Everyone harks back to good old days....

For my grandad it was the 1930s as a kid and 1940s-50s as an adult
For my dad it was the 50s as a kid and the early 1970s team as an adult
For me I thought league was great in the early 1970s (I was 10) and amazing in the 1980s
My kids are different ages but have the same sort of fondness for the days they discovered the game as young kids and the days they appreciated the game as adults

The game is not getting worse....we are getting worse/older!!!

It is not the fact that it is not entertaining. It is the lack of intensity for me. I enjoy watching good defence just as much as great attack. But some of the tries scored in super league are really soft. I know it was ruled out for obstruction but the try widnes scored when the player walked past wood and England would not be seen in the NRL. Great defence means the attack has to be even more brilliant to score, there have been some larger score lines in the NRL recently because of players away playing rep footy. Eels lost their best player for 4 games. You just have to look at the NRL table and look at the points difference columns and compare that to super league to see which league is more competitive. if I had to choose between watching the eels V knight's and wire V Bradford (similar positions) I know which game I would prefer to watch.
Just watch Brooks from West tigers if you want skill and entertainment. He is 19 and has more skill than almost any halback in SL.

Widnes are in only their 3rd season back in superleague after years in the wilderness. You've been there from Day 1 mostly with a multi-millionaire owner/benefactor. You are 8 points better off than us this season, deservedly so. We have won 3 of the last 4 meetings and in all honesty, blew you away last Friday.
Only the most arrogant and one-eyed fans would claim you are "miles ahead of" us. Next season, we'll be better again, so maybe then even you might be able to give credit where it's due.

Vinty "blew us away" really?? Go on I'll bite

Well deserved win for you guys no doubt, early doors we had enough possession to score, but, didn't well defended or poor attack probably a mixture of both and the score just before half time gave us too much to do in the second half, although Ormsby keeps hold, or Russell takes the pass and we complete that set, or England goes over errmm we are back in it, hardly a shallalacking

I won't comment about the plastic pitch, TS resting a few, video reffing or not as the case may be blah de blah.....a deserved win for you WELL DONE as you were up for it and took your chances, but, "blew us away" not this year IMO

It is too sanitised.

Too many players are taking offence to getting hit hard. It's like a big hit means you cry and moan at the ref that it should have been a penalty or there'll be push'n'shove handbags. It's a collision sport, sometimes you're going to get creamed; take it. This is not football.

The shoulder charge rule is ing ridiculous. The rules were right as they were - late or high, or dangerous of any description, shoulder charges were punishable offences anyway. Now there are half a dozen perfectly fantastic, should-be legal, smashes penalised every week. Look at the shoulder charge rule, then look at the way players run in with the ball - players running into collision are shoulder charging the defenders in exactly the same way that defenders do when they get penalised. The only difference is that they have the ball. What's that about? It just shows that the shoulder charge rule is a farce.

A little bit of fisty cuffs results in suspension. If someone wants a scrap, just let them go at it for a bit then sin bin the pair and leave it at that. The crowd love it, many of the players used to love it (although some of today's players might go and hide behind the ref)...punish the dangerous and over zealous stuff, but if two lads just want a scrap; let them have it!

The game's gone soft.

It isn't boring though. There are still some epic games. Just not enough biff.

The coverage of the game doesn't help. I think Sky have an agenda to sanitise the sport. They make a big deal over absolutely nothing at times. Luke adorn had the Sinfield head shove right in his list match interview "these things happen, no hard feelings"...yet Sky made it seem he actually head butted him and broke his jaw or something. They completely overreacted. They also overreacted to how Catalans played against Wigan the other week. Yes, they were overphyscial and crossed a few boundaries but Sky made out they were a disgrace. Then you had Crosby taking offence to a completely non-dangerous tackle from Elima which was just a symptom of my first point about players not accepting getting smashed. There's too much of a big deal made of nothing incidents.



On another note there is too much aggressive swearing at the officials that goes completely unpunished every week. Two lads can't have a scrap, even if they both want it, but you can scream in the refs face calling him a ing twunt and nothing happens unless it's homophobic. That's wrong.

Not trying to wind anyone up Rico or troll either - just that the previous poster and his/her ilk really wind me up by their ignorance and arrogance. Maybe "blew you away" was a bit OTT, but no more so than he/her saying that you are miles ahead of us and nobody in Warrington cares when we beat you. Re the plastic pitch, most teams train on something similar, always makes for a good fast game, and at the end of the day, it's the same for both teams just like a muddy pitch when some teams adapt better than others.
RE Video reffing - all correct apart from disallowing Marsh's try for a non existent obstruction. Owens got away with one admittedly, but that was given by Bentham, not the video ref.

He sounds more excited than that to me.

As I see it, there is only one team playing rl from Cheshire and that's Chester wolves.

As you asked, no I don't. I only had Sky Sports for RL and I've cancelled it now.

