So was mine a serious post.

Look - we have potentially the finest sports-audience watching event in the world. Yet it is limited to one huge city in Aus, one small area in NZ, a tiny part of the UK, and a small area of France. Yes we're massive in Papua New Guinea. Yes we have a Lebanon/Tunisia/Moscow league. So what?

Knock it or support it. We show the world what we can do. The Aussies should be doing the same in the state of Victoria (soccer is gaining ground on the "Sydney" game).

I believe that Rugby League is the greatest sport in the world both in participation and watching. I remember the efforts in Oldham to support the league in Dublin. I remember the last efforts in South Wales. Let's keep on trying because if we do not, we disappear. So any effort to rid us of the M62 image, I support.

Failure - NO.

And you know my commitment here.

Yes but once again we appear to have a them and us situation here.
You went and good on you.
But if you think it was a success then you are deluded.
Next year I can arrange a few games on the field outside my house, organise a barby and have loads of beer laid on.
I can even arrange hotels if you wish.
Scotland will never be a Rugby League area, End of.

Before you can make a definate call on the success of anything you have to define how you are going to measure it. Measured by fun in the sun and a great weekends entertainment with rugby and beer then a success it was. Measured by a serious long standing benefit for the game of Rugby League and a seriously effective way of expanding the game in a non rugby league area..debatable.

Nice idea, just doesn't work.

"Next year I can arrange a few games on the field outside my house, organise a barby and have loads of beer laid on.
I can even arrange hotels if you wish.
Scotland will never be a Rugby League area, End of"

OK do it -
with international media interest
with every SL team sending supporters who dress up and enjoy themselves
with all the buzz and flair that speccies expect in the 21st century.
with a fine stadium and hotels around you.

Fulham are to support the soccer craze in Australia this summer - do they expect Broncos to become 11 man teams overnight? No.

Scotland is only an excuse - to be fair we should be in Morocco or Lebanon or Moscow.
If you want, I'll dig out my cloth cap, black pudding butties and think of Alex Murphy ... no not the last. Then we can be side-lined.


If anyone here thinks the main aim was a SL team in Scotland by 2010, they have been sucked in.Read beyond the marketing hype. It was taking the finest team game in the world to the world. We go to Manchester(OK Trafford), London and ... now Edinburgh. Perhaps 2012 will be Dublin.

Fair enough. What points then make you feel it was a failure?

In your last point I don't think anyone has actually said that?

The only measuring factor of whether it was a success or not will be next year. If the scottish take up on tickets improves then surely you would have to say yes?

I think this is one of the main sticking points. How can the RFL make it more appealing to get people to stay for more than their own game? Free tickets wouldn't work. The only thing I can really think of is much cheaper food and drink stalls

The winner of the mascot games gets to punch Cheggers in the face?

Better still all the supporters of the winning mascot get to punch him in the face

maybe locking fans in will keep the numbers up