Indeed.

Our games lack of response to the going pro was the issue, allowing them to hijack the name "rugby" removing the union bit, they even call there domestic cup the challenge cup now.

I really think we should consider banning players from our game if they switch. They started to war and in principle we one by definition that they went pro. Since then we have rolled over for our bellies tickling.

funny there was no outcry when loads of top players took the league shilling before union went pro, boots on the other foot now.

On top of achieving sod all I find that idea petty in the extreme.

The best way - maybe the only way - that we can outdo union is to make our game the more skilful once more and maybe the toughest once again. And I don't mean skilful in the sense of rolling a tackled player onto his back to slow the ptb or milking a penalty by moving off the mark, which seems to be the be all and end all these days.

I agree I was being slightly flipent with the banning response, people also forget Union was pro just not officially it's ok saying we took Union players but most came not for the money as they were getting paid anyway, they simply came because of the cloak and dagger nature and wanted the security of league. That was the case certainly with bully Boston and Jonathan Davies. After all you can't get a mortgage with a brown paper envelope.

You can draw parallels with the great split of 1895 and Brexit. How rugby league is currently ran in the UK is a preview of what its going to be like when this country has finished with article 50.

With problem with RL exists world over, people think solely about themselves and solely about the short term.

Look down under, where you have a nation who is RL mad in PNG but they have no professional team there and no clear route for players to reach the NRL short of the odd scout from various clubs.

This insular and short term thinking is perhaps best demonstrated by Bennet's recent interviews, I can't believe none at the RFL has told him to make more effort.
Eddie Jones by contrast is constantly promoting his side and his sport, and getting quotes in the paper.

For anyone not worried about the 'trickle' of players to Union or the NRL, I would point to the example of football in South America.
In the 80s only some of the very top South Americans came to Europe, along with the odd few others, they probably called that a 'trickle' as well.
Now just about any South American worth his salt plays in a European league.

This could well happen to SL, that it becomes a place full of the too young, too old, and not good enough.

Definitely. Furthermore, it smacks not just of contempt for the media but for the fans too. I think that all too soon he'll be on his way due to sheer weight of uninformed judgement on his tenure. The reason the fans will remain uninformed will be because he doesn't see fit to make it otherwise. Not that he'll give a s**t.

Speaking of the media the Beeb and other outlets continually use the term rugby and rarely rugby union and although their coverage has improved you still get the feeling that they are being patronising to our Northern game of rugger!

The only problems with the four nations games down south were the kick off days and times. The Ricoh is a decent stadium, but the games needed to be on a Saturday afternoon. The same with the fixture at London Stadium.

With England's performance, while we weren't too far away, (1 point loss to NZ) I can't see us improving with the next generation of players. Some super league clubs don't run academies. When players reach 19 they don't have a league to play in until they break into the first team. This certainly isn't going to create a fast moving production line of England internationals.

PNG Hunters are fully professional I do believe. They have also had some success with players moving to NRL clubs (although still playing in their NSW/Queensland cup feeder teams)

I wrote something on the VT about my thoughts on the current state of the game over here - I'm a rugby league tragic, have been since I was taken to my first game in 86'. I'm from a rugby league family where all the blokes dating back generations have played the game to varying standards, and the women are dyed in the wool followers of the game too - I don't think a non-rugby league person would ever enter our family. I still play in the NCL and am involved with Junior rugby too - I couldn't be more rugby league - but even I'm beginning to lose interest, particularly with the professional game - I attended less games than ever this year, and watched fewer games on TV than ever, in fact, you could add my attendances and TV games together and they'd still be less than just my attendance figures for all other years. And that really worries me - if I'm losing faith in the game, how many others feel the same? And what chance is there of attracting new fans in the numbers required, if the loyal die hards are falling out of love with it?

I'll try be brief and summarise what I thinks wrong - clearly a lack of money in the game is a big problem, but that is underpinned by low participation and a low profile of the sport. It all starts with he junior game, which is in a complete mess, and then it just goes from bad to worse as you progress up the scale through amateurs, semi pro, super league and international.

