The game is the master of its own destiny. I've said it before and I'll say it again. What terrifies people in this game isn't that the NRL and RU are unreachable scares them is that they are. Everything is excusable while NRL and RURAL are some far off monsters operating under different rules but those excuses stop ringing true when we remember that they are not only reachable but beatable.

Our potential is limitless, the only limits are the ones we put in place then blame for our lack of growth. If we do what we need to do growth will come and we can be the biggest rugby comp in the world. Others have shown us the changes that bring growth. The game over here is still refusing to learn, insisting we are different and can't do what works elsewhere

So what are these mystical changes ?

Agreed.

Soccer (Football League/Premier League) and RU have grown and have promotion and relegation (last football play-off for promotion at Wembley on Sky now) (Bristol RU was full for their promotion play off last week). We need a few more years for our Super 8s, Magic weekend and Summer Bash to bed in and grow, just like the Old Trafford Grand Final event has done.

I'm not saying everything is perfect. I agree we have huge potential and hard work and vision is needed to fulfil it.

But I sometimes think people forget how things used to be. Leeds (around the time of the water splash Wembley final) and with that great team struggled to average 5,000 crowds. Now they get 15,000 even though bottom of the league. Old Trafford was full for the World Cup Final in 2013 (Aus v NZ). Didn't we get less than 10,000 at the World Cup Final at Headingley in the early 1970s (even though we were in it)?

More penalties maybe, more errors than 2006 the year we stayed up after a lst day win against Cas - think not.

11.6 errors per game in 2016
10.6 errors per game in 2006

Really, I can't be bothered to check it out so good for you - what a pedant you are, think you need to get out more.

Irrelevant as the season isn't over.

Also 1%! and that seriously shows a downturn in the game. Don't recall any in the Wigan game.

There is a saying in RL that players that don't make mistakes arn't doing anything so hey as positive - thought you'd like that.

Psst it's 10% not 1

if you wish meanwhile the super rugby and NRL are taking giant strides and you are looking to the 60's and 70's for succour

That would be a 10% increase. Do they not teach maths in Wakefield? Come to think of it do they teach anything?

Again, carry on being a sensitive little flower, it doesn't make you look like an overgrown child at all. Nope.

Okay, but we're not 'starting' from the same place as the NRL. It is harder to fulfil the same amount of our limitless potential.

By extension, Peruvian volleyball and Kazakh ice hockey have limitless potential.

RL in this country has been adapting to survive amidst doom-mongering for 120 years. I don't want to stick my head in the sand, but those 'end of the world is nigh' arguments are as tired as they are familiar.

Survival is not such a lofty goal I admit, but this is a thread about fear rather than hope. As far as the latter goes, I hope for better than 'alright', but I'm not going to be furious or disgusted if we fall short of world domination.

But we aren't catching up. We aren't even keeping up. We are being left further and further behind. We aren't consolidating. We aren't laying foundations. The games 'plan' right now is simply to lower expectations and lower ambitions. That's it.

It's less about where we are but where we are going and we aren't even trying anymore. We have no plan to catch up and even if we stumble ass backwards into success we have no idea what to do with it.

Take Toronto for example. Here, through no effort of our own we have someone who is willing to bankroll an entirely new market for us. What happens if they succeed? How are new Canadian clubs submitted? Are they going to be treated as half-d as toulouse? Our entire plan for expansion is just hoping.

Then we look at growth. Where does it come from? What's our plan to create it? I'm fact where is the motivation for it? You can stablemate off the field and be kept competitive by the SC which itself has been stagnant for years.

We seem to be hoping that if we stand still and take it easy everything will just work out fine. But it won't.

We are never in the same place anyway because the RFL are always changing the goal posts to cover up there lack of efficiency in seeing things through. One of the first objectives in the first 10 years of super league was to increase the quality of players via the salary cap and bring in overseas players to attract the fanbase, the RFL then proposed in the last 10 years to reduce the overseas players quota and bring through home grown talent via sports funding at grass route level.
This season and last we have lost sports funding because we don't have enough people participating in our sport and the amount of overseas player is as high as ever and of lower quality.

The RFL also came up with the future model of clubs owning there own stadia, 10000 projected fans capacity, youth development. What we have now is a wasting of talent of the o/19's covered up by dual registration. There are only 3 clubs who currently comply with the future model in Leeds, Warrington and St Helens............The RFL are very adaptable to change but most of the time its to cover up for there own slippage.

We have a fast paced, exciting sport with thrills, spills, controlled violence and a huge amount of skill. Games attract a family audience where old folks mix with youth. Glamorous young ladies who you might expect to have got lost on the way to the night club mix with little old ladies with flasks of tea. And yet... we cannot seem to market the game outside of one small corner of Northern England. It says a lot when people are posting about how they will continue to watch the game when it goes semi-professional. One commentator even said that he did not want to watch players who expected to be paid to play. Welcome to the 1840s. This is a world that values those who value themselves. Our game is saying "look at me I have low self esteem. I am not worth my wages." Do we really expect players to put their health on the line every week for little reward. Not so long ago we saw a super league regular give up the game and move to Australia to be a plumber. You can make an excellent living in televised sport in a number of ways including sailing and beach volley ball but not it seems in rugby league. The RFU has a whole world league of 7's traipsing round the globe with huge names like Kenya and Portugal and Russia whilst we are planning to let a single Canadian club fail in the lower leagues.
I am not a fan of the good doctor but we seem to be preparing for the twentieth century and preparing to fail.