WIGAN AND HULL SET TO FACE SOUTH SYDNEY AND ST GEORGE IN AUSTRALIA

[old hooker]

Morley as a Wigan fan of over 60 years I have supported them through thick and thin, praised them whe I though right and criticised wnen I thought it correct to do so.I stand by mystatement that IL is thinking of IL first and his main aim is to make money.You may not like my opinion but it matters not to me.

At the end of the day, Old Hooker, we're both Wigan fans with 115 years of support between us (you're 5 or 6 in front of me by the look of it). I respect your right to have an opinion. See you at Wembley in August

I agree entirely and hope we are there to enjoy yet another cup win.

[fozzieskem]

As much as it pains me to say it someone on red vee raised a good point

if this game is to grow the RL brand as is touted, why go to Oz where the competition is already not only established but also in a position where it is regarded as way ahead of our own

why not Toronto?, a place that is putting a lot of resource into a team why not play over there to give fans a glimpse of what top flight games are like between two of the upper half teams?

I said Toronto on page 2 of this thread mate,it would make sense and it would also get used to going over when the Wolfpack arrive in a year or two.

[Wigan_forever1985]

As much as it pains me to say it someone on red vee raised a good point

if this game is to grow the RL brand as is touted, why go to Oz where the competition is already not only established but also in a position where it is regarded as way ahead of our own

why not Toronto?, a place that is putting a lot of resource into a team why not play over there to give fans a glimpse of what top flight games are like between two of the upper half teams?

I said Toronto on page 2 of this thread mate,it would make sense and it would also get used to going over when the Wolfpack arrive in a year or two.

ah i missed that i feel better now i can cite you as the source instead of dirty stains fan

It does make loads more sense in terms of benefiting the game

[Shaun1967]

An Australian point of view on the game.
Well worth a read.

http://amp.smh.com.au/rugby-league/supe ... xjpk7.html

[moto748]

Interesting piece, but he appears to giving the RFL credit for sagacity they don't have. They are nowhere near as smart as he seems to think they are!

I can't imagine there's a great deal of commercial advantage in this. I would have thought the main point was publicity for RL here in the UK. Maybe IL figured, if I can get some freebies out the NSW government and more or less break even at least, where's the harm?

And on Toronto, why not there? Yes, good point. I suspect the prosaic answer is, IL has the contacts in Oz that he doesn't have in Canada. And I can't imagine any branch of the Canadian government dipping into their pockets to help out. For the NSW govt, with the massive profile of the sport over there, the situation is completely different.

[markill]

Interesting piece, but he appears to giving the RFL credit for sagacity they don't have. They are nowhere near as smart as he seems to think they are!

I get your point about the RFL, but they are having things done for them or thrust on them by the likes of Toronto and Wigan/Hull, so if you widen 'the RFL' out into the whole scheme of people who fall under the RFL umbrella then there are some smart, or at least calculating and ambitious, people there. I think that's more where Mascord is coming from than referring to Wood/Rimmer/Draper types specifically.

[DaveO]

An Australian point of view on the game.
Well worth a read.

http://amp.smh.com.au/rugby-league/supe ... xjpk7.html

That is a pretty damning indictment of the parochialism of the sport in Oz but what he doesn't seem to realise is it's not much better here.

He says RL in the UK has little revenue it can tap into. Well who's fault is that when the RFL don't even bother putting the TV contract out to tender? The fact the BBC want to pay a pittance for England Samoa games now is because over the years the RFL have failed the game priding itself on its so called "whole game approach" when it should be obvious a professional sport outside of soccer can't support 30 odd teams unless there is far more revenue up front. THose running the RFL liver in a different universe to reality and can't seem to see under the current leadership it has steadily fallen behind other sports.

As to Toronto and a possible 2nd French team that is different to taking games on the road. Should they progress to SL we still get a home game v them and if fans want to travel away to Canada or the South of France more than once a season then there is no issue here.

With this Wigan v Hull game the author of the article seems to have missed the point that it is Wigan who have organised this to further the cause of Wigan RL not specifically the game as a whole. If the RFL try to latch into this as doing that they have no shame.

Will it succeed in achieving Wigan's aim? I doubt it. We have as a sport and a club taken games on the road before and I have yet to see anything positive result.