Juniors - Generally the coaching is poor (there are exceptions), there's still a 'give it to the big hard kid' mentality, the teams/communities are still very cliquey, and it's just generally not a very welcoming environment for new faces, particularly for kids who haven't really got a clue but fancy trying the game - they hardly have a chance and will generally be frightened off. Then throw in that it's generally cold, wet and dark when they train, and facilities are usually garbage, it doesn't make the game appealing to kids unless they're already from an RL family. And for most kids who aren't from RL families, they might attend once, but their parents won't bring them back as the people are 'too rough'. There needs to be more focus on enjoyment and building the most basic of skills - it should still be competitive, that's a fundemental in sport, but 'winning' should only really be a focus for the kids and most definitely shouldn't be the sole focus of the adults involved. I'm a big believer in the professional clubs owning all Junior leagues in their catchment area (with none heartlands shared out). The clubs (and RFL) need to invest in facilities that can be shared by the Junior clubs to make training/playing more comfortable for the kids. The Aussies have a natural advantage with their climate - we need to be innovative in this area to get kids out of the house, off their computers and playing our game (whatever the weather). Only by increasing the number of participants in our sport can we ever truly build the game. It's the absolute fundamental starting block.

Amateur - There's then major issues with the amateur game with the whole summer/winter debacle - teams are dying and participation must be at an all time low.

In all areas of the amateur game, I think a big win would be to have both full contact and Tag leagues - we lose lots of participants due to the fear of injury - whether it be that their a bit too soft for the proper game, or that they can't afford to risk injury coz of work etc.... currently the tag version of the game is very much a social scene, and is seen as a bit of a joke to players who play full contact. With a structured and meaningful tag competition at juniors and open age, we could agin increase participation levels.

Then there's the professional game. Desperately in need of more money, having an identity crisis trying to appeal to a new audience that I don't think the people running the game even know who heyre targeting. We're stripping out elements of the game to sanitise it and make it 'safer' and more family friendly, but alienating core supporters by doing so.
I agree with expansion, but let's try get our house in order in the heartlands first. What's the point taking a 1 off game to Coventry for example, where you might get some locals attend and like it, but in reality, there's not a professional team within 100 miles that they can then go and follow on a week to week basis - so we're not attracting new 'supporters', at absolute best we're catching the interest of an occasional viewer. The sensible thing to do is choose an area with a low supported or fledgling professional team,, flood it with funding at Junior level and work from the ground up - supplemented by taking big games/magic weekend etc to the area. Don't just throw a dart at a map and plonk an international game there - it's a slapdash approach at best.

Anyway - apologies for the rant - I could go on and on, but frankly my thumbs and wrist are killing from typing on the iPhone.... and what does it change?

RL gives a free pass to failure. We pretend the RFU did some magic. We look at the things they do and say we can't do it, we don't have the money. Completely ignoring that the reason RU has the money it has to do the things it does, is because it did the things it did. While RU reaps the benefits of an strong international game, we are still arguing about whether its worth bothering.

We apparently can never have a strong international game and shouldn't bother with expansion to new areas or new countries, We have people arguing that our barely better than amateur 3rd tier is too much for a Canadian side willing to fund everything themselves. We refused to admit, and have since forced a club from a huge, rich city in france to play at a level far below their potential. We have done so twice. People say we can't and wont expand, and people say they will never play the game in new areas. People said they would never play RU in Japan, people said they would never play it in the US or Canada, that they would never play it in china.

We even have people arguing we should give up on the WCC because we get beat and winning is hard.

RL isn't successful because some in the game don't want it to be. Some see success as a threat and not an opportunity. Some see new clubs and new areas as a challenge to their own little fiefdom,

On the international game - pretty much everyone agrees that we need a set international calendar, with more games. Yet we have people complaining because the Scotland team is made up of heritage players. If we didn't have heritage players - what would their team look like currently? They'd struggle to field 17 players, let alone players of even semi-professional standard.
I don't like the reliance on heritage players, but right now, they're needed to make the countries anything like competitive. You can't have a meaningful international calendar with only 3 counties with professional players in their team. We have to start somewhere - that somewhere right now is with heritage players. But let's build on it...

Couldn't agree more with both Superted and Smokey.

I think unfortunately we keep focussing on one area. The pro and semi pro clubs. And to me it's very much just changing the deckchairs on the Titanic.

We need to be focussing our efforts on the top (Internationals) and the bottom (the amateur game). They're in dire need of attention for all the reasons both Smokey and Superted have put.

