Good response.

Maurice was dynamic the first time around. The second time around, I thought he was woeful.

The mismanagement he and Dave Whelan showed almost got us relegated. The Murrayfield Cup win was painted by Mo as "a rebirth for the club", but from then-on we got steadily worse, year-in and year-out, until we were in the region of 70-point drubbings, something I barely even remember from the 1970s. There was a good quote from Ray French around 2006, which went something like: Someone's taken their eye off the ball at Wigan, for quite some time.

For all that, if Mo's plans at the start of Super League - to merge failing clubs etc - had been put in place, I feel sure that things would be a lot healthier now.

Why do you think the sport would be better now if the forced mergers had happened?.My own opinion is nothing would be different,the tv deals would still be the same,the numerous global sponsors we don't have would be the same,the attendances would be the same.
Each to there own but imo rl would still be entrenched in the problems "now" that its had since the day of its birth.

The problem the mergers was supposed to address was one of [itoo many clubs competing for too few spectators in certain geographic areas[/i (while at the same time allowing SL to expand to other areas as merging teams would create openings for new sides). It wasn't supposed to cure all the ill's of the sport.

If the mergers had happened and worked as he envisaged then we would have a SL composed of "big" clubs with larger supporter bases than some of the smaller clubs in SL have or are ever likely to have.

Now given the tribal nature of sport I could never see them working as they were outlined BUT what Mo had at least recognised was that there were [itoo many clubs competing for too few spectators in certain geographic areas[/i.

There still are.

At the time Super League was inaugurated, the 'top flight' clubs in the western half of Yorkshire comprised Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford, Leeds, Castleford, Wakefield and Featherstone - all scrapping over a relatively small pool of RL talent and a thinly spread reservoir of support. IMO, That's one problem that hasn't gone away, even though two of those clubs have since dropped into a lower division - we'll notice it even more now that everyone is having to grow their own. IMO, there isn't enough talent available to support even five top clubs in west Yorkshire. If you had three - say, Leeds, Bradford and Huddersfield, and then one out in the Calder area (a combo of Wakey, Cas and Fev), you could concentrate the talent more efficiently and maybe could by now have created four rugby league super-powers instead of having one.

Same with the support. Bear in mind that once you get past the generation of old-timers who wouldn't shift their allegiance for love nor money, which we would have done by now if these mergers had taken place in the late 90s, a new generation of fans would have grown up, possibly drawn from a much wider catchment area for each club.

To a lesser extent it may also be true of Cumbria. It's been years since they boasted even one major club, but they continue to produce lots of young players, so the basic interest is still there. One Cumbrian team drawn from Workington, Barrow and Whitehaven could conceivably be a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps all their best youth talent wouldn't then head south into Lancashire.

It wouldn't have solved all the other problems you mention, but there is increasingly a school of thought that a leaner, stronger Super League - consisting of twelve clubs at the most (maybe even as few as ten) - is the way to go. Who knows, mergers might have helped us get to that at an earlier stage.

PS: Just noted that Dave O has responded before I've had a chance to post this. He makes the same point, but more succinctly than I have.

Actually ,i think it was meant to cure all rl ills,it never had a chance ,but i think that was the dream.
No you would't have had bigger clubs,am at a loss as to why you would think that.
He was wrong as usual,

Actually I doubt it was. I don't remember him ever making a comment to that effect, not can I imagine that he or anyone else would, as they would promptly have been shot down for such foolishness. It may well be that merging certain failing clubs would have been the start to a series of reforms designed to bring us into a new age, but as so often in a sport where the tail wags the dog, we didn't get off first base.

Just saying that "it wouldn't have created bigger clubs" doesn't add anything to the debate, unless you're prepared to explain why you believe that.

Anythings better than watching Latics !!!!

I'll keep it simple for ya.
People from barrow workington and whitehaven wouldn't have travelled to carlisle.
They wouldn't have gone from warrington to widnes to make a club called cheshire.
The notion of a 'super' south Yorkshire club made out of doncaster and sheffield is laughable.
A Manchester club made out of Oldham,Rochdale and Salford,what nonsense.
Hull,HKR & cas and wakey should probably have merged.

I love the saying ,the tail wagging the dog,the dog was, and still is, a bloody chihuahua.

