Your just jealous of our street life

, and our posh chippy

Trouble is that said combined code will be RU under any other name. And I've no doubt it would fall on it's backside. All makes perfect sense in theory, but there's a reason why people from Castleford watch Castleford rugby league, why people from Leeds watch Leeds rugby league and why every bugger else watches Wigan rugby league.

I think Skys commitment to SL was shown on Saturday when they scheduled the biggest game of the season at the same time as Sunderland v Man Utd.Many pubs in manchester showed the football instead of the Grand Final which caused some trouble as lots of fans go to Manchester to watch the final and spend the day and night with other RL fans.

RL is just a plaything for Sky and unfortunately you reap what you sow and SL clubs have sold their souls.
If the SL clubs do renage on the so called new structure I will not be surprised as they from day 1 have not really cared about any other club if its not SL, even DCs suit them they are doing us no favours.

I agree it would likely fail but equally I also thought a mass move from Winter to Summer to accommodate a TV Channel and Cup Play off RL to decide a champion (and to add fixtures for a TV Channel) wouldn't happen.
I also didn't believe the governing body would allow chairmen's wealth or state of stadia to dictate a clubs progression in [isport[/i yet as I type I suspect most fans can name the club chairmen yet struggle to name 5 players of some SL clubs.

I firmly believe that the big SL clubs will be playing with the lessor RU clubs within 5 years time with SKY looking at a hybrid sport that might get some inquisitive viewers and with the main pull for the TV Channel being sponsors willing to advertise between those games.

The guys running these clubs clearly have self interest at heart , just read some of the sound bites coming out from Wigan - I really do hope any partnership is in the bin now as reading things attributed to the Wigan Chairmen clearly shows he begrudges any money going anyway but to the few (no harm in that as such but FORGET any hope of RL becoming a strong unified sport with people like him around, it will continue to fragment as now).

People in Castleford will be able to continue to watch Castleford RL they wouldn't make the cut.

Well I did say from day 1 when licenscing was introduced Richard Lewis was a RU plant.

How could anyone have ever respected a guy who went on Granada TV and denied the LSV excisted after he had been there ?

SKY are only interested in SKY (and why shouldn't they), and know most Southerners would rather watch Utd than two northern town teams playing some form of rugby that they don’t understand.

A truly national game however creates that interest.

Thats my point SKY know this and will always treat RL as a very poor relation even when our biggest match of the year is on.
If there is one game that non Northerners watch though its the Grand Final and this was a missed oportunity to promote our game,yet again .

Whilst it's obvious the sl owners are just trying to line their own pockets at the expense of the good of the game it may bring into focus the ineptitude of wood and rimmer.

No major sponsor for our game- somebody is not earning his pay packet

Spot on!

I don't. I can't remember going home!

Well I hope I am right that promotion and relegation will come back because without it RL is finished as in no time at all Sky will pull the plug.

Rugby fans in the M62 corridor will not turn up every week to watch line outs' kicks to touch' penalty kicks and drop goals and endless mauls plus an advantage rule that seems to go on forever.

When our sport did have promotion and relegation every clubs crowds where better.Since promotion and relegation why have the crowds in kick and clap ( AND payment to players was introduced) started to increase ? whilst RL crowds have declined

There are still only about 12 clubs playing RU in Great Britain who attract decent attendances.

Why the chuff would the rugby union want any of our teams?

They are making a shed full of money year after year

Sky as umpteem sports channels so should have shown super league grand final on all the channels at once?

They are a company that wants to make money so if they have large viewing figures for all the channels at the same time they will be quids in,and by having utd on one channel grand final on another tennis on another and golf on it serves them well


Why on earth they would drop a sport that is making them money on the cheap??

The chairmens make me laugh calling the rfl,this is the same rfl that keep us and several super league teams in business over the last few years with bale outs

Plus it was the chairmen of super league clubs who voted for a handful of trucks to be painted instead of £500,000 from betfair to sponsor the league and they wonder why no one want to pay to sponsor now,they gave it away for nothing.

Now let imagine betfairs bid was accepted and the year later William hills or Ladbrokes fancied it,betfair would have to bid up to retain it,but no the brains trust that is super league chairmen wanted trucks not the rfl those clowns and now they are bleating about the game

IDIOTS.

True, but there aren't 12 in RL.

There aren't 6 in union

It wont be all RU rules their game needs to open up and have more tries scored. As for the number of teams a 20 team league sounds a good base for a national game.

Since several former RL players have gone into coaching RU, their clubs attitude to RL has changed and they would love to play SL's top teams.

Playing Wigan and co would make them a bigger shed of money, the only hold back I can see is their international game.

Probably not, but I was in Glasgow at the time of writing so was thinking of a RL town on a similar cultural level.

I think you will find thaty RU crowds have dropped an awfull lot as well. BT Sport would be better for SL now.

Their game needs to make changes, fans want to see tries.

Couple of related questions with everything going on.......

With all the recent signings we have made and the announcement of our assistant coach going full time etc, etc has this been financed by what we currently have and is affordable on last years budget or is it financed on the belief that the door to SL starts to open and P&R returns in the sporting sense ?

Just wondering if our club will be immediately ok and unaffected from the fall out if the SL clubs decide to shut themselves off from the rest of RL forever in chasing more greed ?

The other thing that is glaringly obvious is that any progressive championship/1 clubs need a voice, I'm hoping behind the scenes that unlike the RFL who are distracted by planning the World Cup that these club owners use this time to form a collective and start to put there view across more strongly - now is not a time to sit and wait.

Ask Starbug how he went on trying to get the Championship clubs to work together

I have a feeling the championship clubs are about to be shafted and must react accordingly if it materialises

In answer to your first question, the BOD is on record as saying they are committed to raising the additional funding to finance a bigger squad than last season. This was obviously with the proposed, and seemingly guaranteed, (!!) structural changes coming in. Whilst I should imagine they are still fully committed to raising the extra funds, (we've signed the players now!) I don't know what the point would be (for any Championship club) should the SL clubs decide to scupper the deal. (It's worth noting that the SL clubs have already voted THREE times, to reduce to 12 teams, and are now being 'asked' to vote for a fourth time on it!)

The Championship clubs have had their own forum recently, and were reportedly becoming quite bullish, but whether they still have that forum, I don't know.

5 years ago the time was ripe for the Championship clubs to start working together on building their own income streams, by now they would hopefully have been seeing the rewards to start to filter through, and would have given much needed strength and power to the clubs faced with what we currently have

Would they listen?