He should stick to the Columbian Marching Powder that he likes so much.
On listening to his show, it sounded like some had allready been taken

At the point where one of them said, 'There's only 3 balls left in the bag..,' I thought they would follow it up with, 'Oh dear, there are actually 4 left.' Complete farce.

Its the Challenge Cup 5th round, nobody cares. Even rugby league fans aren't bothered about the Challenge Cup at this stage, the stadiums will be half empty, people don't get interested till the semis as they are focused on the league. Actually no they aren't they don't care about that either as they only care about the playoffs.

Stop getting worked up about this like its the Ashes or the Champions League.

Dear RFL if you want to achieve low, aim low. Next time invite a couple of well known RL fans (Rooney, Ferdinand, Wiggins, ANYONE) to do the draw and broadcast it over the web with selected highlights of the previous rounds.

But it still should be done professionally by a BBC station.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s1d7h

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01s1d7h

And that good friends is the sound of a nail being hit squarely on the head.

I am sure your complaint about people complaining took just as long, if not longer to write.

If you had tuned in you'd understand why people are annoyed and, dare I say, perhaps a little embarrassed.

If it doesn't matter and nobody's interested then we should perform the draw behind closed doors and publish it on the RFL website. However, if you're going to broadcast it live "to the nation" on the BBC then it should be done properly. Not just Richard Bacon's fault, though he was incredibly condescending, because the RFL presumably arranged this. I love the sport but felt distinctly uncomfortable throughout those few minutes.

But then again, I've always found cup draws rather exciting and continue to place just as much prestige on the Cup Final as the Grand Final.

I know the RFL caused the global banking crisis according to some on here, but how on earth can you blame them for that? They turn up with the trophy and a cup legend, explain the whole process to them, then do a practice run. What more can they do?

On a different note, Steve Mcnamara has just been on the Chris Evans show (9.5 million listeners) talking about the World Cup and the semis at Wembley, making sure he got the fact that tickets are just £20 in. Straight away people were texting in to ask if that was correct, so hopefully a few people will buy tickets as a result. But of course the RFL won't get any credit for organising that.

About 1:35 in.


I certainly wouldn't blame the RFL. If anyone is to blame then it's Richard Bacon, and his production team. They managed to produce several minutes of apparently unrehed, amateurish and cringeworthy radio which would have sounded just as poor whatever the topic. Sadly the topic was RL.

The BBC give the impression that RL is a 'job' that they don't particularly want to do but have to do. Perhaps, for each round, a few players should be available to go buying and selling (at a loss) antiques from antique fairs. Others could do a bit of cooking, maybe some ballroom dancing or research their family tree. Maybe then we'd get better RL coverage even if it is only as the background story as to why Kevin Sinfield has decided to prepare Confit of salmon with new potato & crab crush & dill drizzle.

Maybe our parochial 'oh look someone's giving us attention' attitude holds us back.
Maybe sponsors hold back because we're the biggest bunch of moaning f'kers in world sport?

My mind always goes back to Paul Younge saying that

In contrast though the interview with Chris Evans which I mentioned above was brilliant and did the sport justice.

Completely took the p*ss

It doesn't matter though, it's not important in any scheme of things

I'll tell you what offends me and it's paradoxical, i'm offended by people who are offended by the tiniest of things, the inconsequential things.

Plus i'll add the idiots of RL who blame anything and everything on the RFL to the list of people whi offend me.

This was down to the beeb not the RFL
The duel reg farce is down to the clubs not the RFL
Franchising came in because of the clubs mismanagement not the RFL
Clubs don't advertise the sport yet we blame the RFL
Clubs voted for the league sponsor yet who got the blame, the RFL.

This thread is about yesterday's cup draw.
None of the other items you have added to your viewpoint are relevant; and I agree with you on them.

It isn't complex to conduct a cup draw in a professional and efficient manner and the RFL have managed to get it right on many, many previous occasions.

They got it very wrong yesterday though.

There were three people involved and none of them carried it off particularly well.

An all too irregular opportunity to market the sport on a national broadcast was well and truly botched.

And, yes, in the overall scheme of the planet it is a very, very minor thing.
But this is a rugby league forum and I fully understand why people found yesterday hugely disappointing and have expressed that on here.

As a radio presenter broadcasting on one of the major radio networks in the world you would expect far more professionalism.

If he had been hosting the draw for the next round of the 'Tiddlywinks Grand Masters Pan European Champion Cup' and had William Burlington-Smythe in the studio to assist with the draw at the very least I would expect him (or the researchers) to:-
Research William Burlington-Smythe, how do you pronounce his name, what are his achievments in Tiddlywinks in general, the Grand Masters Pan European Champion Cup in particular.
How does the draw work, who picks the numbers, are team names read out after each number, each tie or at the end of the draw.
Scan through the names of the teams in the draw so that if there are any difficult names such as some little Welsh village, a Hamlet in the Channel Islands or Workington Town you can get the pronunciation correct.
Treat your guest, the sport and the fans of that sport who are listening in with respect.

I would hope that someone at the RFL has had, or will be having, discussions with the BBC about the way in which the draw was conducted to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Mate, we get complaints on here about local radio productions, and commentary, being poor, or amateur, this was a mainstream professional radio broadcast, and it was done with less professionalism and organization than a villege fete tombola.

A proper shambles.

Agree. Not to mention the fact the BBC is a publicly funded service provider. Picking and choosing which sports to support or mock is not part of its constitution.

---this---

This and also the previous offering from FMrC.

Our friend HY was totally off his thread I'm afraid and if we don't care why should anyone else? If we accept poor broadcasting then it is more than likely that we will get poor broadcasting

Agreed. This wasn't local or Hospital Radio, which is far more professional than what was on offer yesterday. This was supposed to be from a renowned national broadcaster.

People are way too sensitive nowadays

I knew the draw was taking place at 3.30 so I logged in here to see what it was. This thread came up without actually saying what the draw was so I went on the Virtual Terrace and it was posted on there. I then knew who was playing who in the next round of the Cup and was happy enough.

I can't for the life of me fathom why anyone would regard it as a bigger deal than that. It was a draw for the last 16 of a competition, not the live TV coverage of the final itself.

Care to explain again why you are doing a one man "boycott" of out away game at London this year?