It's not a dig at Warrington, you don't choose the fixtures, it's a dig at the unbalanced nature of having a random extra fixture. The teams who don't have a strong traditional derby opponent have had an easier ride generally. This year someone is getting an extra game against Leigh whilst Saints have to play the mighty Catalans. That isn't fair and all I was suggesting was to replace it with a tournament of 8s or 9s so it's a better event and less unfair. But as ever the paranoia about my username just comes through and everyone goes on the attack without even reading anything I wrote, which isn't remotely controversial.

In many previous seasons, a game against Catalan at Magic would be as good as 2 points.
A bit more of a test this year.

You're judged by what you write, that's quite enough to generate the sort of responses you get, there isn't some vast conspiracy.

Still, compared to most of redvee you're positively rational.

I don't think it is. I'm not suggesting there is a mass conspiracy, just a group of regular posters who lack the intelligence to discuss issues and just obsess over little details to justify attacking. What I wrote about the Magic Weekend fixtures was correct and yet there was a chain of idiotic posts criticising it and completely missing the point of the post.

If its not a dig at Warrington then why mention them? Especially when what you claimed turned out to be complete nonsense. If the fixtures are random then i think we've been dealt a bad hand in the past 7 years. Wigan 3 times, saints 3 times and cas the year they finished top. Easy ride are certainly the words that spring to mind there!

What I wrote was "teams like Warrington have essentially been given a 2 point advantage for years because of it".

Your first Magic Weekend fixtures were: Salford, Huddersfield, Hull KR, Salford, Huddersfield, Widnes, Saints, Saints, Saints
Meanwhile Saints played: Wigan, Wigan, Wigan, Hull KR, Wigan, Wigan, Warrington, Warrington, Warrington

So it's not 'complete nonsense' at all is it. 'For years' doesn't mean the last ones.

My point wasn't that they are trying to help Warrington, it wasn't even about Warrington. It was just highlighting that the concept is very flawed and that it's the ideal event for reduced format game. No one is going to take an 8 a side game like the one Cas are proposing seriously as individual fixtures but this could be a decent showpiece for the sport.

Come on Orangeman, Union and Cricket are part of The Establishment in the UK and competitions like The Hundred will have backers lining up to sponsor any new comp.
The harsh reality is that RL is a small time niche sport and although some try and pretend that we are similar to other sports, we aren't, we're not even close.
And yes, you're right about Indian billionaires, they will happily throw cash (and lots of it) at most things connected to cricket.

I'd be careful with that rhetoric. I've heard tales of posters being banished for such heretic overtures.


The point of the thread was I believe to highlight that whilst were considering how to squeeze the same revenue from the same source, cricket is doing something different.
The bottom line here is reducing the top tier to 10 and rebranding the second tier is akin to swapping deck chairs on the titanic...

Interesting listening to the BBC RL podcast, Adam Pearson talking about the hundred as a good example, and that RL needs a new product, looking at that shorter version of the product that seems to be the vogue in sport at the moment. He kept saying the sport would be dead in a year if we don't... and gave lots of things we "need" to do. All I hear is short term fixes, nobody talking about the long term strategy of getting more people playing and watching.

I was also interested to hear Cricket journalists discussing the hundred on TMS, they felt the hundred wasn't really a success when it came to the men's game, and that they had sacrificed the domestic one day competition to run it, but with the amount of money and reputations on the line the ECB are basically all in on the hundred so it has to succeed, and they will keep pushing it no matter what the outcomes this year.

Pearson really does seem to be floundering, throwing out just badly flawed ideas like shortened versions of the game (based on what evidence?) and, once again, the disastrous idea of private equity. Hopefully Hull FC can get some serious ownership back involved at some point because he just seems to miss the point of the game's problems over and over and it's starting to be damaging.

The traditionalists said the same thing about the increase of the one day and T20 games compared with the more traditional 4-5 day county games. Some people don't like change. RL cant be accused of significant long term change just 'cheesy' short term headline grabbing adjustments that they go back on. Franchises, Middle 8's. P&R........

