Dear Mr Gutterfax the lads opening post I thought was to provoke debate not to entice a slating but if you post your opinion be prepared to be shot down on hear. Well Gutterfax let Me Tell Thee. I worked for the BBC in fact I still do from time to time and I have sent stinging emails to them about the way they have covered some of our top games. When you have worked behind the scenes you sort of see mistakes and when they happen several times in a show you do wonder if there is a little less care taken on the job. In my emails I stated in no uncertain terms that if they should not bother broadcasting our games if they carried on with such bad coverage. Some of the coverage of our Challenge Cup Finals by them has been amateur. You would never see such a shabby studio, tripe engineering or bad direction on a RU game or Football final. The negativity from them over what has and is still going on says bundles about them and ( I agree about the RFL communications post) the RFL. I'm afraid that the stupid saying that "there's no such thing as bad press" does not apply for us at the moment.

I like to think so!

Despite your
Protestations SL is one of the top 5 professional sports in the country, RL is played nationally and the game has a good following. If the BBC deem it worthy to have its own section then they should be posting news in it. Your the deluded one if you think the RFL and sl clubs are not sending out a load of media releases this past few weeks.

OKEY DOKEY....

...let's hope it's not in an editorial capacity then...




and yet they still only engage you from time to time....go figure




Wow.....I bet that shook them up




...unless you're there, right?

Your opinion is duly noted. You are a subscriber to the belief that RL is a truly national sport and that the BBC are the evil lap dog of the IRB.

Get the nurse to up your meds...

In one way I'm glad you responded to GF as I learned some points

BUT

why bother continuing as, unlike the Pope, he does not have to sit on his behind to consider himself infallible.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/30987066 Better late than never, although they lead with the most infamous moment of last season and I'm not sure of the need of this quote. Quote but it remains to be seen if the episode will have a long-term effect on the sport and its appeal to a wider audience. '"

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/30987066 Better late than never, although they lead with the most infamous moment of last season and I'm not sure of the need of this quote. Quote but it remains to be seen if the episode will have a long-term effect on the sport and its appeal to a wider audience. '"

Yes, I just read that and thought it completely unnecessary.

Did that infamous spear tackle of Brian O'Driscoll change rugby union? Would the question even be asked?

Wow. That is a poor piece. Can't work out whether it was written by that guyjest bloke, gutterfax (only a couple of mentions of a different sport) or some trainee journalist who's been told, "yes, you can come down the pub with us, but write this RL season build up article first".

There's a show on the BBC tonight above Gareth Thomas, the synopsis syaes he is the worlds first openly gay rugby player. Err I think Ian Roberts was openly gay in the early 90's Typical bbc.

the game has to get over this stupid media bias argument.

There isn't a media bias against us, the media rarely talk about us because we don't give them a hell of a lot to talk about.

Even if there was a media bias against us (there isn't) then whinging about it isn't going to solve it.

We would get media coverage if we were building up to a huge WCC, its ignored because we have made it small
we would get media coverage if we were building up to to a huge international competition, we aren't, we are doing our own 2nd choice tour that isn't even announced yet.
We would get media coverage if we were building up to a start of the season that was a replay of the GF with 40k people going. We aren't, our season will start on Thursday night in widnes in front of 7k.

Look at Sky's website, a content provider that could have no motive for being biased against us. Look at what news they have. Another explanation of our convoluted new system
A story about our big money increase in SL prize money. It will be a whole £100k now. Im sure the papers were falling over themselves to report our increase in prize money to become 2 days wage for Falcao. The breaking news that Jon Wilkin likes coffee, leeds aren't signing anyone, and Les Catalans captaincy.

Good post Smokey, and eloquently put.

Why keep switching accounts?

Just call yourself Galliafax and be done with it!

Oh dear


Gutterfax is the name I post under.....
I admit to posting as Jet Black on here whilst under a wee suspension for cleaning house on the NRL forum back in 2010 and to being banned as Gutterfax on both Total RL and The Front Row. MoonieRL banned me because I refuse to swallow Saddlers crap and the aussies banned me because I took offence to their racist comments about not enough Irish people dying in the famine.......I currently don't post anywhere other than as Gutterfax. BTW.....Jet Black is also banned from Moonie RL and the Aussie toilet



You mistake realism for negativity and rather than engage in debate, you seek to hunt trolls that don't exist.

sc-avenger why do you think i'm gutterfax, is it because he doesn't he take you seriously either? that means i'm most people on here then

you look nothing like me

Ha Ha

Read that back,

I've already replied to you above

Season previews in both todays sun and mirror,bit limited but better than nothing

That in itself is difficult when we're largely tucked away on a minority interest sports channel. In the main the only events that get the public talking are those publicised via free-to-air - 6 Nations, Grand National, Olympic Games - etc. It matters little what those events actually are but if our game's ever going to re-engage the interest of the wider public then they need to be able to see it.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/31026276

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/31026276

Journalism has changed remarkably in the last 50 years or so. Working class kids like John Humphrys and Michael Parkinson could leave school and get a job on their local paper and work their way up to the BBC or to National Newspapers, many of whom had northern copies (eg The Manchester Guardian). In the 1950s and 1960s Rugby League got a reasonable amount of coverage in the media, and working class lads from the Rugby league territories knew about the sport.

