In many previous seasons, a game against Catalan at Magic would be as good as 2 points.

A bit more of a test this year.

You're judged by what you write, that's quite enough to generate the sort of responses you get, there isn't some vast conspiracy.



Still, compared to most of redvee you're positively rational.

I don't think it is. I'm not suggesting there is a mass conspiracy, just a group of regular posters who lack the intelligence to discuss issues and just obsess over little details to justify attacking. What I wrote about the Magic Weekend fixtures was correct and yet there was a chain of idiotic posts criticising it and completely missing the point of the post.

If its not a dig at Warrington then why mention them? Especially when what you claimed turned out to be complete nonsense. If the fixtures are random then i think we've been dealt a bad hand in the past 7 years. Wigan 3 times, saints 3 times and cas the year they finished top. Easy ride are certainly the words that spring to mind there!

What I wrote was "teams like Warrington have essentially been given a 2 point advantage for years because of it".



Your first Magic Weekend fixtures were: Salford, Huddersfield, Hull KR, Salford, Huddersfield, Widnes, Saints, Saints, Saints

Meanwhile Saints played: Wigan, Wigan, Wigan, Hull KR, Wigan, Wigan, Warrington, Warrington, Warrington



So it's not 'complete nonsense' at all is it. 'For years' doesn't mean the last ones.



My point wasn't that they are trying to help Warrington, it wasn't even about Warrington. It was just highlighting that the concept is very flawed and that it's the ideal event for reduced format game. No one is going to take an 8 a side game like the one Cas are proposing seriously as individual fixtures but this could be a decent showpiece for the sport.

Come on Orangeman, Union and Cricket are part of The Establishment in the UK and competitions like The Hundred will have backers lining up to sponsor any new comp.

The harsh reality is that RL is a small time niche sport and although some try and pretend that we are similar to other sports, we aren't, we're not even close.

And yes, you're right about Indian billionaires, they will happily throw cash (and lots of it) at most things connected to cricket.

I'd be careful with that rhetoric. I've heard tales of posters being banished for such heretic overtures.



The point of the thread was I believe to highlight that whilst were considering how to squeeze the same revenue from the same source, cricket is doing something different.

The bottom line here is reducing the top tier to 10 and rebranding the second tier is akin to swapping deck chairs on the titanic...

Interesting listening to the BBC RL podcast, Adam Pearson talking about the hundred as a good example, and that RL needs a new product, looking at that shorter version of the product that seems to be the vogue in sport at the moment. He kept saying the sport would be dead in a year if we don't... and gave lots of things we "need" to do. All I hear is short term fixes, nobody talking about the long term strategy of getting more people playing and watching.



I was also interested to hear Cricket journalists discussing the hundred on TMS, they felt the hundred wasn't really a success when it came to the men's game, and that they had sacrificed the domestic one day competition to run it, but with the amount of money and reputations on the line the ECB are basically all in on the hundred so it has to succeed, and they will keep pushing it no matter what the outcomes this year.

Pearson really does seem to be floundering, throwing out just badly flawed ideas like shortened versions of the game (based on what evidence?) and, once again, the disastrous idea of private equity. Hopefully Hull FC can get some serious ownership back involved at some point because he just seems to miss the point of the game's problems over and over and it's starting to be damaging.

The traditionalists said the same thing about the increase of the one day and T20 games compared with the more traditional 4-5 day county games. Some people don't like change. RL cant be accused of significant long term change just 'cheesy' short term headline grabbing adjustments that they go back on. Franchises, Middle 8's. P&R........

I have no issue with change at all (I regularly attend T20 matches at Lancs) but I'm not a fan of the 100. There's plenty of of room for 50 & 20 over Cricket but the Hundred is just a gimmick too far IMO. The England test team is already suffering with the barrage of white ball Cricket affecting players ability to build a long innings and the techniques of a lot of the crossover players (who play all formats) is really suffering. There needs to be a balance with white ball Cricket and I don't think we've found it yet.



One of the reasons I support my county team is because generally it's packed with local lads with the odd overseas star and a few players brought in from other counties. When you see the likes of Liam Livingstone starring for Birmingham Phoenix and Saqib Mahmood at Oval Invincibles it's just not the same. Add in the generally cr@p commentary teams (obviously put together to tick "diversity" boxes) and influx of Reality TV muppets acting as some sort of pitchside reporter and sorry but it doesn't really float my boat. And don't get me started on "Match Hero's"..... cringey AF!

T20/Hundred cricket worked as it took what was originally a 5-day game, then a game that lasted all-day, and made it into a 3-hour game.



Having a 2-hour game of RL isn't the problem. Cheapening it to a 7/8/9 player game would make the product worse. I don't think it'd attract any new fans.



If RL had the marketing campaign for a new structure that he Hundred had, it'd be a game-changer. Having both Sky and BBC going to bat for you, to use a cricket term, is a huge advantage . . . but also probably extremely expensive.