Does it need better promotion? Clearly it wouldn't harm, but the truth of it IMO is it has just been devalued by the emergence of SL.

If you're the supporter of a big club, you are chasing the Grand Final and it all consuming glory, if you're not then you're largely disenfranchised.

I still don't and never have seen what the SL licenced structure offers what we didn't have other than the power to draw in vast amounts of Sky money, which given thought could have happened for the old game.

The cup is on its arris, p and r is gone, soulless grounds and soulless clubs inhabit the league, one club vying for its existence against another, team GB is dead and with it any chance of international honours, young talent is still stifled by overseas mediocrity, county cups gone, premierships gone and replaced with a copycat competition that devalues the league winners glory.

And all this marketed as a success by the powers that be!!!

Sad but largely true.



I have to say that getting involved with junior rugby a couple of years ago has given me the most enjoyment I've had out of the game in many a year; it's easy to feel disillusioned by the shenanigans of SL, but there's nothing like seeing a group of young players develop, learn the game and have a great time playing with their mates.



I'm not sure what opportunities the few who have aspirations to play professionally will encounter as they get older, given the state of the game outside of half a dozen sugar-daddy owned clubs, but you live in hope.

It doesn't take much for the anti SL lobby to start sounding off does it. People make it sound like the involvement of Sky

has had a detrimental affect on our game. Immediately before Sky we had one team turning up and winning at Wembley every year, and the old game was dying a slow death.

Sky may well have a detrimental effect on Sky, however i didn't suggest that, merely that things have got worse IMO since the advent of SL for the listed reasons, here they are again:

"The cup is on its arris, p and r is gone, soulless grounds and soulless clubs inhabit the league, one club vying for its existence against another, team GB is dead and with it any chance of international honours, young talent is still stifled by overseas mediocrity, county cups gone, premierships gone and replaced with a copycat competition that devalues the league winners glory".

These IMO are all real declines in our game, not as a result of Sky (because nobody really knows the limit of Sky's involvement) but as a result of SL.

All of these could and should have been avoidable with a clear unbiased vision of the future from the leaders of the game, as could the domination of one club prior to SL.

For me the main influence (of the Wigan dominance and the way SL was carved up in its infancy) was one Maurice Lindsey, quite the most unscrupulous individual ever to fall out of another human being.

Am i a fan of SL? No not hugely for all the above reasons.

Do i blame Sky? No because i DONT KNOW how involved they are in the overall game.

Do i think SL could have served the game of RL better? You bet!!!

Sadly though, there has been too much water under the bridge and the Red Hall cupboards are full to bursting with skeletons, implicating all of the top table, so nothing is likely to change other than via a mass revolt from the clubs themselves, and as was shown with the formation of the SL, there are too many clubs with a vested interest in a remain in the status quo.

I fail to see the heinous crime Lindsay committed. As chairman of his club he made them the best team in the league then he helped drag our game up into the professional era. Are you angry at him because he was more forward thinking and more ahead of his time than other people in our game. I seem to remember that he was instrumental in pushing through the idea of SL , so perhaps this is the reason for your vitriol.

He monopolised the game through Wigan and had a strangle hold on the game and it almost died as a result, great of you're a Wigan fan only.

At the initiation of summer rugby and SL the game was carved up in the best interests of certain clubs that would benefit the league others such as ours were cast aside, all of that was fairly ruinous.

He may well have brought the proffesionality era to RL, wether or not RL clubs are sustainably proffesional has yet to be seen, all have tax issues possibly pending, many are reliant on benefactors and all are reliant on Sky Sports.

As a human being I find him lacking in charisma and as for the rules he helped bring into SL he spent much of his time at Wigan then trying to break them.

SL could have achieved so much, but in many ways we have gone backwards yet still manage to let the people running the game tell us otherwise.

Hardly vitriol though!!

Spot on Kinleycat. We were shafted over as were several others. We didn't want to be Calder!...My God imagine the mess that would have been. Extinct by now without a doubt. So we got shoved in Div 2 as refuseniks. Keighley et al...never forget this travesty it was a disgrace to sport in general and our sport in particular. I have lots of vitriol for Mr Lindsay and I'm not ashamed to say it.

SL is a glistening turd. When 4 to 6 clubs get bored with being the only competition we can await an SPL like implosion.

Word of the week - well played.

Quote charlie63wildcat="charlie63wildcat"SL is a glistening [uturd[/u. When 4 to 6 clubs get bored with being the only competition we can await an SPL like implosion.'" That's a =#FF0000EDIT viewtopic.php?f=33&t=421878&tsmp=1337169198argument. When those 4 to six teams get bored where do they go and play? We have a salary cap in place to make the league fairer. Obviously teams with greater revenue will often finish nearer the top but a competitive league is in the interests of all and if we get our new ground and continue with our off-field improvements plus pick up on-field then we could make those top four or six take note.

Quote charlie63wildcat="charlie63wildcat"SL is a glistening [uturd[/u. When 4 to 6 clubs get bored with being the only competition we can await an SPL like implosion.'" That's a =#FF0000EDIT viewtopic.php?f=33&t=421878&tsmp=1337169198argument. When those 4 to six teams get bored where do they go and play? We have a salary cap in place to make the league fairer. Obviously teams with greater revenue will often finish nearer the top but a competitive league is in the interests of all and if we get our new ground and continue with our off-field improvements plus pick up on-field then we could make those top four or six take note.