https://wiganwarriors.com/blog/2020/09/ ... -update-2/ As it stands Catalans go top, we drop to fourth.

https://wiganwarriors.com/blog/2020/09/ ... -update-2/ As it stands Catalans go top, we drop to fourth.

Fair enough, it’s not ideal for anybody and we’ll just have to roll with the punches. If it helps get the season finished then I’m all for anything that could have a positive impact.

Looks like yet more incompetence and over complication.

Surely all it took was a simple phone call to Peter V'landys at the NRL and get a copy of their (successful) Apollo protocols - Players in full lockdown and no CC etc.

We’d probably need to speak to Boris first and see if he could stop making mistakes. If the country was in the Covid position Australia is in, things would be much easier to build from but sadly we’re in a mess.

I wonder if Australia got people to ‘help out’ by packing restaurants out on the promise of cheap chicken? (replace with other foods where appropriate).

Am I able to use the word FARCICAL yet?

My thoughts exactly. I think we all accept this is about finding a way though first and foremost. If some teams end up playing more fixtures than others and some have to play midweek with reserves and loan players to secure the sky money then that's what it'll have to be. We aren't financially in a position to just sack the season off because it's lost some integrity.

Which bit is? The game needs to finish the season or it may go under altogether, so these new rules aren’t farcical and nor is the aim of coming back in the first place. The lack of stipulations on the players was farcical and a token gesture of asking them not to celebrate isn’t fooling anybody. Sargeant Pepper is right that the game needs to look at the Aussie model and see what we can do better but ultimately we live in a country that’s been hit far harder than Australia. Until the guys at the top start getting things right everyone in society is a sitting duck but it doesn’t change the fact that if we want rugby league to exist on the other side, we’ll have to just suck up any moving of the goalposts.

I wish the RFL were as stringent on Covid rules as they are on finding incidents of foul play.

We just go with it, we have to because what’s the alternative?! The RFL need to get some black and white Covid rules in place and nail players who don’t adhere to them but operationally/logistically they’re being flexible and actually doing a pretty good job IMO.

Exactly. There are people all over social media saying just cancel it, as though we could do that and everything just return as normal afterwards. Agree regarding the COVID rules, they were far too soft with what was required.

I don't understand the outrage most people (admittedly on social media) are feeling on this one. This season is purely about putting as many games on as possible and getting as much money in as we can, where we can. Otherwise we will have no game.

Playing games and finishing the season is fine, but you can't keep moving the goal posts otherwise we end up with a bunch of meaningless friendlies.

For me, the season should have started again when Toronto went with everyone on 0 and playing each other twice. If that meant midweek games then so be it, but to play on a percentage ruling with some sides playing more games than others and some at home etc etc is amateur at best. Typical of the RFL to make it up as they go along.

I understand the financial implications of ending the season etc, but at what point do we decide that the competition has lost all integrity?

If we had started the season again we would be in a far worse position than we are now because we would suddenly have more games to fit in than we do already, with the same worry about teams managing to finish the schedule. Not to mention fans would kick off that it makes a joke of the earlier games they paid to watch.

Of course it has lost integrity, but I don't think one season's integrity is more important than the survival of televised full time Super League. If we were flush with money then we could have afforded to have principles like that. I'm enjoying the games but I won't think of whoever wins in 2020 as on a par with other years, but I still think we need to do whatever we can to play it out.

I really do get what you are saying, but I think the wider COVID issues are a separate point.

I know I keep banging on about it, but the NRL protocols are that strict it's almost like the NRL players are separate from the rest of Aus. They are that locked down into their own bubbles with monitoring, testing and clear guidance that they can travel easily across state lines, when others can't. I remember reading Canberra complaining about how tough they were doing it as they had to travel to another state, play and then travel straight home (massive total trip) and were refused permission to even book an overnight stay at a hotel. Now when you compare that to our M62 corridor it should be relatively simple.

For the sake of the game, jobs and clubs there really shouldn't have been anything other than the players being put into the tightest of lockdown imo. No trips out, no day drinking sessions, golf of whatever. Train, play, stay at home and repeat.

But they will be because they'll be the Super League Champions.

Perhaps we should have created another competition like they have in cricket?

I agree fully mate with us tightening things up but I’m not sure however tight we go that we’d be able to avoid any issues because of the mess which has been made by the government (that’s a bit political though and probably for another debate).

We need to be stricter as a game on what we expect from the players though, even if that just helps us keep cases down and not out of the game altogether. I’m wrestling with the issue of Covid discipline verses onfield discipline and feel the game is getting itself in such a poor spot. If we keep it Wigan based and look at two incidents and compare punishments it’s astonishing IMO. We had a player break the minimal Covid rules in place and get a suspended two week ban. We then have a player make what many would say is a legal tackle and he gets an actual two game ban. The onfield/off field examples don’t go hand in hand but it’s so frustrating. I would be throwing the book at any players guilty of breaching Covid rules. I would much rather the time and resource of RFL employees be spent coming up with some Covid rules and then debating extremely harsh punishments for breaching them than spending that time handing bans out for a guy lifting his body an inch off the floor for a split second whilst tackling.

As I say they don’t go hand in hand as such but the balance is all wrong at the minute.