Quote: Saddened! "Makes those criticising Elstone and his mob look rather silly too'"
I don't think it does in the slightest. Unless you want to keep using the RFL as a lightning rod for problems at club level (which, granted, seems to be a popular thing to do).
There's a common theme across all of the clubs that have recently issued financial distress calls - they aren't generating enough revenue, not enough people are watching them, and they're spending too much.
What Elstone and Lenaghan have proposed doesn't change any of that. They're pinning their homes on improved sponsorship and TV deals that I genuinely don't believe will materialise because these changes don't address the fundamental issues as to why we don't have those things in the first place - that the TV and advertising landscape has changed, and we don't have the audience to be able to demand those things.
There's some merit in what Elstone and his puppet-master are proposing, but there are also enormous flaws that they have failed to acknowledge or address.