Ben Jones-Bishop

[East Coast Tiger]

Oh, you told me not to and yet I did, almost as if you have no say in what i do. Strange. You also said you wouldn't read my posts so what you say clearly doesn't mean much.

 

[biggestbroncosfan]

RL is big in the two biggest states in Australia. Is that two states with a couple of cities in them? You have no idea about sport in the UK. You sit and pontificate from your keyboard twelve thousand miles away about something that SHOULD have happened over a hundred years ago but DIDN'T and there is little that can or will be changed any time soon. So get over it and face the facts that we are where we are NOT where you want us to be. ECT calling us xenophobic takes the biscuit. Now please feckoff and don't waste your time responding to me as I won't be reading your drivel ever again. Now how do I put this wanker on ignore?

Gotta agree with deluded here. ECT, you say league is the dominant code in only Featherstone? hello Hull, Leeds, Bradford, Wigan, Warrington, St Helens? are they not rl teams. You say league is not expanding in the UK have you seen this http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_league/9382440.stm next team could come from Coventry, Nottingham or Edinburgh, you must also remember there are also teams playing in the rugby league conference too! rl is also believed to be the fastest growing sport in Wales and there is good junior systems in place too. So it cant be all that bad ECT!

 

[East Coast Tiger]

RL is not number one in any of those towns. Hull would be closest and even then you'll still find there is more latent support for soccer even in supposed RL towns. Just as the Central Coast is still an RL area even though there is a pro soccer club and no pro RL club. And the expansion going on on Britain is not supported by most fans in the north. At least it certainly isn't if it means expansion clubs are given SL spots ahead of northern clubs, even though their participation at the elite level is absolutely vital.

 

[Evil Homer]

RL is not number one in any of those towns. Hull would be closest and even then you'll still find there is more latent support for soccer even in supposed RL towns. Just as the Central Coast is still an RL area even though there is a pro soccer club and no pro RL club. And the expansion going on on Britain is not supported by most fans in the north. At least it certainly isn't if it means expansion clubs are given SL spots ahead of northern clubs, even though their participation at the elite level is absolutely vital.

RL is number one in all those towns, maybe Leeds apart. Your generalisations aren't doing you any favours ECT. It's not the same as Australia, you can't try and rationalise UK situations in Australian terms. As I said, your opinions are not based on first hand experience and it shows.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

RL is number one in all those towns, maybe Leeds apart. Your generalisations aren't doing you any favours ECT. It's not the same as Australia, you can't try and rationalise UK situations in Australian terms. As I said, your opinions are not based on first hand experience and it shows.

No it isn't. Soccer would still outstrip RL in all of those places in terms of support. I've even seen survey figures that back this up. If only I had them at hand. The only place in the country where RL was the most popular sport among people surveyed was in a tiny area around Castleford and Featherstone. Don't confuse having a pro club and getting a few thousand to games with actual latent interest in the sport. Like I said, it's like saying the Central Coast is a soccer area because they have the Mariners and no NRL side. It's nonsense. English RL has failed to make inroads and the attitude of the people there is, no point, too hard or they just don't want the game to grow beyond the north. You started this by suggestung Australians have a defeatist attutude! Jesus, England RL gave up 100 years ago.

 

[manoj p]

You are both wrong.

 

[WireMan]

You don't? RL is the number one game in virtually every town and city in NSW and Qld. RL is not number one in any town or city in England, not even in the heartland towns. Even in places like Wigan you'd probably find a higher % of the population follow soccer than RL. And RL has grown outside Sydney you know. It spread right across the rugby playing part of the country within 20 years and became the most popular code. In England it still hasn't successfully spread much beyond the towns represented by the 22 clubs at the original meeting in 1895. The only thing stopping it spreading to London etc like it did to Brisbane and beyond here was the attitudes of the people. But even if you put that in the past and look at what needs to be done now the general attitude is to forget about Quins and Crusaders, or at least stick them back in the lower leagues where they don't keep northern teams out of SL. Plus the game there NEEDS expansion more than we do. They should be going all out to expand now, not in spite of the failures of the past, but because of them. Not only would it grow the game and its revenues so that there was more money to keep top players but there would be more players produced to begin with.

Expansion is fine. Soccer is big in the rugby towns. Its big everywhere.

But to say RL is not the number one sport anywhere is stretching it a bit. In fact its kinda making things up. I could go onto the NRL page and say soccer is bigger in Perth than rugby league because of expats. Doesn't make it true though.

