This is a great opportunity for the sport and the appointment of the right replacement is vital to the games future. Lets hope they dont appoint the wrong person although nothing would surprise me.

How much of a golden handshake will he take, not that he should need the money, make a grand gesture Mr. Wood and give it to developing the game at grass roots.
On the other side is he getting ready to move into the position being vacated later the year to cause mayhem and unrest at international level ?

Bearing in mind that the blokes making the appointment will be $uperleague dominated, why would this be good for Championship clubs ?

As I say, its a great opportunity. Whether it is taken however, we will have to see.

Would you like to expand on how you see your vision of the future ?

Scrap forced expansion, scrap franchising, scrap no P&R, tidy up certain aspects of the game (scrums for example, which are a farce), give supporters a greater say in how the game is run, scrap the gimmicks (magic weekend), increase the importance of the Challenge Cup...

Scrap forced expansion - it's like we're back in the 19th century - "chuck South Shields out, it's too far".

Scrap franchising - thought we'd done that (for the moment), we replaced it with a crazy 12s and 8s system with games at the climax of the season that are poorly attended because no-one knows they're on till about 10 minutes before kick-off.

Scrap no P&R - just remind me about Leigh and Hull KR......... Still we can always whinge about players losing their jobs and not having stability in employment which is a problem entirely caused by P+R.

Tidy up certain aspects of the game (scrums for example, which are a farce) - nothing wrong with scrums. I don't want all restarts to be the same like American football.

Give supporters a greater say in how the game is run - seriously, what experience do they have in running clubs or the game as a whole ?

Scrap the gimmicks (magic weekend) - I'd go with that - but do they make money ? We don't have enough information.

Increase the importance of the Challenge Cup - supporters decide that - with their feet.

And how are you going to get the $uper£eague turkeys to vote for Christmas ?



It's not as easy as it looks .....

Well history proves that forced expansion has failed with the farce over where Toronto are playing their games the latest shambles.

Franchising, or at least scrapping P&R, is apparently coming back. P&R works fine in football and in RU but the instability in employment in RL is a problem? Oh diddums. If it improves the spectacle for the supporters then I am all for it.

Nothing wrong with scrums??? Ha, OK then.

"Give supporters a greater say in how the game is run - seriously, what experience do they have in running clubs or the game as a whole ?"

That is just typically ignorant of you. First of all, I said give them a say, not give them full control. But there is a huge range of skills and experiences among the supporters on the terraces. In fact, isnt the current HRLFC board made up of people who were supporters prior to joining the board? As was Steele, Pearson, Riley, etc.

Anyway, I said its an opportunity for a change in direction rather than continue as the sport was under Wood. Never said it would be easy.

Whats forced about the expansion? Well the fact that an application was made to join the British RL structure before a club even existed. Natural expansion is where a club exists and naturally grows and climbs the league structure.

Football is not awash with money at all levels yet P&R exists at all levels to ensure correct reward, or otherwise, for poor/good performance.

Scrums? I quote "As scrums are now, they may as well make the players form human pyramids. Why not? A rugby league scrum’s only purpose is to gather six players in one part of the field and alternate possession. Blokes get a rest. And that’s it. It’s the Ritual of Handover. To which most thinking people ask, Why have them at all?"

Its irrelevant whether supporters have ' a wedge' or not. You claimed that supporters have no experience in running clubs or the game as a whole. You dont know whether the person stood or sat next to you is CEO of a multi-millionaire business. Even if not; even if they only have £5 in the bank, it doesnt mean they dont have a positive input to offer the future of the game.

Whats forced about the expansion? Well the fact that an application was made to join the British RL structure before a club even existed. Natural expansion is where a club exists and naturally grows and climbs the league structure.

[iI don't agree with your definition of "forced".[/i

Football is not awash with money at all levels yet P&R exists at all levels to ensure correct reward, or otherwise, for poor/good performance.

[iSeveral soccer clubs have not been promoted because their off-field arrangements weren't good enough.[/i

Scrums? I quote "As scrums are now, they may as well make the players form human pyramids. Why not? A rugby league scrum’s only purpose is to gather six players in one part of the field and alternate possession. Blokes get a rest. And that’s it. It’s the Ritual of Handover. To which most thinking people ask, Why have them at all?"

[iA quote from whom ? Not that it matters - it's just an opinion.[/i

Its irrelevant whether supporters have ' a wedge' or not. You claimed that supporters have no experience in running clubs or the game as a whole. You dont know whether the person stood or sat next to you is CEO of a multi-millionaire business. Even if not; even if they only have £5 in the bank, it doesnt mean they dont have a positive input to offer the future of the game.

[iSure - Joe Public might have something useful to contribute. If he has, let him step forward. Why hasn't he done so already ? It's not prohibited in the RFL bye-laws. My point is really that changing the CEO won't alter the position one iota.[/i

Going a little off thread, scrums , I agree and have lamented the scum as a decisive factor fr a number of years, . They are a joke, why do they use the term hooker any more as there is no chance of the guy challenging for the ball. As I see the act of a scrum now is to keep the big boys out of the way for a bit. Bring back proper scrums and the art of hooking and pushing , the game may open up a bit more for the backs to see the whitewash and the attacking flair of flying wingers as we used to love in days of yore.

Keeping big boys tied up has stopped now as most clubs will put one at first receiver and so defences counter with leaving them out. My solution would be to abolish the scrum and reduce the teams to eleven players. This would both open up the pitch (and see a huge increase in handling skills) and reduce the costs to the club of wages (one of the main reasons we now have 13 players). I would also then suggest that we reduce the halves to 35 minutes and also rolling substitutions as and when. Unlikely to happen!!

Dbvada. Ok, but why can we not go back to contested scrums? It made the game more interesting. As decent hookers could always strike one against the head. Although saying that has any one seen the union are now feeding into there own, not as garbage as league feeding second row, but the ball is ' not straight ' .
Maybe league could look at a different avenue and something akin to line outs or bounce ups like Aussie rules, it could be game changing !

The thing is - why should the team making an error retain possession ?

Did we not learn from the 1966 Challenge Cup Final ? Everybody thought Murphy's tictacs were shiite and we changed the rules. Now you want to go back to that.

You'll want a scrum after every tackle next. (Which, whilst not as quick as the ptb, wasn't as bad as you might think.)