Wigan (a) thurs 6th aug SKY
Catalan (h) fri 14th Aug
Saints (a) thurs 20th aug. SKY
Cas (h) thurs 3rd sep SKY
Wire (h) sun 13th sep
Hull FC (a) fri 18th sep
Leeds (h) fri 25th Sep

No Saturday games, one Sunday

3 thursday games, how does that compare with the other 7?

looks like cas have 4, us 3, saints 2 and warrington, wigan and leeds 1 each?

Unless we make Old Trafford

Can see a lot less than 4800 at that Catalans game

can see us struggling for any crowd over 7,000 maybe the leeds game if there's still something play for.

the club are doing deals for non ST holders which works out at £17.50 per game, would that tempt you into buying one if you were a non ST holder?

catalans game on friday night but not on sky?

Did not want to play Sun/Thur

ah good spot!

Let's see how good the club's marketing is for this !! we should be pushing the hell out of our home games now as we look towards semi-finals ! At the moment we are in a semi-final place we need to be ramming that down peoples throats and emphasising the importance of this and making it so people in and around town see nothing but claret & gold for the next few weeks !!!

This fixtures list has made my season ticket an expensive half season, as can't make any mid week games ie Thursdays or Fridays so one home game on a Sunday. Won't be renewing next year pity, but can't afford to waste money sorry Ken count me out.

Ironically if we had been middle 8 you would probably have been able to make every game even those on TV Sky dont seem to want to give up on Thursday but when sides like Cas get half the crowd on a Thursday than they would if that game was on a Sunday surely someone must see something is wrong. I would go for a game on Saturday evening even when Catalans are away in the 5pm slot their homes get and perhaps if they are home have one at 3pm or 7pm as a double header (assuming all their home games on TV is a long term thing).

If we are to have Thursday games perhaps limit it to 12 a season in a 12 week period cup weekends excepted and every club gets featured once at home but no more than once. All supporters would know where they stood and buying a season ticket could be a more informed choice.

That would require the RFL running the game. !!!

Everything there makes sense, probably to everyone but Sky, And Sky don't give a Fig what Giants fans ( or anybody else's fans think. They own the game and as the saying goes" he who pays the piper and all that "

Sky don't want you and me down at the stadium watching the game, they want us sat on the Couch with a few cans watching the game.
The RFL sold out to sky when the summer game came into being, In truth they had little or no option if they wanted to keep the game professional, so now the game takes what Sky pays us ( a fraction of what they pay union ) and we think ourselves lucky.

If they say we play at X time of day or night, then that's when we play, if they change days or times, that's tough. They are making a TV circus of the game and the RFL can do nothing about it.

It is truly a sad state of affairs but they are the Daddies, They know it, we know it and the RFL know it, Without them the game would be played at amateur level in no time at all. How many would want that.

They pay us a fraction of the cost they pay yawnion? the viewing figures for league are higher. But the RFL think they have a great deal...

You are right of course, but I don't think myself we have the right calibre of people running League.

What we need IMO is some of the people who Run Union. It is inferior to League in almost every way on the field for the most part ( and that's from someone who used to play Union ) Off the field It has left us for dead, Whatever we think of them, they know how to run and market their sport .
In the few short years since the game went ( openly professional ) they have gone forwards in leaps and bounds, They are truly a world wide sport that can fill stadiums to capacity for International games. Compare that to League internationals, where for the top games we can maybe muster crowds of 25 ,000, and those games have to involve the so called big 3. because League fans by and large care little about internationals, or whether we beat the Aussies ever again.

It is behind League on the field IMO but it is catching up fast, the players are fitter and faster by far than they were, and the game is far more varied than league, They have adopted a lot of league's rules over the years to improve their game and it is working.
The Super twelve games that I have watched are as good as League .
They have ref's who have 3 times as many infringements to watch for and yet by and large they get it right, without the need for some clown like Cummings to explain the mysteries away. and they have commentators, they don't have to put up with the modern day Eddie Warings making a joke of commentating .

In years gone by League used to trawl the Valleys of S Wales and a few other places, and cherry pick the best players who needed the money, they got a lot of truly classy players like Lewis jones, David Watkins and the like.

