I sort of think you have a point on Sky not being bothered about the crowd but moving kick offs to 7 30 has to have come from somewhere, cynically it is perhaps to catch an audience before the 8.05 ko in Europa League matches but I think the fact we are not on at home that often is due to the empty seats but saying that RU outside the internationals and the top flight in England and France is not in that good state and the region's in Wales in particular are a shambles playing in front of gates we'd be embarrassed to have and only propped up by the money the WRU makes from the National side.

I thought I had read somewhere that the union got app 3 times from TV what league gets, and I think the current deal for league was 90 Million over a 5 year period, I wouldn't argue it cause I can't even remember where I read the figures, But I wouldn't be at all surprised if Union pulled in more than the entire League funding for the 6 nations alone. They have plenty of it anyway wherever they are getting it

You are right about Wales, and it's the very reason League used to get so many quality players from down there, Going back a few years a big number of Union players in England were professional men and were not short of money, Not so in the Valleys.

But there is enough money in the game to fund all the players down there, How many do we see coming to League now ?.

Got no Stats but I would guess the Union premier league will be on a par with super league for crowds, and I don't reckon their top clubs go bust with the same regularity as the Bradford's and Wakeys.

The unpleasant truth is that we are virtually owned by Sky, Union can play TV companies off against each other, The 6 nations is really popular and the world cups are just something different to what league can offer. We cant Haggle with anyone about price because nobody but Sky want us. It's not nice to think about but if Sky for any reason decided to pull the plug, we would be down that well known creek in no time flat.

The problem in Wales is knowing who the good players are as below the 4 regions the top club division is meant to feed them but for example Llanelli who are basically the reserve team of the Scarlets region lost a home game 96-0 last season to a side which is probably paying less than Rochdale or Oldham pay their players. Neath are supposed to be part of the Ospreys but are going bust, Swansea the other main feeder to them were relegated so the talent pool outside maybe 50 or 60 Welsh qualified players at the region's and maybe another 20 playing in England or France just is not there or at least would not be evident to RL clubs unless they watched a lot of dire matches at places which in a lot of cases are at old grounds falling to bits with a crowd under 3 figures in attendance.

The national team will always make millions and in the main will compete but below that the system is rotten and far worse than 30 or 40 years when an open cheque book took players north.

We won 4 drew 1 out of the 7 equivalent games this season.
We have failed to beat any of the top 3.

That would be enough to see us keep 4th.
Need a strong start against Wigan

spot on jools,
the good thing is that it's in our hands now as to whether we make the semi finals

if we turn up and do the business we are 80 minutes away from a grand final

I would think all you have said will be pretty accurate, I don't keep up with Union much anymore, but still no players are coming to our code, From that you have to guess that they are being kept happy money wise. I take your point about the talent pool down there, Halfbacks for eg don't materialise out of nowhere like they used to, but even the ones that do , show no tendency to come up here.

It's been an odd season so far. I've rarely seen so much pessimism and criticism surrounding a team that 90% of us agreed would have a good season if we reached the Super 8's (done) and a very good season if we reached the play offs, which we are in prime position to do so.

I must admit I looked at our results to date and thought our barrier to the play offs will be our struggles against the top 3. However, look at how close those results were and since when do the best teams care about results earlier in the season? We've, according to many, been rubbish and still look where we are. The play offs are there for us to be part of and surprise everyone - even us!

out of 24 games so far, only the hull and leeds cup game have been batterings in reality.

almost every game we've had has been competitive and most of our losses were down to individual errors rather than poor team performances, and yet the criticism has been unreal at times.

Or look at it the other way we don't win close games (we are getting slightly better as now we sometimes draw them) but Catalans away apart we struggle to get over the line when the chips are down.

Then again no better time to start than now and if we are more focused than the opposition in the next few weeks close games on paper might be anything but as in most of the tight games we start badly but Catalans (MW) apart we don't tend to blow decent leads that often which is a big plus.

True espanyol, but like I said a lot of those are down to individual errors , basic errors that have cost us.
But you're right we have lost a lot of close games mainly due to poor game management errors and possibly the opposition being smarter than us?