Quote: Saddened! "I think we're on the cusp of a very worrying period for rugby league. The finances at most clubs are a massive concern, even the smug 'big' clubs are unsustainable as businesses in their current format and rely entirely on the input of a wealthy owner. I think we're about to start losing teams quite regularly from the lower leagues as the central funding drops and costs keep increasing. Salford worry me a lot as well, as do both of the clubs who could potentially come up. Neither have anything like a squad capable of being competitive in Super League and do either of them have the money to sign players of sufficient quality in such a short period of time?
The quality of the product on the field is at it's lowest point ever as well. The semi finals were so, so bad as entertainment spectacles. Tomkins knocking Saints out will have brought great joy to most RL fans in this country, but the game itself was turgid, anyone watching as a casual sports fan or a potential fan of Rugby League would have been turned away. There was no attempt to score points or attack, just Catalans desperately searching for penalties all game and Saints lacking any attacking quality at all. When they are two of the best three teams in the competition it's very worrying. In a way I hope Wigan win the title by scoring a few tries and it encourages more sides to play the game a bit more rather than obsessing over diving and cheating their way to six agains and penalties like most of them do.
Then you look at the Young Player of the Year award nominee list. It's gone from Jack Welsby, Harry Smith, Morgan Gannon to Jack Welsby, Mikey Lewis, Jarrad O'Connor to Thewlis, O'Neill and Nicholson. The winner of the award is a winger from a mid table side that had a terrible season for their level of ambition who has 8 tries in 21 games, no assists, misses 25%+ of his tackles and makes errors on more than 10% of his carries. He's a player with decent potential, but if he's the best young player this season, it's a worrying sign as well. I'm sure he'd admit himself he's got way more to give than he's shown this season.'"
Agree, the game wont surive with 4 or 5 clubs with wealthy backers playing each other in repeated loop games. Scottish football is also on a long decline largely due to repetitve fixtures.
I didnt mind the Catalan-Saints game too much as I like an arm wrestle game but agree it wasnt a patch on the quality of years past. SKYs coverage was their weakest for a while, the cameraman looked like he'd been on the french vino, interviews cut off sharpky etc. I know its not easy to do a broadcast from France at a weeks notice but theyd have pulled it off better if it was football.