Take it from someone who lives in England, and watches it week in and out.
The game is in a shocking state. Those who say it's never been better are delusional.
It has never been better. It has been a lot worse than it is now.
Step outside a handful of cities in the north, and nobody has even heard of the game.
The amount of 50+ margins is a shocking look for the code, and when franchises like Wales fall by the wayside, and other teams outside the main Rugby League areas are propped up by geriatric Aussies, the game is in trouble.
Its the same in Aus though, how much do people in Adelaide or Melbourne really know about the NRL? How many threads on this forum crying about channel 9's coverage. The difference is in Aus it is big in Sydney and Brisbane. In the UK its big in a few pit towns int he north of England.
My opinion is shared by Brian Carney, and several people in the know.
Sky sports is a joke, they show a measly 2 games a week, that's it. Free to air has nothing. Promoting the game to youngsters is almost non existent. It's the Wigan/Leeds/St Helens/Warrington travelling sideshow...nothing more.
Why does Carney not say that Sky coverage is a joke then?
A measly 2 games? When do you want the others to be on telly? Saturday afternoon? Football. Sunday morning? Football. Sunday afternoon? Football. Monday? You get the picture.
2 games is about as good as we are going to get.
Free to air has the challenge cup.
I believe the key to growth, is a strong England national side. They simply don't have the talent pool to sustain a top line 20 team comp.
8 of the best teams playing each other week in week out will improve the game. It will create competition for spots, and players will have to backup each week for a tough game.
As it stands, the top teams only have to 'get up' probably once a month...against another heavy weight team.....then it's back to training drills against the minnows. That helps nobody.
An eight team competition would provide a stronger national team if that is what you want. It would also provide a great 2nd division. However, I think having only 8 teams would diminish the profile of the game across the UK. An 8 team comp would be good for the national team but not for the game IMO. It was definitely a mistake to expand the competition to 14 teams. 12 would be the right number for me.
8 teams would not produce enough games to keep anyone in business. We don't all have multi million deals lined up.
Development of the international game you say? Go to the international section of this forum to discuss the problems about that old chestnut.
Yeah, I get that now. What gets me is you hear all the time here that league is big 'in the North'.
Manchester is the biggest city in the North and no one gives a flying feck!
Did you expect Manchester to be like Sydney? Wall to wall league coverage? Where did you get that idea from?
Anyone will tell you, Rugby league is not a big game in the UK. Its big in the North compared to the South, but not compared to our main sporting obsession.
We have a FA cup game this weekend between two of the norths big teams. So in all honesty Rugby league could do everything the game has done in Australia for the last 5 years (all the good and bad things you read about) and none of it would make the sports news.
eople cant handle 3 months of no league??
