See there you go again, you can't stop yourself can you. The Saracens crowds certainly do not show Union as the bigger and more popular code and better run is debatable. Saracens crowds are well below Leeds & Wigan's for instance. That doesn't show it as bigger & more popular. As for better run, well there are plenty of problems at that level in RU including debates about P&R, salary cap, clubs getting into debt & youth development. Sound familiar? The Saracens Wembley games are very well organised, but that's a seperate team to the AP isn't it?

RL will never be fashionable, mainly because we are a northern sport.

Fair enough, as long as you removed MW from the previous year's average?





I could care less about other sports, be they other codes of rugby or tiddlywinks. I care about RL and despite all your agenda driven, stats twisting, bleating, it's pretty obvious to anyone with even half a brain that we're actually doing OK and once the dead wood's gone at the end of this year we'll be doing very well.

Really good article by James Gordon of loverugbyleague discussing some of the issues in this thread, amongst others, and how the RFL aren't really solving the "real" challenges that our sport faces. www.loverugbyleague.com/blogpost ... blems.html

Really good article by James Gordon of loverugbyleague discussing some of the issues in this thread, amongst others, and how the RFL aren't really solving the "real" challenges that our sport faces. www.loverugbyleague.com/blogpost ... blems.html

maybe fans are fed up of having to change/make plans for different gamedays every week as opposed to when it mainly 3pm on a Sunday unless you were a SKY game on Fri or Sat.

For instance the Giants will have played Friday 8pm, Saturday 3pm, Thursday 8pm, Saturday 3pm, Thursday 8pm, Friday 8pm, Thursday 8pm, Sunday 3pm, Saturday 3pm, in the last 2 months - We haven't had the same gameday twice in a row in that period, if fans have to arrange babysitters/travel/time off etc everytime it changes from 3pm Sunday then folk will just stop bothering !

The new structure really concerns me, to the point I don't even want to think about next year in case it spoils my love of the game. I think it will have no serious impact on attendances and will probably reduce some and increase others, but the complexity and bizarre nature of it all I think could have a massively negative impact on attendances in the medium to long term.

I think the opposite will happen, that it'll put people off in the short term but they'll get over that over a few seasons.
I'd also say it's no more complicated really than the NRL system and certainly of the NRL system when they were at 15 teams and used the McIntyre? playoff system.

Short term memory loss......sad in one so young.
.

It's a very long river in Egypt......and you're in it.

Union is bigger......in that it is played by more people. Outside of NSW and Qlnd, League is an afterthought if it is even thought about. I know this will sit uncomfortably with some, but a fact it is, all the same.
Union is more popular.....as in it is watched by more people. No...not 4 Billion, but by a TV audience that actually includes more than 2 Australian States.
Union is better run......as in it is wealthier. The Irish RFU turns over more then the RFL......

I'm not sure how comforted you are by the fact that Wigan and Leeds have bigger crowds than Sarries.......is it the same when I mention Leicester Tigers of Harlequins?

League is the better game, but rather than address the issues the game faces and press ahead making it more popular, it's governing body in the NH reverts to short termist solutions whilst it's fans blame the Vichy government for crap attendances at Wakey.

a few seasons This is the RFL........they never stick with anything for "a few seasons". They were looking to bin Licencing 4 years into the "experiment". How long before the Championship club chairman realise they've been dealt a bum hand and have less chance of SL, so start whinging in Knock-Down Nigels ear again?

Another complete load of irrelevant rubbish.
The context was quite clearly domestic RL v domestic RU in England.
You said comparing Saracens crowds proved it was the bigger code.
They don't.

Regardless of which is the bigger code in the world or in England or just domestic comps in England. Saracens crowds don't prove that. Nor do they prove that the AP is better run than SL. Anyone who has even a slight interest in domestic RU in England will know of the issues they have. Very similar to RL's.

But you really can't help yourself can you?
Why not go back to halving RL's international crowds to keep yourself happy.

Saracens crowds to most assuredly give you a very accurate indicator as to which is the bigger code in the UK/England......or do you wish to narrow the criteria further and say Yorkshire? Unless you can find me a recent RL game in SL that attracted an 80k odd crowd to a neutral venue.....regardless of the means by which it was achieved i'd suggest that Union is some way ahead of League in all the important "off-field" aspects.
Speaking of problems faced by the Rugby lot....they have a very strong leadership model that usually gets things sorted. Nobody has ever said they don't face "issues"......what I have always said is that they deal with these issues better.
I may have been remiss in comparing the RFL turn over to Ireland Rugby......Maybe I should have been fairer and used the Scots or Welsh RFU......which incidentally, also both turn over more than the RFL.......but I won't, I'll use the RFU which essentially dwarfs the RFL in all aspects of governance, finance and public awareness. The RFU "domestic enough for you"?



Actually, I think you'll find it was the Loiner idiot who baited the hook and went down this route.....blame him. As for your subsequent insecurity attack....that's really down to you if you can't see the wood for the trees.




Alas, being a realist and admitting that the double-header crowds were not actually 67k for each games is far healthier than clinging to some form of security blanket in the reality that the 2nd games at both Cardiff and Wembley were not attended by anything like the numbers that you snuggle up to for comfort. The fact that to cause even a ripple of interest DOMESTICALLY the comp had to use these "event games" shows that the game is learning from the RFU/IRB.......so there's hope yet

complex and complicated arent the same.

The new system isnt complicated, people arent too stupid to understand it.

It is quite complex, there are many different parts and permutations. It goes from a simple league structure with added extra game, to an unfamiliar split with different clubs playing each other in what are essentially different competitions before a very short play-off series in some parts, and then a play off between 3 and 4th in a middle league to start a new competition in a possibly different league next year but possibly finishing that year in the same one they ended this.

The big worry is that the new structure and its complexity and different parts stops people buying season tickets and pushes them to pick and choose more games or even periods of the season to attend because it will be very very difficult to convince those people to move back to season tickets. Many people buy a season ticket because thats what they do, thats what they have always done, they attend some games more out of habit and duty. Once that habit is broken its really difficult to get them back. If that does happen then attendances will drop significantly. Maybe not precipitously or dramatically, but a steady repeated decrease. A 4% decrease is not all that alarming. Probably not worth worrying too much about really. An average of 4% per year over 5 years is 20% + what we have seen in 2013 and this year and we could have lost a third of our attendees from 2012 by 2019 including what should have been a significant pre and post World Cup legacy bump which has somehow morphed in to a decent loss of fans.