your place in the work force, and the frugality of life in the 50s and 60s in the deprived sections of society, me trying to persuade you will not work. In fact I agree that there is no reason for OAP concessions. If buying a £20 pizza, or £20 entry to a sporting contest, or a gap year doing nothing, or a car when you are 18, or financing an extensive bucket list, or a daily artistically produced coffee, cannot be afforded, so be it. Most folk have plenty of things they can’t afford.

Geesh! There are long term fans, decades of watching, playing, supporting coaching, teaching, and preaching the game, who are worried that RL is not where it could be, should be, and deserves to be, and that the adjustments we are seeing may not be enough. Your tedious and predictable comment may get you support from like-minded others, which you can incorporate into a certificate to be printed and framed and hung on the wall, but please remember that governance without wide scrutiny is highly likely to go astray.

Don Fox. Scrum half, loose forward, prop - only a small part of what he could do in the game.

If the weather was at all decent, my son and I would drive up on a Saturday to camp in Langdale for the night, then over the pass and on to a match in Cumbria on the Sunday. It was always further than we'd thought. We certainly felt that we'd earned a game. Wonderful memories.

It’s always worth investigating why kids - and others - take an interest in a sport sufficient to invest time, money, and enthusiasm in it. I may have been unaware of comparative existences as a child, but for me it was an escape from a cold, grey, impoverished 1950s world; the sport a massive part of the town’s life, an activity to become immersed in, played in streets and gardens and parks and playgrounds; free, always available; the professional game a pinnacle of what we did, cheap to access, local heroes, thrilling, a gateway to other places and other names; the beginnings of ambition in general, and identifiable pathways for progress in the sport. Clearly a world long gone, so I’m not worth asking. But do ask those of today’s world what it would take to encourage them to invest time, money, and long-term enthusiasm in this activity which, after all, is just one of thousands of other activities seeking to capture young attention. In other words - and here’s a thread you could start - what are the game’s USPs, and are they equally applicable in established areas and areas chosen for development?

Took my nephew down to Bridgend, hours of traffic, arrived just in time for a much needed pint in the pub nearest to the ground and asked for a pint of Brains. "Brains is off today" I was told.

Yes, remember that at a couple of grounds.

Carl Dooler, spotting a break from the scrum, to score against Leeds and take Rovers to Wembley, semi-final 1967, at Fartown. I can play it in my head as if a high definition video. Then amongst 76,000 at Wembley, Tom Brophy's early try to put Barrow in the lead I can see clearly, but the rest is, oddly, something of a blur.

I listened enthralled to my grandfather (born 1897, a family from Ireland, working as navvies in the Midlands, moving to the northern coalfields at the turn of the century, himself working down the mine a week before his 12th birthday). He was captivated by this wonderful new sport, immersed himself in it, and shared tales of Harold Wagstaff, Hunslet’s “Terrible Six”, the four cups, T’old Tin Pot and the county matches. He was at Odsal in 1954. Lions and Kangaroo tours. And so much more. My grandchildren have no interest in the game, in spite of living within sight of one of the game’s iconic grounds, so I have no one to pass on my stories: streams of coaches on the M1 on Wembley day, the exploits of Roger Millward, Alex Murphy, Paul Charlton, Paul Newlove, Martin Offiah, “Alfie” Langer; 30,000 crowds at Wakefield, 30 different ground to visit. And so much more. For the younger ones, what will your tales be to your grandchildren as they help on the allotment on a Saturday morning? Perhaps glittering nights at Old Trafford at the end of the season, the astonishing stamina and endurance of Graham and Roby, the footwork of Tomkins, the attacking intervention of the best Australian full-backs. And so much more. It would be good to know. The “rose-tinted spectacles” comment is employed to reinforce an argument, score points, win “likes”, and is brought in to be purposefully offensive in an environment very much lacking in respect. It would be nice if better discussion techniques were used.

We were taught to tackle around the thighs, from the front, with the head to one side. Any second man needed would tackle around the chest. The coaching manuals of the 60s and 70, were full of such illustrations. You were taught, as a tackler, to “ride” the tackle and soften the impact on yourself, though the tougher players would drive forward to put the man “on his backside”. There was never any suggestion of wrestling, or delaying the PTB, or holding up the tackle to involve a third man: the ball carrier was put down as efficiently as possible. There’s plenty of video from the time which displays this. We have allowed, encouraged, and expected the game to evolve from one primarily of evasion to one of impact, where players are recruited, coached, selected, on their ability to dominate in an impact situation. We are now seeing the consequences.

This could possibly be the most astute summary of the sport’s predicament I’ve ever seen, and would form an ideal starting point for all future discussion.

Sorry, fella, don't know what you're thinking, but that isn't me: I'm comfortable in owning my present lugubrious view of the sport. You should, perhaps, apologise. Again, I'd hoped to convert some acquaintances to my sport, and be entertained myself, by a potentially exciting international series. I was disappointed, I don't believe I achieved any converts, and I doubt that the whole series attracted many new fans. And I don't really want to blame Tonga for that. I do believe that excessive positivity by many in the sport is counter-productive and can obfuscate problems and lead to complacency. You can certainly be rewarded with a good deal of support on this forum if you work at smashing down anyone who displays a touch of negativity. Or attempts to provide balance.