The rule that decides how a game is restarted after a try has been scored needs to be changed. Surely no one who either played in this game or paid to watch it can hardly have enjoyed it. The rule that says that the team who has conceded a try has to restart the game by basically giving possession back to the team who have just scored that try is wrong.

A much better way is to restart the game by the team who have just conceded the try restarting the game with a tap on the half way line. That is how they do it in soccer. If that rule had been in operation in this particular game, without doubt Oldham would still have won but it would have been a better spectacle and event for all concerned.

It been switched around in previous years, and it was ultimately felt that it's better that the conceding team starts with (trying to) make the opponent start their set from inside their on 40m, rather than having to try to run the ball out themselves from within their own 20m.



Restarting with a tap on halfway seems a decent alternative though.

It's time to leave the (rules) game alone, and stop meddling.

or maybe west wales should be playing in a sunday pub league just saying

I remember when we were in L1 we put 100 on them home and away, but after that they definitely seemed to be improving and becoming competitive. It's a real shame they've gone backwards again, and there must be a story to it.

Guess the 'story' is (likely) that some of their players aren't as keen on a 12 hr round trip to play 80 mins of rugby and they end up traveling with a weakened team.

I think the problem with that is that unlike in Soccer, the fundamental premise of RL and sports such as American Football is gaining metres up a pitch. Soccer can kick off on half way, but might just as easily pass it backwards as forwards. Awarding the conceding team a restart on half way seems a huge advantage in a sport like RL. I can also imagine an unintended consequence being that evenly matched teams could use that huge advantage to exchange scores like a yoyo. It might be a just as boring but in a different way.



How would you restart the game after a penalty or field goal?

What about thumb war to decide who kicks off after a score?



Or, the team that scored has to swap the try scorer with a player from the other team?



Or, the team that scores loses the scorer for 5 minutes?

I know that they've struggled to raise a side at certain points during previous seasons. I don't blame them. If you're working full time all week and have a family, you're sacrificing an entire day to travel to and from the game. Perhaps if the games were somewhat competitive instead of these complete annihilations it maybe more appealing to some players. They're doing it tough at the moment after yesterdays game at Oldham.



What happened to the Gavin Henson signing? Did he play one game and then retire again?

It's not kids rugby where imbalances of sides has to be catered for with rule changes. You'll be advocating the "sympathy win" next, to ensure that no side concedes more than 50 points.

Such blow out score lines do suggest that there is too much of an imbalance between some of the competing clubs and perhaps the top sides should move into and expanded Championship or, the poorer sides drop into the conference ?

I do agree that there is little spectacle in watching any side concede so many points in a game and we would all prefer to see a "contest".

Teams like this have had long enough to get there act into gear.

It's just so the rugby league can say they have a team in South Wales.

Cornwall will go the same way.

It doesn't attract support and it only gets media exposure for the wrong reason.

What is the cost for away teams to travel these distances?

In a time when less money is distributed to league 1 how can we expect players who work to give up there time for a meaningless game.

Surely the likes of Sidal and other top amateur teams would be more beneficial to our sport

Amateur teams along the M62 corridor, and Cumbria have had the best part of 100 years to step up, and turn (semi) pro and expand the competition.



So why, in the main, don't they bother ?



Which Northern amateur clubs have been denied the opportunity to step up to allow Cornwall, Toulouse, London Skolars, Coventry Hurricane, North & West Wales and Newcastle to be in the league (I'm not just after a list of names of great amateur clubs - just the ones who actually applied and had their applications rejected in favour of those other clubs) ?

I am an out and out expansionist. But when we roll out utter absurd clubs like Cornwall then I can see why traditionalists think the game has gone mad. We've had short lived clubs all over the place but I can't think any of them have been as daft as that.



In terms of South and West Wales. Rugby is in their DNA but I do wonder if the only way its ever going to work is if a pro Union club set up an RL arm in the same vein as the Leeds cross-code model. They get to sweat their primary asset (their ground) so it's used year round, and tap into more Rugby players.

Gav found that he simply wasn't fit enough, even for this level. He fully admitted it after the game.



It's not that he's some young pup trying the game out. He's the wrong side of 35 years old, pushing 40.

Maybe he realised that he'd never be fit enough, even for a League 1 run out.



Scott Gibbs pointed out, when he returned to RU, that even playing lower league RL teams require fitness, that you're going to get tackled and that's going to take its toll on you.



Two interesting fixtures will be when West Wales take on Cornwall.

Well it's just a leisurely 220 miles each way from Bridgend to Penryn....