Compare that with today. There are no northern editions anymore. The local newspapers run on a skeleton staff. Any vacancies for trainee journalists go to graduates with a post grad in journalism as well. It is not unknown for 500 applicants for just the one post. National newspapers only employ ex public school, Oxbridge educated trainees (I'm generalizing here, but that's the trend).

So of course there is a media bias against Rugby League. The editors and journalists know nothing about it. Take the Guardian now for example, on a Saturday morning after the Friday night sky game, you will never find even a report on the game yet you will find two whole pages devoted to Union. You have to go to the website to get a report of the Super League game.

Similarly in the BBC. It is run by an elite who know nothing about Rugby League. The only time it gets reported is when Sam Burgess leaves or when the Ben Flower incident made headlines, nothing about the game itself. Look at the treatment of the Super League show, shunted around the schedules, on late at night or worse, only by the red button in some areas, whereas you can get an hour dedicated to Championship football right after Match of the day for example.

It has always been a problem. In the early 1950s the BBC actually refused to read out the Rugby League scores on sports report on the radio on Saturday evenings. The sport was portrayed as a rather comical and brutal northern pastime and this wasn't helped by the stereotypical commentary by Eddie Waring. Although he was a great player and great man, Ray French didn't improve things greatly either.

The RFL have tried, in vain, to move the sport into non-traditional areas. The World Cup was a great success, but once it was over, it was back to square one. And I don't blame the RFL for this either. There's not much you can do on a budget of £5.50!

An international game is needed. But there are only really 2 countries where it is played in the Northern Hemisphere. No matter how hard you try you just can't generate media interest in England v France or England v Exiles. I've been to every mid season England international and they really have been disastrous as spectacles, with half empty grounds and cricket scorelines.

And yet, if the southern based media were to come to a Super League ground on a Friday night, sample the atmosphere and witness superb athletes competing in a high intensity game, I really believe they would be won over. I'm absolutely certain the RFL and Super League are trying their best. As a fan I feel valued, the ticketing prices are always extremely reasonable, especially compared to football and even Rugby Union. And the product is of a very high quality. The game has improved as a spectacle out of all recognition since I first saw the BBC Floodlight Competition and became entranced all those years ago.

Jack Dearden really is clueless. Darrell Goulding as Wigan's most missed player (when they've lost Blake Green)? Marc Sneyd, who didn't even play for Salford last year as their "big loss" (when they have 3 better players than him for 2 half-back slots)?

Very good post.

The only suggestion I'd add is that with local newspapers being so short staffed and ran on a shoestring, is it worth the RFL paying to fund an RL journalist in every big city? Surely no local newspaper is going to turn down a free journalist and a stream of free stories to fill their pages

aboveus is spot-on. We *do* have a good product, despite what all the nay-sayers may claim. You are watching some of the best athletes in the country, ticket prices and availability are good, and, not least, it's a generally friendly atmosphere (proven by the large proportion of women and kids at games), without the rather ugly atmosphere that generally pervades soccer matches.

In the last couple of years I've tried to take friends and family who'd never been to a league match before to see our sport. In every case except one, they liked what they saw, and would go again.

BTW I do sometimes think that some fans in the 'heartlands' don't always appreciate just how under-exposed our sport is. I would say the average man in the street, even those who consider themselves sports fans (take a interest in football and cricket, say) would struggle to clearly explain and differentiate the two codes. When asked who I support, and replying Wigan, I've lost count of the numbers of times I've had a response along the lines of "Do they play the All Blacks/Bath/Northampton?"

The only reason I got into RL was because the Broncos moved in across the road from me to Griffin Park in 2002 and a bloke I worked with pretty much nagged me to go. Up to then, my only "contact" with RL would have been Saturday afternoon cup games on Grandstand.....I really didn't give it a second thought. It really has very little profile in London and I can only assume that's the same for the rest of the country outside of the heartlands.
As it is, I was hooked after that first game and guess I must have dragged over 50 friends and family to games over the years. All enjoyed the experience and some even took up attending regularly......sports fans appreciate good sport and that's what we have. Unfortunately, we don't have the administrators the sport deserves.....and that's where the problems start.
We also struggle with the concept of expansion. If Londons SL side had been given the same level of support and finance as Melbourne Storm, then they'd have probably won something by now and the games profile would be raised, but instead, we had 19 years of accusations of dodgy payments, too many imports and resentment from "traditional heartland" clubs, resulting in 20 years of development work in the capital being flushed down the toilet purely to give Halifax a shot at the SKY cash

As a result and regardless of if there is a conspiracy against League or not, it makes it simple for editors to ignore us.....we are now as local as a local sport can be.

To change this will take time, money and proper expansion together with meaningful international games. White Van man will dust off his England Union shirt (probably still got cellnet as the sponsor on it) later this year and become the font of all knowledge on scrummaging issues.......he doesn't know who leicester Tigers are or where London Welsh play, but he will follow Ingerland passionately. The Media will all get behind their comp and the whole country will bombarded with information supplied by the IRB and RFU PR machine.......we have Blake Solly......