Nowadays the boot is on the other foot, Not only do they come and poach our better players , they take our people for coaching as well, They know all the right palms to grease to keep the game at the top in all the various Media outlets, and they miss few chances to put league in its place.

In short even though Union has It's problems and fall outs, They are still driving the game forward world wide. I don't think I need to reference Leagues 100 year progress at driving the game forward.
That for what It's worth is why Union is awash with money and League is by comparison a pauper.

as i said on one of the facebook groups, SKY don't give a toss as to how many fans, or their children or their fans can make a game on a thursday or a friday, they don't give 2 hoots if kids can't make the games because parents are reluctant to keep them out late
they run the game to all ends and they decide when games will be played, we took their pieces of silver so have to go with it.
it's not convenient for the match going fans but all our rulers care about is subscriptions to pay for their premier league coverage and viewing figures, they don't care if there is 1,000 or 10,000 at a ground.

a) the difference between the deals for RL and RU have currently signed is roughly 2m over a 4 year period (when you exclude Heineken cup, which we don't really have an equivalent for). Can't remember the precise figures but it certainly wasn't worlds apart.

b) sky pay RU very little as the current RU rights are held by BT sport.

c) the rfl have got a better deal then they ever have, why wouldn't they be happy.

I sort of think you have a point on Sky not being bothered about the crowd but moving kick offs to 7 30 has to have come from somewhere, cynically it is perhaps to catch an audience before the 8.05 ko in Europa League matches but I think the fact we are not on at home that often is due to the empty seats but saying that RU outside the internationals and the top flight in England and France is not in that good state and the region's in Wales in particular are a shambles playing in front of gates we'd be embarrassed to have and only propped up by the money the WRU makes from the National side.

I thought I had read somewhere that the union got app 3 times from TV what league gets, and I think the current deal for league was 90 Million over a 5 year period, I wouldn't argue it cause I can't even remember where I read the figures, But I wouldn't be at all surprised if Union pulled in more than the entire League funding for the 6 nations alone. They have plenty of it anyway wherever they are getting it

You are right about Wales, and it's the very reason League used to get so many quality players from down there, Going back a few years a big number of Union players in England were professional men and were not short of money, Not so in the Valleys.

But there is enough money in the game to fund all the players down there, How many do we see coming to League now ?.

Got no Stats but I would guess the Union premier league will be on a par with super league for crowds, and I don't reckon their top clubs go bust with the same regularity as the Bradford's and Wakeys.

The unpleasant truth is that we are virtually owned by Sky, Union can play TV companies off against each other, The 6 nations is really popular and the world cups are just something different to what league can offer. We cant Haggle with anyone about price because nobody but Sky want us. It's not nice to think about but if Sky for any reason decided to pull the plug, we would be down that well known creek in no time flat.

The problem in Wales is knowing who the good players are as below the 4 regions the top club division is meant to feed them but for example Llanelli who are basically the reserve team of the Scarlets region lost a home game 96-0 last season to a side which is probably paying less than Rochdale or Oldham pay their players. Neath are supposed to be part of the Ospreys but are going bust, Swansea the other main feeder to them were relegated so the talent pool outside maybe 50 or 60 Welsh qualified players at the region's and maybe another 20 playing in England or France just is not there or at least would not be evident to RL clubs unless they watched a lot of dire matches at places which in a lot of cases are at old grounds falling to bits with a crowd under 3 figures in attendance.

The national team will always make millions and in the main will compete but below that the system is rotten and far worse than 30 or 40 years when an open cheque book took players north.

We won 4 drew 1 out of the 7 equivalent games this season.
We have failed to beat any of the top 3.

That would be enough to see us keep 4th.
Need a strong start against Wigan

spot on jools,
the good thing is that it's in our hands now as to whether we make the semi finals

if we turn up and do the business we are 80 minutes away from a grand final

I would think all you have said will be pretty accurate, I don't keep up with Union much anymore, but still no players are coming to our code, From that you have to guess that they are being kept happy money wise. I take your point about the talent pool down there, Halfbacks for eg don't materialise out of nowhere like they used to, but even the ones that do , show no tendency to come up here.