I agree with most of what superted says, however there is a semi pro team in Coventry that people can go and watch in a decent setup. In fact, almost half of the clubs in championship 1 are in the south and in a reasonably close proximity to Coventry. The reason for it, is because several years ago the RFL bankrolled a few clubs to try and get grass roots set down in a number of new areas.

The ideas are there from the RFL, but like much of the stuff they come up with its not joined up. There's is no real plan or support for RL in the south of the UK. There are loads of clubs, but no means of a club moving up through the competitions.

Agree with that, Eagle. Unfortunately you get the impression the Coventry game will be one off, or maybe one more game there in 2 or 3 years time and then the RFL will wonder why the crowds haven't come rolling in.

I'm all for trying places like Coventry but as you say it has to be joined up. Repeated games over a relatively short time period, tied in with plenty of promotion for the game itself and massive cross promotion of Coventry RL.

All the branding around the stadium should be joint England RL-Coventry Bears. They should get the Coventry team there in the fanzone interacting with the fans doing passing/kicking comps. Obviously a merchandise opportunity for Coventry. Fliers handed out advertising Coventry and the season ahead for them, where to go to find out more/buy tickets etc. Give discounts out. Adverts for the local amateur teams, social/tag/touch leagues etc.

The same should happen for Newcastle at the Magic weekend.

If we just stick an event there with no follow up and no cross selling it's not going to have much effect.

There's some very excellent posts above.

Unfortunately it's not just the junior clubs that have this mentality, schools do as well. I played on the rugby league and football teams in my junior school with some people who have gone on to play RL professionally. However as soon as I went to high school I was told I would never be big enough for RL (at 23 I'm 5' 11" so hardly tiny) even though I played at half back and in the centres so I should quit wasting everyone's time. The lovely man who told me this was involved in both the RL and football teams in my high school so this put me off either. I actually completely fell out of love with RL and didn't attend a game for a few years after this so this terrible attitude taken by some is damaging every aspect of the game.

Were any of the games outside of the M62 corridor actually marketed?

We all know there is a a diehard element who will travel wherever, and there was the novelty factor of the new stadium in London, but unless the game is being marketed to the unconverted / in the host areas we are taking the games to what is the point of doing it?

Other than a couple of those (prestigious looking) posters on the side of an old wagon parked on the side of the M62 I haven't seen or heard anything promoting the 4 nations.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of examples like this.

Not sure how widespread this is - but at 1 local and fairly well known Leeds amateur team, their under 10's team have a 'stats' person, and each child is given their tackle, missed tackle, hit ups and meters gained stats after every game, and they're tracked week on week to measure performance..... Now I know the idea behind this has come from the camps being run by Leeds for the kids, where the kids abilities are measured - but for an amateur under 10's team to have this focus is absolutely ridiculous. I'm sure some of the kids like it - they're being treat like professionals, but that ain't what the game should be about at that age.

Just read what you and WF posted. That's just the best way I can think of to lose as many kids as possible to other sports. What are they thinking of? These kids haven't even gone through puberty. Sure, work hard on core skills and track how everyone is progressing, but do it in private with the objective of helping kids with weaknesses, not weeding them out.
The contrast with Union could hardly be more stark (and even then there are adults/coaches in minis and junior Union who need kicking out of clubs). I coached for 6 years and just started again after a couple of years off, the environment is supportive and there are lots of resources for coaches who want to engage. We were lucky at my last club because Jonny May was an old boy and he came back regularly to coach and do presentations. My lads school team were coached by Chris Robshaw a few weeks ago. The network and the local union reps are hugely helpful. Pro clubs also partner, we partner with Gloucester and our best players go there once a week for higher levels of coaching. The competitive side is played down, performance not result, development rather than perfection. The kids in our age group (u14) have not had a great start to the season and had a couple of thumpings, but they are all loving it. That's the idea. Some of them are very good, and they will hopefully stay in the game long enough to get to a point where you can really do something with them.

There was advertising in the London underground, which I saw via social media. No promotion of the cov game in Notts (40 miles away) apart from the club trip we put on.

Great idea having an RL game smack bang between 2 Engeeeerlaaand soccer games vs Scotland and Spain, both in London.

Money doesn't grow on trees