With regard to the argument about the lack of money in the game, surely it's the RFL's responsibility to bring the high-level money into the game, ie TV rights, competition sponsors, Sport England funding, and I fail to see how people can argue that hasn't been massively successful over the last decade. Or have we really got such short memories?

If you want to indulge in traditional RL navel-gazing, look no further than the clubs for the majority of the problems. How many clubs continually and historically fail to develop players, fans, finances, grounds, administrators, coaches etc etc? Yet still they have a major say in the running of the game.

Finally, if you think RL has bad governance then you've never looked closely at RU, cricket, football and many others ... what's wrong with simply enjoying the greatest game with all its strengths, weaknesses and differences?

Regarding GAA you are deliberately being economical with the truth; rugby league was not under the same restrictions rule 27 makes no direct reference to RL when the rule was introduced RL had not been played in Ireland, when rule 27 was voted out of GAA no Irish club had existed it was not until 18 years later that Dublin Blues was formed. So this clearly is not the same restriction.

Fact remains RU was banned at some US universities.
Your incoherent rant regarding RSA and apartheid along with it's inaccuracies is misplaced at no point did I state RU was a victim I merely stated a fact, you have a problem with that fact and seemed to ignore that my post stated that I felt that a ban should have been in place before. You are clearly twisting facts for your own misplaced purposes. Please do not be so overly disgusted and judgemental, just makes you come across as incredibly self-righteous and terribly English.

No, im not. It is you who is simply relying on a distinction without a difference. Good luck with that.
Because of the actions of RU players. RU was played and was allowed until it descended in to a drunken violent mess. RU isnt banned in the US, it isnt banned in Universities some Universities have chosen not to compete or to allow themselves to be represented by drunken thugs, which is fair enough to be honest. If a college student wants to go play RU somewhere outside of their college they are able to. It takes a special sort of person to think that chosing not to be part of something is the same as banning something.
If thats what you feel the need to hide behind, feel free. People will make up their own minds and Im sure to many your attempts to rely on the apartheid era as an example of RU 'being banned' and 'suffering restrictions' is pretty pathetic to most.

some people seem intent on doing the game down. sometimes, by mis-representing figures (intentionally?)

When these are referred to:

2003-2006 – 8 projects £1.66million
2006-2008 – 17 projects £1.26million
2009-2010 – 10 projects £450k

the report is talking about facilities projects funded by the RFL. the Sport England money received by the RFL CANNOT be spent on capital projects so to suggest just 10% is spent on community projects is wrong.

We need to make it a bit more evidence based to judge of the RFL are doing a "good job" or not. What criteria would we use? For me it would include:

Number of junior players playing RL
Number of amateur clubs playing the game
Financial performance of the RFL in terms of income v expenditure
(including media deals)
Crowds at professional games
Performance of the representative sides
Financial stability of professional clubs (to some degree as clubs bare ultimate responsibility for this)
Media coverage of the game (much harder to measure)


I think if we could get comparative measurements of these factors we could stop basing it in perception and base it on fact.

no most jnrs come through the Harold Mathews then SG Ball (or Q'land equivalent) set ups of NRL clubs and the best are already "contracted" usually from 15/16 onwards.