Rugby League Play Offs

Notice how i’m honoring standish W’s wish of not posting my opinions on this topic! Hope you all appreciate this by the way…………..although it’s nearly the weekend ;) ;) ;)

Yes, but Wigan is a rugby town and WRL are the biggest club in the world,

Wigan Athletic `core` home support is nearer 15,000 actually, and in the words of Maurice Lindsay `Latics are a lovely little club who unfortunately chose to play in the back yard of the biggest rugby league club in the world`……(horseshit I know).

Unfortunately 23 miles to the west we have the 5 times European champions, and 22 miles to the East we have the biggest football club in the world along with the richest football club in the world.
Wigan is a town full of plastic Mancs and Plastic scousers, so for Wigan Athletic to be in the biggest league in the world of the biggest sport in the world is worth celebrating dont you think?

Football is built on history, would you tell a Liverpool or Man U fan to `dig up stuff from world war one`??

Of course it’s worth celebrating sorry I thought you were on about our support

Except for the team that finished first, who go into a final having not had a competitive game for god knows how long.
The main thing that is wrong with rugby league, is that the league is getting disregarded by a ‘cup’ competition tagged onto the end of it, it’s like sky are getting a 2 for 1 deal, stretching an already niche and localised game to the point of breaking, and they’re almost there with it, another season or 2 of this and it’s all over, the fans have had enough now, and who can blame them?
What I think needs to happen is either a new cup competition in conjunction with the regular season, culminating in a ‘grand final’ with a bumper payday for the winning club.
Or the challenge cup should be reinstated as an important target, by moving the final to the last game of the season, and getting clubs and fans excited about it again, at the moment it is treated as an inconvenience, and is given crap coverage on the bbc.

Unless the RFL get their act together and soon, interest will wane (sorry) and the talent will go where the money and competition is, Union or NRL, whats left? An amateur game, played in northern England, like it was before all the razzmatazz.

As I’ve said previously, I enjoy watching amateur rugby, and used to enjoy playing too, it’s a good game, but as a business model it’s just not tenable, sky will chew it up and spit it out when there’s no goodness left in it, and won’t lose a seconds sleep over it, best prepare yourselves worriers, the end is nigh.

An amateur game, played in northern England, like it was before all the razzmatazz.

I agree with all that’s being said, but I’m sorry John I have to pick you up on one slight thing.

Rugby League was always professional, it’s why it split from Rugby Union.

One big problem has been that since Union went professional, they have done it so much better than League, and you now have two sports that are essentially the same – one has money and business acumen with an interest over the country through the Six Nations, with the Premiership and Heineken Cup layered over. League however has gone down the route of alienating the grassroots by operating a closed shop to the core heartland while at the same time trying to expand in areas that neither need League nor want it, and by having badly-thought out tournaments.

I am no fan of current Rugby League, but I hate to see any sports die off (we need all we can get), and moreso when it is the result of the incompetence of organising bodies who have got greedy.