At least people are now seeing what i have said all along that IMG are just speadsheet Charlies who have done nothing to enhance the game yet have already been paid £500000.
Its obvious to me they are not sustainable and clubs will force the RFL to act and remove them costing even more money.
Supporters are not interested in gradings its what happens on the field that counts and until someone new at the RFL comes in with some radical vision for the game like removing the salary cap and quotas to get more super stars into the UK game R/L in the UK will continue to stagnate.
We dont need every game televised that works against getting people into stadiums but what we do need is promotion and relegation.
I would even go with fourteen teams in S/L with 2 up 2 down so that there is a real incentive for building up a meaningful Championship division with automatic promotion for the Championship top team and auto relgation for the bottom two in S/L.
That way we would also have an exciting end of season Championship play off for the second promotion place unlike now which counts for nothing but an IMG tick

Ultimately, in RL 2024, you finished in 13th place and your performance rating for 2024 should be reflected accordingly. Also, how can you receive points for winning a trophy (1895 Cup) that twelve clubs weren't eligible to compete in. Although I did enjoy watching you make more noise at Wembley than the Wigan and Wire fans! (I stayed back to watch your rather one-sided stroll to victory).

Anyway, welcome back after your little sojourn away for twelve months, I suspect we will be locking horns in 2025, anxiously watching each others results!

That's just ridiculous!! I didn't realise that.

I've no axe to grind against Wakey as they are getting things right both on and off the pitch and will be as asset to SL but an A grade? no chance.

Does it really matter? If the club think we bring in more revenue on weekends I don’t think an extra 0.1 of a point will change anything. Also, the bigger the crowds the more points we get for stadium utilisation, so you could chase the TV viewing figure points on by picking the best kick off viewing spot but end up losing more points then you’ve gained if the crowds drop because that kick off time might not be convient for match going fans.

I keep banging on about it but looking on the performance points breakdowns, if you take away the performance points Wigan only score the same as Wakefield for all the off field stuff, I doubt they’re losing sleep about it. Look after the performance stuff first and everything else will look after itself. We really don’t need to over think it.

I don’t think any of us would argue that we aren’t deserving of a B grade due to our appalling on field performances. However the whole grading idea and method for me is completely flawed and not worth the paper it’s written on.
It’s great to see Wakey back in SL but the fact they have gained performance points in a league lower and a competition SL clubs weren’t eligible for just doesn’t sit right. Again the loss of points due to not being able to include the suburbs/surrounding area for both ourselves and KR and two clubs in the same city despite both achieving very good attendances. Thats before we get on to the screen issue and viewing figures etc, all of which point to me that the IMG grading is pointless and a worthless expensive exercise.

Hopefully having being downgraded to B will have an impact on us in terms of refocusing and getting the mindset reset and flushing out the general malaise within the club.

All in all as much as the likes of Cas have made some changes to their ground the Jungle still is light years away from the modern stadia requirements set out years ago and they haven’t performed much better than ourselves either yet are grade A due to the skewed logic in the grading.

For all Bonaire gets ridiculed for negativity but on the subject of IMG and their input into turning the sport around I think he’s been pretty much spot on in his view.

The game can ill afford to lose money but at £450K per year over 10 years to IMG the sport is literally haemorrhaging cash that it will simply not get back. I’m do believe in the old adage you have to speculate to accumulate but there’s not a cat in hells chance this IMG will offer anything remotely like value for money and it’s simply another in the long list of white elephants and hair brained schemes by clueless RFL and SL chairmen.

In relation to the 1895 Cup only 4 clubs out of SL could qualify for the Challenge Cup so in essence over 20 clubs are excluded from playing a SL side is that right?

Yes we took a lot to Wembley it reflects how far we have come since relegation. The owner has put in 2 to 3 million (his words) on and off the pitch so we are looking pretty good going forwards