Apart from the obvious troll nature of the OP did anyone really expect any of the teams to go to Aus at the height of summer and see them turn over 3 top NRL sides on their own turf. Seriously!

Over all I think all 3 clubs did OK without exactly excelling. Jean you're a very silly person.

And you would have heard that it was the Aussies first hit out whilst Hull & Wigan have had numerous pre season friendlies and 2 SL games. As I said, don't read anything into it. It was a way of trying different combinations of players. Its the same as the pre season derby Hull & Rovers have. Nothing to read into it but a chance to blow off cobwebs.

Summer is nearly over.
St George and Souths are not "Top" NRL sides according to where they finished last year.

Souths and St George games were friendlies with plenty of youngsters given a run.
The Storms tearing a new bunger for Leeds was a more telling game.

I was quite happy with the Hull game, we played a lot of young forwards who showed aggression and physicality - Jordan Lane, Turgut, Fash and Matongo. I thought we showed glimpses of attacking threat with Kelly, Connor and Shaul, so overall nothing lost by going over there really, and they will have a few days off and get ready to go against Cas on Saturday

In Manchester there is far more going on than just footy and there is still room for a SL team who could attract a decent crowd. Manchester Rangers were simply unfortunate in being stopped from being promoted as the title challengers were given the points instead after a frozen pitch stopped a game and they went up instead. But there’s still the backing there for at least the Championship long term and I think that’s where they’ll end up fairly soon. They already get crowds as big as clubs four and five divisions above.

But other than that RU is big in Manchester. Believe it or not Manchester was a rugby city up until the time City won the city’s first ever football trophy in 1904 (there’s a book by Gary James coming out about that soon). For decades before then Manchester RUFC was the city’s biggest sporting club. There are countless amateur RU clubs, could be upwards of twelve, dotted all around Manchester and Trafford. In six years there has been enough investment from the RFU to get teams at a number of junior age groups at Wythenshwe RUFC when there weren’t even any links to RU in Wythenshawe before then.

The city has more than enough people to count as a huge player pool but Mancunians RL and Manchester Rangers aren’t big enough names and probably don’t employ enough staff to reach across the conurbation yet. Outside a few postcodes in Salford you wouldn’t know Salford Red Devil’s existed across this conurbation (they may well be a city in their own right but they are part of the Manchester Metropolis and share a city centre with Manchester and Trafford). The RFL aren’t getting into schools like the RFU are neither. Swinton play in Sale now and do get into the Messenger and MEN newspapers but I’m not sure they get into the schools or amateur clubs in Manchester and Trafford.

I don’t know about how big RU is in Liverpool but I bet they have a similar situation has here.

The RFL are missing out big time on these two cities. It’s not that their efforts at Magic Weekends, Grand Finals and a Four Nations Final wasn’t attended by locals. Many of us went to Magic at the Etihad each year it was there and many of us attend the GF at Old Trafford every year. But it’s the grassroots where it is most important to entice and develop new players, not the highest echelons of the game (even though the citizens of both cities enjoy and attend those big games).

Really

So Hull playing the Dobbins is the same as Hull playing the Dragons?? Get real!!!

The Derby preseason friendly is a money maker and chance for the coaches to get the combinations working. The games for Wigan and Hull in Australia were treated the same by the NRL teams. If it meant more to Hull FC & Wigan fans then thats fine but you can't pretend it meant the same to the NRL teams.

I knew somebody would bite at this reading through the thread, but using a modicum of common sense surely you understand the point he was trying to make.

This was a pre season game for the NRL teams, trying out different combo's and different players - Hell, even mitch allgood got a game.

In the same way a Hull pre season derby does the same thing here, while still attracting good crowds and a good level of intensity.

The comparison was correct on aims & achievements of the event, not the skill/intensity level or anything like that

This.

The OP stated it was humiliating. Why? because 3 UK teams got beaten by superior opposition in on their own soil? hardly the stuff of collapsed empires.

Quite how only Albert Kelly gets mention when he wasn't Hulls man of the match, only Jean knows. Liam Watts was very much the MOM

Massive positives for Hull were seeing Matongo, Fash, Lane, Logan, Abdull take on seasoned professionals and come out with their heads held high.

at least st george treated the game a bit more serious than souths who named a squad of reserves virtually

Because he's sad with no social life and takes his pleasure from winding people up.

Had Liam Watts been born an antipodean, he would have been.

Quote ="Psychedelic Casual"I don’t have an answer to that. Other than maybe - finances. Or maybe they are living so far in the past and not in the real world that they can’t see that those same amateur clubs in those same RL towns are not enough to keep the player pool going anymore. The RFU have spent millions and put this: www.englandrugby.com/about-the-r ... l-schools# into action and it’s got real legs. Wythenshawe (South Manchester, population 100000) have now got a RU amateur club off the back of it with all four local high schools providing players. Previous to this Wythenshawe had no RU links at all. RL has done nothing like this in high schools in South Manchester and a mate of mine works in a school in Liverpool and said RL aren’t in schools in his area neither. Manchester Rangers does have links to MMU but you’d imagine by that age they would already be RL players from RL areas. Plus they are a seventh division club (despite having money for five/six divisions higher if needed).'" And yet when the play Rugby at my sons RURAL Oxfordshire school, they play Rugby LEAGUE. Go figure that one out? Maybe the RL are trying to promote RFL in areas that are NOT in the heartlands, and RFU are trying to do the same thing.... You know JUST maybe?

