https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/57925720

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/57925720

not surprising

I feel like the game just constantly kicks me in the stones at the minute. As a die hard league man I’m struggling with it all. The self interest of teams here, the self interest down under and just a constant ability to stab ourselves in the back.

It’s a one way ticket to ruin at the minute.

The game is dying.

Going off topic a bit here but without going into it in detail (will later when I'm less busy) I feel the game in this country needs to completely relaunch. Its time for the bigger clubs in this league to have the shackles taken off, scrap the salary cap and go for it.

Think Wigan RL of the mid 90's x 5 (Wigan, Leeds, Saints, Wire, Hull... etc).

Household name signings, blue-chip sponsorship deals. The lot.

Either that or we are semi-pro in less than five years.

Fully agree. Older fans tell me that people have been predicting the sky to fall in for decades, but we really do seem to be in a bad way.

I’m not surprised in the slightest, disappointed but in a way I don’t blame them. They have relatively low vaccination levels and we seem to be going for full on herd immunity whatever the consequences.

Unless something significant happens I can see RL in this country ending up semi pro and the Australians calling their playoffs the World Series.

Football mates used to take the mick back in the early 2000’s about the game dying and I’d push back and say I thought it was in decent shape. This was the era of the game having Bradford getting big crowds, Saints having a great side with players from Down under like Jamie Lyon playing for them, Wigan bringing in guys like Steve Renouf and Craig Smith, Leeds being on the rise and getting bigger and bigger crowds. They were the glory days really and we’re left now with a sport, where if we don’t slap ourselves across the face, the NRL are more than happy to do it for us.

If those same guys tell me now the game is dying, then I absolutely agree. At a time when Covid has pushed the clubs to the edge, the world game should pull together but I genuinely think the NRL see Covid as a blessing when it comes to avoiding players having to turn out in internationals.

I feel like I need a spell away from the game, from waking up every day to read the next story that makes my blood boil, so I can get the passion back. The league season here is a joke, with teams taking the mick out of the system (the two CC finalists can’t play this week conveniently enough) and being so self obsessed they fail to look at the bigger picture.

Not sure I can recall a more depressing time to be a rugby league fan.

This is an NRL decision. We can take covid out if it, it’s a convenient excuse to avoid international rugby league. The Aussie and Kiwi Union teams will travel here later in the year, the Olympic team are in Japan and they sent a team to a Table Tennis comp recently. Their cricketers will go to Dubai for the World T20 in October, the Kiwi cricket team played three tests here just last month and on and on and on.

They’re a disgrace the NRL. Rugby League fans in this country shouldn’t even contemplate watching an NRL/Origin game on Sky going forward until a time comes when they look at the bigger picture.

I think you need to take the emotion out of it. Comparing table tennis at the Olympics isn't like for like. Nor are the other sports the same.

It's 100% the right decision to pull out of it and COVID is the reason. Look at the NZ players as a perfect example, they've been away from home for 1.5 years now. If they come over here that will extend that by another 6-8 weeks when you factor in quarantine when they return. Is that really fair?

SOO went well into mid November last year and, as such, there was a reduced off-season. To then extend this season to go even longer is crazy. Add in the NRL has an 8 week window for players to rest and you're talking about (with 2 weeks quarantine on top) for players only retuning to clubs in Feb for the 2022 season. There was uproar on here about French and Hastings coming back late, but we're happy for whole teams to do it?

So why can't they just delay the start of their season?

This SL season started nearly 2 months after 2020 did because the organisers were flexible and worked around the players and the lockdowns.

The NRL don't want to be flexible because International RL for them is #3 priority after State of Origin and the NRL season.

It wasn’t table Tennis at the Olympics, it was a separate comp but that’s a side issue.

-NZ Warriors players have been away from home for 18 months but that isn’t the whole Kiwi team. Many of their players live in Oz. Give them the option of pulling out in an individual basis by all means.

-International rugby should always come above club Rugby. The NRL starts in March and these lads would be out of quarantine before Christmas. They have three solid months to do what the hell they want. If they need to give them a few extra weeks than fair play. The French/Hastings comparison makes no sense whatsoever. They came back here after our league season had started, not three months before. Again give the individual players the choice.

As the Rugby league World Cup is (not) going on, the Aussie Rugby Union team and the All Blacks will be here playing.

The NRL don’t want pre season fixtures disrupted, PRE SEASON fixtures My days, what is this sport playing at? Football clubs are playing ore season games ‘now’ and are minus umpteen players who are on the beaches of Greece after playing in the Euros. These are players worth £50m, £80m, £150m etc and the clubs TV deals are worth billions of pounds.

I can’t take emotion out of it because it’s an emotional subject. I know some league fans in this country have a weird fixation with the NRL but nobody can defend this from a player welfare point of view. It’s the NRL protecting its own interests and absolutely nothing else.

Why can't the world cup be moved? Why ask the NZ guys to bolt another two months onto what they've already done? It also looks like the majority of NRL players will be in a bubble for the rest of this season. Why ask them to spend more time away from home?

Have they asked them?

Good call!!!

Obviously we've got different opinions on this one. I doubt we're going to change each other on this one.