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

The game is stale and tired ,the coaching within the game is dominated by the emphasis of statistics. We have the best three quarters in the game ,moon and Watkins. Yet we have no half backs to serve them.
The game at the moment consists of five drives and a kick. More times than not the kick is woeful, Some of last seasons games
elevated boredom to a new height.
The game is lacking genuine talent at a level I have never witnessed before. Sadly the game is also badly managed by any so called marketing skills. I had to search online to find out the details and venue for the Scotland Kiwi match. If you add in the odsal debacle it just about sums up the whole game at the moment.

We can thank the Australians for that. What we play now is a version of the grind down and punish mistakes RL that the NRL created. We just play a p!$$ poor imitation of it without the skill. We've taken the worst of our game and combined it with the worst of the Australian game - ironically because of the beatings we 've had at international level making us try and copy Australian tactics. William mentions we were competitive between '88 and '94, and we were. At that time I reckon we still had players who'd come through junior rugby who were pacy, skillful and threw the ball everywhere, and we'd got our fitness up to speed (in '82 we were so far behind just on basic conditioning we couldn't compete at all). Fitness and conditioning (and stats) should supplement skill, but really, these days you are either fit or you're not and everybody should be fit for the level they play at now. I am sick of posters rolling out in game statistics on this board and others as if that defines a "good" performance. It doesn't. If Ryan Hall makes 4 tackles in a game and misses one that's a completion ratio of 75%, who cares. I want to see Phil Ford running around people, Ali Lauititi with the "peanut" in one massive had looking for a mad offload, not someone with a 95% tackle completion record.
Every now and then you get a glimpse of what the game could be like if you let players off the leash more often - Cuthbertson was a breath of fresh air in 2015 - if he could get a hand free he was offloading. It just makes the rest seem even more depressing.

Cuthbertson was worth the admission price alone in 2015, some of the offloads he produced were quite frankly outlandish and he could put his head down and bend the line when required. Also every time an arm snaked free my mum would scream "DON'T YOU F*****G DARE!".

Have you seen this..? Pitch will be 91 meters long on Sunday due to safety issues. Did they not identify this sooner and / or consider doing it somewhere safe to fit in the right sized pitch..? m.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/38002428

Have you seen this..? Pitch will be 91 meters long on Sunday due to safety issues. Did they not identify this sooner and / or consider doing it somewhere safe to fit in the right sized pitch..? m.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/38002428

Agree with you and others about the boring, attritional nature of many games, the first halves in particular have become an exercise in simply trying to drain opposition energy and often tries are only scored from kicks. Not sure what can be done as players are now so much fitter and defences vastly better.

In my more random moments I wonder if we should try going back to 4 tackles to try and encourage teams to play more, whatever, I think the game needs something to create more passing and movement. 5 one man drives and a big kick ain't really worth watching.

I think we really need to look at fairly big changes to the rules. RL desperately tried to speed the game up and I think it's gone too far. To the point where there's too much of the same thing over and over again.

I am not one of the "bah eck lad t'were better in mah day" brigade so it concerns me when I find myself getting bored watching most games recently, including internationals and State of Origin. And I think it's not all due to a reduction in quality. I think it's a confluence of a few things including a focus on stats and athleticism but also the steady evolution of the game toward a more one-dimensional play.

There is basically only one area of competition now, the play the ball. And I think that's to the detriment of the sport for both having competitive games and for entertainment value.

I'd like to see us bring back other areas of competition or make it easier for teams to compete and play in a different way. Such as the reintroduction of scrums. I think this would enable a "lesser" team such as Scotland in the 4 Nations to give it a go more as imagine a situation where Danny Brough could kick the ball downfield into touch and then a big Scottish pack could try and win the ball back deep in the oppositions half.
Along with other changes such as calling held quicker, holding the defence back for longer before they can move up, having the team that scored kick off (or maybe start with a tap on halfway?), and I'm sure there are other possibilities to open the game up a bit.

Should we maybe go even more radical and have a bit of an NFL style thing of where you get 6 almost guaranteed plays? So if you drop the ball you keep possession but play goes back to the previous play the ball.
You would only lose possession if the other team gets possession of a loose ball or if you kick the ball away?

Only a few thoughts on how to open the game up, as it's been steadily becoming a more and more closed, tight and conservative game.

If we just stuck to the rules, consistently applied them and punished rule bending at source then we'd have a better game instantly.

Tend to agree with this, but also think the biggest issue that has impacted quality from a rules/process aspect is the referees 'coaching' during the game and particularly the use of a 'dominant' call which allows a slower PTB.
I think allowing a slower play the ball for a 'dominant' tackle is the main reason we have such a focus on the wrestle, quick PTB's and winning the ruck. If every tackle was allowed the same amount of time and the defenders were made to clear the ruck immediately (as per the actual rules), we'd see less focus on finding your front in attack (and therefore maybe more expansive play), and less focus on the wrestle in defence. I think that would then have a huge impact on how teams play for territory etc - because as things stand, once you lose the ruck, you lose all momentum and you get blown away. If every tackle is roughly the same speed, teams won't need to worry about losing that momentum as they're gonna get a fair crack at it next time they have the ball.

I'd like to see Refs calling held quicker and to counteract that for the defence, not allow the defending side to move off the line before the ball is in the dummy half's hand.
I would also revert to players having to play the ball with the foot.

Did they ever confirm whether or not they'll be a reduction in the number of interchanges this year? Wasn't the hope that it would stop so many of these 3/4 man tackles?

The more hidden problem with this is that it doesn't encourage the kids to look deeper into their performances. If the team loses it's easy for someone to say "Well I had decent metres so it can't be anything I did" ignoring the fact that a lot of those metres were off kick returns and the other team dealt with the carries easily enough. We're teaching kids that the overall team performance doesn't matter because they posted some big numbers on a spreadsheet. How are they going to learn the importance of offering a genuine passing option for the ball carrier or how to draw a man before releasing the ball when things like that aren't recorded or praised but sticking your head down and trundling it up is?

This attitude also feeds into the "Give it to the big lad" mentality. He's posting the best stats so we should give him the ball more so he gets more carries so posts the best stats so we should give him the ball more and so on and so on.

If you introduced real scrums the game would just become a kick-a-thon - I would like to see those in the scrum not able to engage in the first play after the ball is put in the scrum. That way you have 7 v 7 in open play. Also if you have a man sin-binned you have to put 6 in the scrum and that gives the offending side a disadvantage.

We've done everything we can since I started watching league to weight things in favour of the attacking side. Changed from 5 metres to 10 metres, speeded up the mechanics of PTB (no foot required to play the ball and penalize heavily at the ruck for things like hands in or not rolling away etc.), stopped ball stripping unless 1:1 to encourage offloading attempts, introduced the 40:20 to promote attacking kicks, increased the points for a try from 3 to 4. Then there is the scrum, which is now a total formality and we also forced the loose forward to pack down so he couldn't stand off and defend. Then there's video which and a change in disciplinary proceeding which has eliminated the late high hit or the lazy arm taking someone's head off if they put a step on you. Then there are the shirts themselves, ever watched an old game from the 80's with those big flapping easy to grab shirts?

Really worked hasn't it.