As for the growth of the sport, the NRL is still very Sydney heavy on teams. Yes its expanded to Brisbane, but to say the only difference to Brisbane and London is Northern ignorance is dumb. Arsenal, Spurs, Chelsea, Fulham, Palace, QPR, Brentford, West Ham, Leyton Orient and probably some teams i have forgot are all soccer teams established the same time as league and are/were a direct competition for the working class support the game got most of its fans from. Never mind the Union teams in the area. Brisbane had what before league?

Also given the amount of complaining about the Nasty Aussie rules putting a team into West Sydney or on the Gold Coast as competition for league or getting media coverage. You should try the UK for competiton. Did you see Rooneys goal against City? If you saw that in Aus how many times do you think we saw it over here? Put the following three events in order you think they were covered in the media the other week:
A) The millenium magic weekend season opener. B) The six nations rugby C) The Manchester Derby.

What about Monday morning in the London Metro? A full report on Quins RL game or Leyton Orient Drawing with Arsenal? The Cycling World Championships got more coverage.

By all means have your big ideas about what we in the UK should be doing about the game, its always good to read them. But please stop with words like ignorant or xenophobic and remember we live in the a different sporting world to you. It doesn't help your argument and annoys people.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

We've actually got more competition and less people here. Four main football codes in a country of 21 million. England has three in a country of 40 million. And RL was the last of the four to come to Australia. Soccer, union and Aussie rules all existed before RL. In fact Aussie rules was played in Sydney before RL. Poms like to whinge about how the media, union, politicians, the ARL, climate change has held RL back there or screwed it over. Everyone else is to blame. Maybe they need to look closer to home.

 

[WireMan]

We've actually got more competition and less people here. Four main football codes in a country of 21 million. England has three in a country of 40 million. And RL was the last of the four to come to Australia. Soccer, union and Aussie rules all existed before RL. In fact Aussie rules was played in Sydney before RL. Poms like to whinge about how the media, union, politicians, the ARL, climate change has held RL back there or screwed it over. Everyone else is to blame. Maybe they need to look closer to home.

Four main codes eh? So Soccer and Aussie Rules are big competitors in Sydney?

Face it, the only places Rugby league has proper competition is Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Rugby has just about expanded into Melbourne with a very heavily subsidised team. The other places you got nothing.

Everywhere League was established it is strong. Just like Australia. Fact is in Aus it got established in the biggest city. In the UK it was in smaller towns down the M62. The cities where there are more people and money soccer took hold. It really is that simple.


You going to finish the Brisbane example about the ignorant English you started or you forgetting about that now and going for the whinging pom line instead?

 

[East Coast Tiger]

"Everywhere League was established it is strong" - no sh:t. And it was never established outside the M62 towns. Whose fault is that?

Not only do we have three other codes to deal with they are DIRECTLY attacking RL with things like the GWS. England RL people can whinge about the media and union attacking them but it's nothing like what happens here. The likes of the AFL really are out to get RL.

 

[Evil Homer]

No it isn't. Soccer would still outstrip RL in all of those places in terms of support. I've even seen survey figures that back this up. If only I had them at hand. The only place in the country where RL was the most popular sport among people surveyed was in a tiny area around Castleford and Featherstone. Don't confuse having a pro club and getting a few thousand to games with actual latent interest in the sport. Like I said, it's like saying the Central Coast is a soccer area because they have the Mariners and no NRL side. It's nonsense. English RL has failed to make inroads and the attitude of the people there is, no point, too hard or they just don't want the game to grow beyond the north. You started this by suggestung Australians have a defeatist attutude! Jesus, England RL gave up 100 years ago.

You've read surveys, I've lived there and been to all those places numerous times. Soccer does have a lot of latent support, as Wireman says it's big everywhere. That isn't a slight on RL though. It's a different sporting landscape, you are trying to compare it to Australia when really it's a completely different situation.

 

[WireMan]

You've read surveys, I've lived there and been to all those places numerous times. Soccer does have a lot of latent support, as Wireman says it's big everywhere. That isn't a slight on RL though. It's a different sporting landscape, you are trying to compare it to Australia when really it's a completely different situation.

I wouldn't bother Homer, he has just been telling me all about a Warrington player in the other thread.

The fact he complains about poms having a whinge then has an actual cry about AFL been out to get the NRL just about sums up his posts.

Next he will tell us that Sydneys AFL team is actually bigger than Manchester United and the fact we don't get bigger crowds in the super league than them just shows how useless we all are.

 

[manoj p]

And union hasn't attacked rugby league in England or France as just two examples?