Anyone seen any advert's or promotion by the BBC for Saturday? Nope, thought not!

I thought Stephen Jones son was a St. Helens fan ?

So what if there is truth in what he says, what is it to him if RL gets 200 or 200K to games? How does it affect him? It doesn't.

Jones is a bully who doesn't compare like with like. He likes pointing out how small RL is, which it is, big deal, but he couldn't hack it if a soccer writer started pointing out the reality of RU compared to soccer and how global that is compared with the few countries that play RU (and how many of them are not empire connected?) Because RU is itself a minority sport, so he better be careful when ridiculing people.

He also says 'the mighty Lebanon'...well I don't recall anyone saying that, nor do I remember them being in the 4Nations but they [iare[/i Lebanese, playing in Lebanon, so again, what is it to him? Does he point out how low netball crowds are? What he neglected to say was that the curtain raiser to that game was a kids game featuring a UAE side. This sort of stuff is happening in loads of places now. It doesn't mean RL will take over the world but it means it is developing pretty well.

Personally, I don't give a frig what this clown thinks of RL, (the fact he is STILL going on about it tells you the real story) but he is in a position to trash RL and does so regularly. Do you think the readers of his stuff actually check out what is really going on?

Sorry ... who are you?

Nik Taylor[Reader]and I am afraid that for union to see league as some kind of ally would be a disaster. Rugby league's coverage now seems ghettoised into online stuff only, there is just no longer the interest. Football is a leviathan.


Could anyone care to explain the reasoning behind his reply concerning Rugby League?

Why would it be a negative?

Premiership Rugby Union never was that big until the national media started putting out daily articles about clubs, players and fixtures.

Rugby Union has a media cartel and no wonder rugby league struggles to attract the general public.

Typical old school network which includes Stephen Jones who wont give RL a fair crack.

An example will be how much coverage Saturdays game will get in the national papers.

So you and Big Graeme concur with Jones that apart from GB v Australia there's nothing else in rugby league that will ever mean anything?

Super League Grand Final, NRL Grand Final, State of Origin, World Cup, Challenge Cup? No?

Point one I dont like Jones,But an interesting point he makes about union being boring is spot on & percieved to be the reason it is stuggling in Australia. Despite that the crowds will flock to thier internationals,Pay twice or more than league fans & most of those will never have been to a club game.If we could figure out why we might be on to a winner.My theory is that it is part of the social calender & has been for well over a century & has nothing to do with supporting the actual game.

Point two I keep reading on this forum that League has become boring! I love this game & am quiet happy to watch week in week out but if people on here who in the main are died in the wool League folk find it boring why should any one else be expected to turn out?

We as RL fans ourselves criticise our game in much the same way as Jones but it seems to be that because he is a RU journalist he's just an idiot.

Whatever the guy's agenda is, whether it's anti RL claptrap or genuine disdain at the international RL scene which could be improved dramatically he makes some very valid points as others have alluded to on the thread earlier.

Personally I think this can only help RL. The more people throw out damning criticisms of something the more people want to watch, piquing their interest so to speak, and RL could profit from it just like a cheap B Rate movie will if it's panned across the board (Only our game is a pretty decent spectacle so people could be pleasantly surprised.)

However, it is more likely that only the Union fans will actually read his articles -- so who cares?

Sadly for RL, 100 years of small minded, parochial attitudes have left the sport behind the times.

RU, despite being amateur for over 100 years, pollinated far more of the UK and the world, via the empire & commonwealth - and has far more people in positions of power & responsibility within its old boy network.

How many FTSE 100 directors are RL fans? How many are RU fans.....

Basing the NGB out of Leeds for 115 years can't have helped either, RL has no penetration in the city, where 80%+ of the nations wealth is based.

Compare the RFL board to the RFU management board.

Sorry, I love RL as much as the rest of you, but the damage was done over a long period, a long time ago....

We all know we have the best spectator sport in the world and the actual product is great, what we will never be is a truly international sport on the same scale as others are, we cannot claim to be a national sport, no matter how much the RFL want us to believe we are. In the 100 odd years our sport had been in existence it has failed to spread across the country at a professional level and if you think it has then you just walk around with your eyes shut.

I think the pinnacle of our game is the GB v Australia test series and the Lions tours, this England, Wales, Scotland stuff is not a success, half the other sides are made up of Aussies with tenuous connections and Englishman who cannot get a game for England, but can for Scotland because their Grandad was a tenth Scottish. I cannot get excited about an England v Scotland clash in front of a couple of thousand fans at best, give me GB v Aus test match anyday.

