The entertainment factor has pretty much gone from the sport, bar the one few games a season that are worth watching.

Intensity seems to have gone out of the derby matches (IMO), decision making taken away from the on field officials (or more scared to make a decision? I don't know), the changes in the rules over the years, the quality of players we are producing/keeping hold of, the lack of money in the game compared to RU or the NRL etc etc etc, are all contributing factors to what Smith says and probably what most fans honestly think about the support.

As has been said by others, the game isn't dying, but it has regressed and become stagnant and plodding along rather than becoming a progressive sport that new fans want to come and get involved in.

When you look at the league over the last 10 years I think the biggest factor is that we are not bringing over the better Aussie/Kiwis anymore, mainly due to the value of the pound to the aussie dollar.

If you look back through the great teams like Saints and Bradford and Wigan and Leeds over the past 20 years they have had a great many superb players.

Now we are stuck with not even the best English players as they play in the NRL, 10 years ago there were none there.

Essentially the SL has become a 2nd division league.

Correct.

The NRL provided more entertainment in one play off weekend than SL has managed all season. It's worrying.

Smith is right. It makes me laugh people missing the point entirely talking about officiating when we talk about major issues in the game. that is way down the list of problems, if it even is a problem (football get lots of controversial reffing decisions but seem to be succeeding!). Teams who are getting good crowds/running academies/expanding the game (i.e Catalans, Hull FC, Leeds, Saints, Toronto, Warrington and Wigan) should be guaranteed a spot in SL, let the rest, who offer far less, battle over the remaining five spots.

I'd also remove, or drastically increase, the cap, so wealthy investors can buy Bradford, Swinton etc safe in the knowledge that they can bring in top players and compete for trophies. In turn, that should put more bums on seats, and help us bring in more money in sponsorship, TV rights etc. If that means Leigh, Wakey, Huddersfield etc regularly get tonked by teams who can afford to sign big names then so be it. The tail has wagged the dog for way too long, with self interested clubs, who offer little in terms of on field success, fans, player production etc, pegging back the success of those who have more to offer, in turn holding back SL.

Who's to say increasing or removing the cap will do anything though? And why would a wealthy investor want to spend any money whatsoever on Bradford or Swinton? If I won the lottery tonight, the last night on my mind would be wasting any of it on buying an RL club, never mind an ailing one.

Look at Salford, and how much the good doctor has ploughed into them. Got great sponsorship deals for them, arguable some of the best players they've ever had, been touted as potential GF winners by Sky and some of the media since he took over - and they are still only getting 1,500 through the turnstiles and into the stadium, including away support. Need to get our heads of the sand and just admit that no one wants to watch the game any more - live or on the TV -
other than the hardcore supporters of each team because it's not entertaining and not attractive enough to bring in new people or new money.

* last thing

The fact the cap stayed the same for best part of 20 years with no increase was one of the biggest factors that the game in the UK is on its death bed. Given inflation the cap should be around £3m now

Regards

King James

Well Koukash and Argyle did it under the current system where we throw as many obstacles as possible at investors, so it's not hard to imagine that there are other potential investors who have been discouraged by how we operate. I certainly think the opportunity should be there for someone to buy a club and throw money at top players to win silverware.

The interest clearly isn't there in Salford unfortunately. They could probably have a World 17 playing there or at Huddersfield and still not average 10k. I wouldn't say the same for other areas though. Bradford for example, got big crowds when they were winning, and I'm willing to believe the same would be the case in Whitehaven, for example, if they had a great team. I agree we need to make it more entertaining and attractive, but for me the way to do that is to give teams the opportunity to buy in top players. I got into the sport to watch Farrell, Dallas and Radlinski; Saints had Long, Cunningham and Sculthorpe; Bradford had Vainikolo, Fielden and Peacock. Their equivalents exist today, but SL teams are unable to attract/retain them due to the cap, so fans end up watching a second rate product, which is naturally less attractive.

The problem with increasing the cap though is that although it allows the clubs to spend more on players and bring in the big names (if they big names want to come and live in Manchester, Leeds, Hull and the like - or rather London, Sydney, Auckland, the south of France to play in the NRL or RU and have a chance of playing for England RU against the All Blacks or go on a Lions tour), they will therefore need to increase revenues from elsewhere, which means asking the supporters to put their hands in their pockets for tickets, merchandise etc, becuase they aren't getting the money in through TV deals or top branded sponsorships etc - unless the RFL start to play hardball with Sky and the other platforms to get them to start giving RL some money.

I'm not sure that sits well with the majority of fence-sitting supporters to make them get off and start getting back to watching the game!

And to cover the point in the interest in/around Salford or Hudds, aren't we just going to end up back in a situation where Saints, Wigan, Leeds, Bradford etc start to dominate again like they were 5-10 years ago if they are the only ones likely to get people through the gate and where the "big name" players want to play?

Don't get me wrong, I agree with some of the things you are saying, just trying to play devils advocate and see if people actually think raising the cap is a long term viable option...

We are at the point now were Super League clubs are unable to match the salaries of 3rd and 4th choice NRL players. The standard of football and intensity of games is certainly worse now than it was 10 years ago.

I have been to about 7 live matches this year in SL, paying about £22 on average for a ticket. Compared with t20 cricket for around the same price or Premier League football for about £10 more, it's dreadful with regards to value for money. I love this sport and always have, so for someone like me to only get to 7 games all season and still feel like I've wasted a lot of that money, how are we supposed to attract new spectators?

I don't know what tony Smith is on about. I've been to 24 out of a possible 29 Cas Tigers games and I've been royally entertained. I've also enjoyed most games on Sky this year.

Rugby union have changed their rules yet again so as to reduce the stop/start. They still have a long way to go. They changed the rules to legitimise 'feeding' the scrum, thete are quite a few die hards saying they might as well get rid of the scrum. That penalty kicks inside x distance should be banned that they want ball handling tries and all the other things RL has. In fact one commented they should go to 13 players and some agreed.
If you think everything in RU is rosy think again, on the field they still have major issues with concussions not to mention how much time is wasted/spent doing nothing.

Sure, off the field they've had professional people doing the business for decades, using the old boy network to grab a foithold and pushed on massively from there. THAT is the massive diff. We're run by corner shop Arkwright's and Delbert Trotter spuvs.

See. This is just complete fantasy that "they have a long way to go" England ru could put 4-5 teams out that are more skilful..fact. Let's just ignore NZ and the other 20 countries that play both codes because RU are head and shoulders above RL talent wise. But yeah, that leaves the east cost of Aus that is better than RU. 10 years ago RL was better to watch. These days RU is far more exciting to watch

Regards

King James

That's because Cas have been the only entertaining team to watch really.