What well made points

Well ... why change the habit of a lifetime?

You don't speak for them, so this point fails.

I never mentioned either Wire or Widnes in my original post - as neither of these clubs needed to merge - so this point is irrelevant,

Agreed. They wouldn't have been strong enough even together, but once again I didn't mention them, so this point is irrelevant.

Ditto.

As I stated.


Another irrelevance.

Think you need to try again. A bit harder this time.

Tell me which stadium you think this Manchester club would have played out of, that would have had them turning up in droves from Salford,Swinton,Oldham and Rochdale.

The same goes for South Yorkshire.

Everything i said is relevent.
All the clubs i named were told to merge,they all said sod off

As I said, the tail wagged the dog.

But that doesn't address the main issue of whether it would still have been better for the game seeing a single stronger club in Cumbria and a single stronger club in the Calder area.

We'll never know of course because it didn't happen. But what we do know is none of those Cumbrian teams you mention will experience life in SL in their current form, and in a real SL there'd be no room for Cas or Wakey either - and that may yet happen.

changing the scope a bit, I think its worth looking again at the timing of our season. I think starting the league on the opening six nations weekend or indeed anytime during the six nations is a hiding to nothing coverage wise. perhaps an earlier start?

Like i said the dog is a small dog it consists of 5 clubs,the tail is made up by all the other club.

Its all about opinions,my opinion is,less people would now be watching and playing the game if these mergers had been forced through,i think you disagree,no problem.

As for cumbria,i think theres potential in Barrow for a good sized club and if Derwent Park was seriously modernised then i think there is some potential in that area as well.

Hey if a little club like Salford can get a seriously rich man to take over,then theres hope for everyone.

But BBC TV don't really cover Superleague anyway.

Grandstand or whatever it's called nowadays certainly doesn't.

not just TV - you will struggle to find much on tonights results in tomorrows papers - and there will be pages and pages of 6N build up.

Good Jesus!! Just had the misfortune to listen to Nigel Wood on Radio Manchester, "Umm, arrr, errrrrr, arrrr". Talk about painful listening.

Good points. I can't wait for the derby of the season between Warrington Vikings v St Wiggens.

Another Leeds mon who went to watch his first game last night.

Not it wasn't. It was just part of his vision for a Super League.



Given the problems experienced by the smaller clubs particularly in West Yorkshire I think he spotted a long time ago what the problems were and they are still with us today. His solution (as I said) wasn't going to work because fans of the clubs to make up the likes of Calder were not going to accept it. That was their prerogative but they have to accept the consequences i.e they remain small clubs that can't compete.

As to why you would have had bigger clubs that is patently obvious in that the idea was to combine a number of small clubs in an areas into one larger club.

He will also eventually be proved right. Not that we will end up with merged clubs but that sooner or later the small clubs won't be part of SL.

The merger idea was also his way of giving the fans of these small clubs something to shout for at the top of the sport. The fact it was rejected didn't surprise me at all but the last thing that does is show he wasn't on the right lines in that he viewed certain smaller clubs as incompatible and unsustainable in a professional sport.

He knew that was the case and I think he has been proved right as the teams he wanted to merge (who are still in SL) are consistently some of the lowest supported with the least chance of sporting success.

So your solution is to provide failing clubs with mega-rich owners?

It can work, but how often is it going to happen? And how long will it take for the likes of Barrow, Wakey and Cas to attract someone of that ilk?

At present, British RL has a finite life as a full-time professional sport. Constant contrivances by the RFL to keep the perennial losers at the highest level are ensuring this.

You're right to say that the tail is longer than the dog, but my point is that - if Mo had had his way originally - it may not have been by now.

Wakefield already do. Cas and Hull KR are the only British clubs in Super League which aren't backed by a decent-sized investor. Which was why the original BBC report missed the point. If they had looked at whether it was healthy for more than half the league to be reliant on rich individuals who were happy to cover the losses via ever-rising loans or loan write-offs it might have been interesting (even though this is a model common across British sport). To assume that the debt position in itself was unsustainable was deluded. Debt in its own right isn't a problem but George Riley and his fella from Sheffield didn't seem to understand that.

Being in debt, and not being able to service the debt are two very different scenarios. No point in the BBC looking at the detail though, archetypal tabloid nonsense.