Although we know that yesterday's game wasnt the best, this bilious hate filled article in a national newspaper is breathtaking garbage. Every cliche under the sun is trotted out, including 'fans in XXXL shirts'. A strongly worded complaint has been sent to the Independents editor, but please add to the comments on the article. www.independent.co.uk/sport/gene ... 83750.html

Although we know that yesterday's game wasnt the best, this bilious hate filled article in a national newspaper is breathtaking garbage. Every cliche under the sun is trotted out, including 'fans in XXXL shirts'. A strongly worded complaint has been sent to the Independents editor, but please add to the comments on the article. www.independent.co.uk/sport/gene ... 83750.html

He's right though whether you like it or not

I have to agree with the sentiment of the journalist who wrote the article, and hand on heart most people would admit there are truths in the text.

The OP state he / she is constructing a strongly worded letter, yet only because they are upset by the truth.

What irks most is how true the majority is, which negates the sport I love.

That said, the journalist is a numb nuts looking to feed the standard Independent reader who has never probably heard of RL yet alone watched a game.

How can newsprint journalists slag off RL? RL will outlive print journalism which is a dying profession, stuck in the 1970's.

The truth hurts some people.

Who is "Tompkins"?

If you see his twitter feed, the journo in question is a bit of a

Michael Calvin ‏@CalvinBook
OK RL fans, you are now getting silly. I don't like your sport because I support Millwall. I've called you "fat violent cultists".

Say no more.

I've looked at his twitter feed and he was quoting back what he'd been accused of by RL fans earlier. He's taken a bit of a kicking, and won't be writing any positive articles about RL any time soon...

The article itself got a lot of things wrong but it was an outsider's view of the game, and probably reflects how a lot of outsiders think of RL if they think of it at all.

I think when you start reverting to small minded stereotype insults such as stating we all wear XXXL shirts you lose any arguments you may have. Also the sponsorship argument is seriously lacking any credibility when it comes to the CC. Ok Tetleys is not Budweiser but its certainly not local. Many a southern journalist will drink warm flat Tetleys in London.
Then to dig out the game because there was only two tries. Lord help us. Soccer can be decided by a mickey poor goal. RU by penalties. It is as the OP stated very lazy. It may have a hint of truth but the reality is that it was simple southern stereotype trash.
It fails miserably to.mention how many kids play the game in the SE. Something it should address when dissing London RL. He also fails to mention the kids who played the curtain raiser. High Wycombe is far from a northern outpost.
We have also NEVER as a sport questioned the logic of attracting 80000 people to Wembley.
If hes getting abuse then he deserves it for such an insular view.

There are nuggets of truth in there, overlaid with a biased and nasty agenda.

I thought the attendance was a bit of a concern given the huge travelling attendance from us. Had it been Wigan v Hudds, for example, could see a sub 70k attendance. The dilution in quality through the loss of the UK's best talent to Oz will only exacerbate things.

I think it is fairly truthful tbh.
The game was not a good spectacle, it was nowhere near a sellout, club wembley members are obviously not interested (but they didn't turn up fior soccer's league cup or playoff matches either).
Biased, yes, but a fair bit of painful truth in there.

A few half-truths sprinkled in amongst biased garbage. Pi$$-poor journalism at best, deliberate agenda at worst.

I don't think anyone is pretending it was a good game, it certainly wasn't. But, and this is a big but, games as poor as this with bad handling errors and low try counts are par for the course in the 6 nations and here they get reported as "compelling", "gripping", tense" and any other dishonest superlatives the likes of Calvin and his fellow graduates of the Josef Goebbels school of journalism care to spout.

Looked way more than 12k empty seats so I presume they count the club Wembley non attendees?

Lowest turn out of neutral fans I've ever seen at Wembley and the 2 clubs certainly took plenty between them

I think you really saw the recession kicking in with neutral fans this year given the choice of an expensive weekend in London supporting another team or saving some money. As for the article it is pretty pointless given that if we had had a decent game (which we normally do) and the weather was OK actually there was nothing to write given I cant find any sort of real match report in that article or on the Indi website. The same could have been said about the over hyped and over sponsored Lions tour which I certainly found dour at best and only really enjoyed by its core audience but needless to say that article hasnt appeared yet. As for only people attending from the M62 corridor he clearly mixed in different circles to myself and the people from Scotland, Wales and London who I spoke to before and after the game.

Tbh, after i read it i just laughed.. Any chance he's a football fan??

No he isn't. He supports Millwall!!!