Darts on tv ......now that is boring. A pub game turned into a sport by sky & a promoter. What next fishing contests & a Super 9s domino contests with action replays ?

TBH you have golf, snooker, test cricket and darts, all boring to watch but hugely popular on Sky as the media are all over it and thats what we need to do as people are sheep and fickle and will follow whatever the media tell them to follow!

I think you're right ha ha

I often agree with your posts but you and nine arches are wrong IMO I think it's a case of each to their own and I don't think people are that daft/easily led. One man's meat is another man's poison.

I love watching golf but that's because I play it, unfortunately badly, so I can appreciate/admire the skill. I wouldn't expect you to sit through it and gain the same level of enjoyment if its not for you turn over.

Darts on the other hand do me a favour......boring since the days of the crafty Cockney and Jockey Wilson etc proper characters playing an un-sanitised game glass of beer in one hand, fag in the other.

Perhaps this change is a reflection of society as a whole and partly why we've ended up with the game that we have in RL? You can't just blame Sky

Another dull game tonight. But if it's any consolation for those missing a bit of biff a bloke was stretchered off in a neck brace

Castleford are a great team to watch but that Hauraki knee was bang out of order, a bit of biff between two players is totally different to that spineless tactic!!

Yet I can guarantee you when I go into work tomorrow several people who don't really follow RL will say to me that was a great game on telly. RL in this country is suffering from a Ratner effect.

Between you and me, I doubt that will happen. But that's not to say the game was boring. It's just that around the only sport which genuinely gets people talking about it is football, which to my eyes has around 10% of the intensity of RL and which seems popular enough despite people rolling around at the merest hint of biff. Or even where there's no biff at all.

Football is popular because its popular not because its any good.
There are loads of sports more interesting than football. its the "X factor" factor for me...by that I mean you get a genuinely repetitive dull as TV programme that is on at peak tv watching times, with most people being force fed it, that you know full well you can turn to the person you're working next to and say, "Did you see so and so on x factor wasn't he/she good/rubbish?" and they will then talk about it thus generating popularity.

Rugby League is not popular because no one has really heard of it, if they have they don't understand it,and not many people go to games or watch it on the TV and never have done in my lifetime so it looks like it cant be that good.
That must not be confused with it being rubbish or a boring sport, because it isn't.

I'm going to try and get my eldest lad to a game at Anfield this year he's eleven, and I'll be taking him to be part of a big game atmosphere, to see Steven Gerrard and other famous popular people he will have heard of on TV and in the School playground. To see the kop in full flow, and to sing you'll never walk alone. ..........If I could leave after YNWA has been sung I would do, because the next hour and half is usually a bit rubbish. but that's what I mean about it being popular because its popular... I'd rather not go to be honest

I've been a Liverpool fan longer than a Wires fan.....I just don't think the sport of Football is that good. I cant take the game seriously, and its rare that I appreciate the skills they show. (the recent exception being van persie's header in the world cup)

I wish Rugby League had 10% of the media coverage football gets but we don't and we will always be a minority sport. But we should all enjoy our sport and talk it up at every occasion. There are plenty of outsiders willing to talk our game down we don't need to be doing it ourselves.

no biff...daft rules i.e obstuction rule.forward passes one week the next week its the momentum rule..as one poster typed no stars in our game..for years no relegation and promotion..no gloss to winning the league but win a comp from 5th and your champs barmy..then we have biased eddie on sky drooling over every thing james roby does

Add to the list the obsession of attaining international sport status and a London presence. In reality RL in the UK is like Hurling in Ireland. A passionately supported, fast, contact sport with an avid following in a regional area. And there is nothing wrong with that. (check out 70K people at Croke Park in the 2013 final https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9FGy9MqOY).

Add to the list the obsession of attaining international sport status and a London presence. In reality RL in the UK is like Hurling in Ireland. A passionately supported, fast, contact sport with an avid following in a regional area. And there is nothing wrong with that. (check out 70K people at Croke Park in the 2013 final https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9FGy9MqOY).

We're in a bit of a dip in terms of player quality, that's why it feels boring. There are lots of good forwards around but we are lacking the really exciting players in the backs and halfbacks.

The league has actually become more competitive at the top but somehow it feels false because everyone knows that its due to the quality declining at the top. The teams at the top today are not in the calibre of those 10 years ago.

I think SL peaked in terms of quality in the mid 2000s and we are on a dip now, but that can change over time. Look back to the late 1990s and the quality was very weak, a run of the mill Bradford team went through the year nearly winning every game one time (and then got shelled by 60 points by the bottom Aussie club in the World Club Championship). I remember being very gutted in 1997 at what had happened to the quality of the game when compared to say 1994/95 when you still had loads of legends around. But by around 2002 the signs were looking up and from 2004 to 2008 I thought SL was fantastic. So things can change.

A few more dull games tonight

our game was ok wigan and salford was bilge