It is as if whoever does it thinks if we play a game in some different location that is bound to result in huge new interest in the game or club. That was one of the ideas around the Magic weekend. Now this is just a weekend away for the converted. I don't think there is even any pretence anymore that it is part of an expansion initiative.

If you want to expand the game or a clubs exposure you need to do a darn sight more than just play one game in some other place and then sit back hoping the cash will flow in. You need to follow this up and keep getting the message out. Who have Wigan got to do this? We have Rads as general manager and a.n.other in the marketing dept I think. I just do not see how Wigan RL has the resources to mount a serious and sustained campaign in NSW to turn this into a long term benefit.

[DaveO]

And on Toronto, why not there? Yes, good point. I suspect the prosaic answer is, IL has the contacts in Oz that he doesn't have in Canada. And I can't imagine any branch of the Canadian government dipping into their pockets to help out. For the NSW govt, with the massive profile of the sport over there, the situation is completely different.

I agree. For NSW tourism I think the potential benefits easily justify the expense. They have got two high profile teams with quite a few potential RL tourists from the UK plus the chance of domestic Aussie RL supporters popping along to make the investment by NSW tourism worth the punt.

In contrast what Wigan have stated they hope to get out if it seems far more less tangible and much harder to realise. There is nothing in the actual game financially, the sponsorship is just covering the cost.

Who has told Wigan that playing a game there will put the club at the front of the queue for Aussie players who might want to come to the UK? Why would this make any difference and why with the disparity in wages will it make any decent ones more likely to come? It seems more like a wish than a well researched potential outcome. Likewise what market research has gone into the likelihood of the club picking up potential sponsors in Australia? How many new fans have been predicted and what is the likelihood of them spending enough to make this worthwhile?

All these sorts of questions are the ones you ask before you do something like this and there is no evidence I can see of the club employing market research companies and so on to answer them. All we know is Rads went over to arrange the game and the NSW tourism deal.

As I said in my other post you then have to capitalise on this going forward to help realise your projections. I just can't see it happening. Instead it looks completely speculative to me.

[Wigan_forever1985]

I agree with pretty much all of that DaveO

I think its worth pointing to another issue (that i think you may have alluded to on another thread) certainly something ive been bleating on about for a while, we lack at the moment a player that transgresses the borders of our sport.

We were closest to this with Sam back before he left for Oz when he was a name people knew outside of the sport. Weve further had this damaged by Burgess becoming a scapegoat for England's exit IMO, something that was never clearly addressed. It was a feat of brilliance from RU to apportion nearly the entire blame onto Burgess' selection despite the fact that England were never losing a game while he was on the pitch having started a match.

If the powers that be want to really grow the sport we need 'names', if they want the aussies to watch superleague you need to get a BIG star over here, how many people on here will watched NZW games while Sam was there to see how he went on?, same deal.

You cannot grow a sport with promising youngsters you need star appeal, but you also need players who can break out from being known in their home towns alone. Im not a specialist in this area but if i were the RFL this is were the money needs to be spent.

If you look at the success of any niche sport in terms of ratings its normally down to stand out figures, not teams or the sports merits.

Snooker needed O'Sullivan, Diving needed Tom Daley, 100m needed Bolt, Boxing needed Ricky Hatton and Anthony Joshua, F1 needed Hamilton etc etc

Without a poster boy or two we will forever be that other form of rugby

[DaveO]

I agree with pretty much all of that DaveO

I think its worth pointing to another issue (that i think you may have alluded to on another thread) certainly something ive been bleating on about for a while, we lack at the moment a player that transgresses the borders of our sport.

Yes we do and in that SMH article linked to above there is a rather throw away comment that relates to this though not in the way the author means. It the where the author mentions if SL returned to winter.

Well if we did then you would see our players doing as they used to do, doing an off season in Oz and top Aussie players doing an off season here. No need to lose top talent and top Aussies could still retain their NRL pay packets and come for a stint in the UK raising the profile of the game and themselves while doing so.

Back in the day the likes of Kenny, Stirling and Hanley were known beyond the sport because they came and played here or went down under in my view. It raised profiles as the success of players in an overseas competition was news as was the fact top stars from overseas were coming to play in the domestic league which ever one it was.

These days those who do not follow the sport do not really know who the top Aussies are and few know that in Lockers we have had a genuinely world class sportsman running around for decades.