I have no issue with change at all (I regularly attend T20 matches at Lancs) but I'm not a fan of the 100. There's plenty of of room for 50 & 20 over Cricket but the Hundred is just a gimmick too far IMO. The England test team is already suffering with the barrage of white ball Cricket affecting players ability to build a long innings and the techniques of a lot of the crossover players (who play all formats) is really suffering. There needs to be a balance with white ball Cricket and I don't think we've found it yet.

One of the reasons I support my county team is because generally it's packed with local lads with the odd overseas star and a few players brought in from other counties. When you see the likes of Liam Livingstone starring for Birmingham Phoenix and Saqib Mahmood at Oval Invincibles it's just not the same. Add in the generally cr@p commentary teams (obviously put together to tick "diversity" boxes) and influx of Reality TV muppets acting as some sort of pitchside reporter and sorry but it doesn't really float my boat. And don't get me started on "Match Hero's"..... cringey AF!

T20/Hundred cricket worked as it took what was originally a 5-day game, then a game that lasted all-day, and made it into a 3-hour game.

Having a 2-hour game of RL isn't the problem. Cheapening it to a 7/8/9 player game would make the product worse. I don't think it'd attract any new fans.

If RL had the marketing campaign for a new structure that he Hundred had, it'd be a game-changer. Having both Sky and BBC going to bat for you, to use a cricket term, is a huge advantage . . . but also probably extremely expensive.

This bloke?
[urlhttps://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/07/super-league-clubs-transformed-adam-pearson-hull[/url
Talking out of his 'arris again....

Pearson shouldn't be allowed out to speak in public given how unformed, contradictory and damaging his comments too often are. Imagine working on the Hull media team trying to clear up this latest mess.

What a job he's done on selling the Hull derby, trampling all over the build up to it by talking the game down. What a genius.

He said if they don't win the club could be done, so at least its a high stakes game!

This is true but Tbh County cricket is no real preparation for test cricket. The standard of bowling is just nowhere near the level of test cricket so while a batsman can build long innings a lot of them are nowhere near good enough to play test cricket.

25,000 people at Lords for the finals.......
On the BBC site:



[urlhttps://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/58295400[/url

Nobody can say for sure if it's a success or not, but one thing is certain, the ECB aren't going to die wondering.....strong leadership.

Agreed, well done to the ECB whilst RL continues to use covid as the reason why crowds are down.

I stopped right here, as I felt you'd nailed it.

I first watched Rugby League sevens in the 1960's and it was too short and too open, one speedster could win a game in minutes,

I saw the nines version at Wigan maybe sometime in the eighties. That was better.

80 minutes of action is fine, Cricket had to change as it was so slow and lacking much action, that was the problem.

For me RL set re-starts has been a smart change to Rugby League, but it's not just the rules that count, teams need to be even, and we salary capped to try to get this (albeit that could be tweaked to be better)

Pearson is showing himself up here, is he positioning himself to stomp out of the game? Reaity is we have changed our game many times to make it interesting, and you can see this via the comparison with Union, just how far we have gone in doing this.

I've been going regularly to RL games for decades. I don't have many decades left but will be going even more next season on.

I have only done a few games this last couple season directly because of COVID, same for many others, so why not wait until next season to actually see what the truth here is.

Crowds are down not just on the disease, the integrity of the league is down due to games being cancelled and players being unavailable due to erm....... "covid".........

Soccer has re-set just as restrictions are remvoved, we re-set in 2022 when we will see whether crowds go up or down.

I would not start praising the the ECB, fact is Cricket in it's true form has already died, and is being replaced by a speeded up version of baseball.

The aim is the boundary for every ball - exactly the same as baseball.

It's not cricket that has succeeded here. It's Baseball dressed up as cricket.

I take it you don’t watch much baseball with that comment.

Poor effort....even for a seasoned troll like you, that's just poor.
16k and change went to the Wigan saints derby....25 went to the "baseball" so let's slag off the organisers of the better attended event.....as I say....you're a poundland leaguefreak

Seen it live in San Fran, sure they hit short at times to get the runners round so it's got a bit more to it than the big slog, but the subject is how hundred cricket is somehow showing Rugby League up as staid and boring, again our game is always looking to rule change moves to avoid this. Recent positive changes are under the noses of people who like moaning about the game....Judge RL on a proper season, judge Hundred Cricket on the interest in a few years time..........