I love the attitude of, well he isn't doing anything for us, so him.

The fact that you hate union so much is also hillarious. If you actually were open to the idea of being able to watch both codes without prejudice, you might find yourself with more supporters. But instead you seem to enjoy insulting Union as often as possible. Pssst, heads up, Union fans couldn't give a toss whether you like them or not. The sport is doing just fine without you, could you say league is doing the same.

Can't argue with you on this one GF.
Personally I would rather have Kate Beckinsale and Sarah Harding(Girls Aloud) with the salami.

Anyway GF will the game take off in NZ.
If the AB's fail to win the RU World Cup what effect will this have on union in NZ.
Will RL be able to exploit this.

The game is very popular here. Most people I speak to who are ardent Union fans (My CEO is a Crusaders Man) have no problem watching League as they don't feel threatened by it. There are audiences available to both codes here.....it is up to NZRL to push ahead with their plans.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks is the games association (by proxy) with gang violence. This needs to be crushed, as the bad press it gets (and we know who controls the press when it comes to the codes) does the game no favours. See starbug for some mongrel mob based stories.........



Hard to say. I think that the pain of "not winning" for so many years has lessened each time, but this year they are at Home.....and I believe that the public will turn on the AB's even more, unless there's another Australian Ref to blame for it



...maybe...it depends on how they do it.
If for example, the AB'S choke again and the NZRL were to insist that the Warriors take 7 games on the road in 2013, I would market the games as NZ's premiere Rugby Team....the code where we are world champions! This would be a tad rich for some at NZRL (it was when I mentioned in last months meeting

) but I believe that it would also attract more fans to the game.

Bottom line is that regardles of the result later this year, NZRL have a plan.......it doesn't involve the NRL.....but they would welcome a second team in the comp. Surely...if the broadcasters are after a bigger market share of the ad revenue, murdoch could afford to back another franchise in NZ.......oops...have I said too much


Let's see how negotiations for the new NRL TV deal go shall we.......you never know what conditions may crop up

To be fair, and to generalise, RU thrives best at professional premiership level in places where no other professional sport distracts the paying spectators, it doesn't do too well in Newcastle or Sale either, it does thrive in Bath, Gloucester, Northampton, etc - I'll ignore Leicester for the sake of this argument and the London clubs don't exactly set the world on fire.

There is also the more specific issue at Leeds of how the club was formed from two very well known and previously well respected Leeds amateur teams, neither of which were best pleased at having lost both of their identities (and their premises) in the merger and forming of the Leeds RUFC. you'll find that the Leeds club promote their home games extensively throughout the Yorkshire region to amateur RU clubs (I got a freebie from our local RU club without even asking for one for the double header RU/RL game on New Years Day) but, the important point - those local RU clubs barely support them at all.

Its really strange because offer any amateur RL club the chance to sell tickets at a profit or to have free tickets to any SL match and they will snatch your arm off - they can barely even give the tickets away for the RU team.

… and only one of them is in London - hence London Irish, based in Reading, being knows as affectionately, or contemptuously, as The Not Nots (not London, not Irish)


However, this has gone far off the original topic into a discussion of rugby union. And we know where those take place don't we boys and girls?