The RFL up to their old tricks..

Quote: tb "Except some people didn't raise their voices about something which directly affects them, they went over the top on the back of an unfounded rumour which turned out to be untrue.

Monday's report was clearly the result of some sort of conversation between Mark Rylance and David Howes. Only two people know what was actually said in that conversation, but on the back of it the journalist involved felt able to go off and write a story saying "Toulouse will not have to meet qualification criteria."

On the face of it, he appears to have done this without double checking what he thought Howes said – even though it contravened explicitly stated previous policy – with the RFL media dept2007-8 Super League season;

similarly, I don't attach a lot of weight to Rylance's editor saying "the RFL have apologised for misleading my reporter" for two reasons: it's still only one side of the story, from a source which has already admitted that reporting what the RFL said is not its strong point

I'm not sure where David Howes comes into this, or "Mark" Rylance, but below I have set out the correct version of the events that led to this story being published.

Mike Rylance, who specialises in French Rugby League for League Express, read an online report in the Midi-Olympique newspaper that had quotes from Gilles Dumas, the Toulouse coach, that appeared to suggest that his club didn't have to reach the Grand Final to qualify to make an application to Super League.
He telephoned the Toulouse Chairman, Carlos Zalduendo, who confirmed that he understood that Toulouse didn't have to reach the Grand Final to qualify to make an application for Super League.
Mike then telephoned the RFL Media Manager John Ledger, who promised to get back to him to confirm or otherwise the veracity of this particular interpretation.
John then got back in touch with Mike, and confirmed that Carlos' view was the correct interpretation. That was after John spoke to a senior official at the RFL who confirmed that version of the truth.
John and Mike have both confirmed this version of events with me, but John is not prepared to name the RFL official who confirmed that Toulouse would not have to reach the Grand Final.
Subsequently, on Monday, John issued a press release on behalf of the RFL saying quite bluntly that Toulouse do have to reach the Grand Final "contrary to some reports".
The press release did not make it clear that those "reports" had actually originated from the RFL itself, and it made it look as though League Express had simply printed a story that wasn't true.
Clearly I was less than happy with the RFL not acknowledging that it had given our reporter the wrong information, although John subsequently apologised to me, as I said earlier in this thread.