Quote ="Psychedelic Casual"I don’t have an answer to that. Other than maybe - finances. Or maybe they are living so far in the past and not in the real world that they can’t see that those same amateur clubs in those same RL towns are not enough to keep the player pool going anymore. The RFU have spent millions and put this: www.englandrugby.com/about-the-r ... l-schools# into action and it’s got real legs. Wythenshawe (South Manchester, population 100000) have now got a RU amateur club off the back of it with all four local high schools providing players. Previous to this Wythenshawe had no RU links at all. RL has done nothing like this in high schools in South Manchester and a mate of mine works in a school in Liverpool and said RL aren’t in schools in his area neither. Manchester Rangers does have links to MMU but you’d imagine by that age they would already be RL players from RL areas. Plus they are a seventh division club (despite having money for five/six divisions higher if needed).'" And yet when the play Rugby at my sons RURAL Oxfordshire school, they play Rugby LEAGUE. Go figure that one out? Maybe the RL are trying to promote RFL in areas that are NOT in the heartlands, and RFU are trying to do the same thing.... You know JUST maybe?

Dubai really isn't a good example seeing as their coach was thrown into jail over there for trying to promote the code:

[urlhttps://www.loverugbyleague.com/post/mokdad-slams-rlif-over-englands-dubai-trip/[/url

You have missed my point entirely. My point is that RL in Dubai is never going to work if the powers that be are going to throw anyone trying to promote it in jail! Sol Mokdad might not have a bad word to say about the UAE or RU, but the facts remain that RL in Dubai is a really bad example for expansion lol

My bad.....

I already know about that and signed a petition to maybe influence those with more weight to get him released.
And I disagree, it's a very good example and you miss the point entirely!
It's about getting training to those at grass roots level, to those that have influence at local level, that being in schools in areas that we currently don't have a foothold. If union are able to do this in a far away land where there is no history of the sport then we should at least be capable of doing this in regions other than the areas that are already strongly invested in RL. They have 5 union leagues that compete regularly in UAE and are prepared to invest more time and money to get it to flourish.

Meanwhile the RFL have failed to fund people in the Southern regions at least to go into schools and try to recruit, engage and enhance the profile of the sport, there are hardly any development officers any more hence why schools that did start playing league and playing in the national comps (certainly in Hertfordshire) no longer play any league whatsoever, not even casually.

That Sol was put in jail is irrelevant to the point and you missed it by a Carlisle mile

I didn't miss your point at all. If you want grass roots investing in then we need to be starting here in the UK, not in a country where promoting it can get you jailed.

No, you banged on about someone being in prison, that was nothing to do with the point I was making, yes imprisoning someone (albeit briefly) on the back of dodgy circumstances is not good but the point you clearly missed is that to broaden the appeal of the game RL needs to be doing what RU are doing. You missed that entirely and then had the effrontary to tell someone else they missed the point.
Just typical really.

But in a country like UAE how can you promote grassroots if doing so, puts your liberty and freedom at risk. Any other country and I'd agree but Karen has made a valid point.

Thank you for understanding where I was coming from. Not sure how simply pointing out the difficulties RL has suffered over there is 'banging on' but hey ho.

I do agree that RU at grass roots level is far superior and after working at the U20s RUWC in 2016, it's clear to see that the RU supports all ages very well. We could definitely learn a lot from them.

By working within that country's rules and regulations. It makes no odds whether we agree with or morally object to the rules and regulations in a foreign nation, if we want to be there then we need to adhere to their laws.

And their rules and regulations state that RL is not a separate sport so you tell me how you'd promote it at grassroots level without the risk of a prison sentence?

Easy. Firstly you establish a competition that doesn't 100% rely on Union players, Union Kit and Union pitches being used. You do this with the express written permission of the governing body, none of which the Mokdad competition did. He himself played Union nearly every week he was in the UEA........the flawed governance is something that can be "worked within" to start....once the game grows then the RLIF can begin discussions with the governing body to establish a separate body for governing RL.........just because we think it's unfair doesn't mean the UAE agree with us....things over there dance to their tune and not ours.
The fact that a mistranslated media piece caused this is a perfect example of the importance of dotting "i's" and crossing "t's" in that part of the world, where as Mokdad himself has said that he shared a cell with someone charged with breaking wind in an elevator.......There is a terrific Irony in that we slag off the vichy in South Africa but somehow want to do business with a nation that charges you for farting?