Our crowds for the big games are not bad, the GF can 'nearly' fill Old Trafford (if we get another Saints v Leeds it might not) as can the CC final at Wembley, but thats about it. Compare an England v Wales RL game (a few thousand at the Keepmoat) with the same fixture in RU (80,000 at Twickers).

We need to make what we are good at better, not try and equal RU in everything because it will not happen. I long for a Ashes series win against Australia, I just think the way the RFL are pushing the game into different directions means I am unlikely to ever see it in my lifetime

Truth hurts as they say...well done to the press fella

We can't sell out in wigan

So after all these years of super league have we grown?

Have we won anything at international level?

Do we have our own national stadium?

Ah but franchise is the new saviour

I await the next daft idea they roll out as we continue to shrink

I hate Stephen Jones. There is no need to lay into RL. He is a [i"Rugger"[/i correspondent, and that's what he should report on. Bringing RL into it, just to slag it off, is churlish and crass. He is a typical RU bigot. Even if he has a point - which he does - he is never being constructive, only patronising and insulting. We have our own RL corespondents who's job it is to put the game under the microscope. I find it best to ignore Jones and his cheap-shots at RL. [i"Hey look how rubbish RL is compared to RU, readers. Let's all point and laugh"[/i

Our game has never been based on the international game, while RU actually has. It is, and always will be, a club based sport. That is it's strength. The recent Wales v England was a cringeworthy event that did nothing for the game except show how pathetic RL internationals are outside Australia/New Zealand/GB games (That's being very kind to GB). This is why i find it ridiculous when people, including people at the RFL, say that the inclusion of Les catalans is to improve the French international team. What for? Having one or two teams in SL will not help the French improve enough to compete with Australia and New Zealand. It doesn't help England, and we have 12 clubs in SL. However, at club level, French teams can prosper within SL as well as compete and contribute to the quality of the league.

In my opinion, we should drop the four nation concept and return to GB at international level. Then we may get 25,000/30,000 crowds creating a great atmosphere and a good, close game. Watching the Wales v England game, played out in front of a few thousand, in an old dump of a ground and an experimental England side showing little skill and enthusiasm, and a Wales team made up of nobodies that few people have even heard of, felt about exciting as watching grass grow. If any none RL fan tuned in to that, in the off-chance that they may be entertained by a fabulous, international, sporting spectacle, they probably turned it off with the full intention of never watching such tripe again. I couldn't blame them. Just like I couldn't blame anyone for not attending the game at Brewery Field. I cannot, apart from pure RL obsession, understand why anyone went to that game. Well done to those that did. It's a pity there weren't another 30,000 more like you. But there aren't, and there never will be.

Trying to compete with RU at international rugby will always leave us looking small-time and totally insignificant. This is why Stephen Jones and take the p*ss. RL should do what it has always done best, and concentrate on its club game, with the occasional GB test series against the Aussies and/or NZ.

It would be difficult for Stephen Jones to take the p*ss out of that. (Again I'm being kind to GB)

All that exposure, all the money they get thrown at them disproportionately and still the Premiership clubs are an average of £3 Million in debt.

Rugby League is a threat to union and like many other bodies of authority the RFU in its many guises would love to strangle their nemesis at birth.

Kings, Emperors, Generals throughout history have seen the benefit of killing off a potential rival before it can become too strong.

Rugby League offers a much more vibrant spectacle for both live and TV audiences. Without the restrictions that have held League back internationally there has been a steady and significant increase in the number of countries trying their hand at League.

It will only take so many Lebanon’s, Irelands or Fuji's before some kind of critical mass is obtained and international growth will become an almost unstoppable inevitability.

Imagine a time when Rugby League can match Union for International credibility, when our financial resources become strong and when Sports editors can no longer ignore our showpiece events.

Union will be the big loser in that scenario and they will do anything to prevent it from happening.

Stephen Jones for all his pseudo intellectual spouting’s and derogatory musings knows this as well as anyone and it scares the $h!t out of him and his cocktail drinking chums.

Sorry, must have missed that bit. When did the RFL say we were one of the biggest sports in existence?

There is currently a tournament taking place containing England, France, NZ and Aus. This is an international competition. Just because it is smaller than some others does not make it non existent. Jones is implying that these countries do not play RL simply because he has a hatred of RL. That doesn't make him right. Nor does the fact that some RL fans are happy to have people like him commenting about RL when he hates the game.

WE criticise RL because we care about it, he criticises RL because he wants it to die off.

This constant comparison with others is ridiculous anyway. When a new band emerges do the music press say "good band but they are not as big as The Beatles so they should sack it" or do they just enjoy the band?