Has this been the best super league season ever? : Sun Oct 08, 2023 10:47 am  

Attendances are up, a topsy turvy season impossible to predict with a totally fresh CC final and a potential new champion. Has this been the best ever?

And then there’s IMG. While you were sitting at home, waiting around doing NISH, they’ve been out, making moves, cutting deals, strategising.

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Sun Oct 08, 2023 7:12 pm  

With either London or Toulouse joining Super League next year after another Featherstone bottle job, things are looking up at least.

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Sun Oct 08, 2023 8:05 pm  

No way, its become more competitive because the standards have dropped and the sport is pretty skint. Teams of 10 or 20 years ago would wipe the floor with the current lot.

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Sun Oct 08, 2023 11:24 pm  

Just looking that 11 of the 12 current SL teams have contested a major final since 2017. Isn't this a good thing?

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Mon Oct 09, 2023 7:05 am  

ryano wrote:

Just looking that 11 of the 12 current SL teams have contested a major final since 2017. Isn't this a good thing?

Yes doing better on that front, and we will have a newish name on the SL trophy as Wigan havent won it for 5 years and Catalan of course would be new

[Pumpetypump]

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Tue Oct 10, 2023 10:07 am  

The best super league season is one where, in the wider context, it sits as the pinnacle of a healthy sport. Right now, eulogising about SL is akin to saying the house is burning down but has anyone noticed the attic has a nice new velux window. Or the apple is soft and rotten but take a look at that stalk.

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah HUMBUG

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Tue Oct 10, 2023 10:41 pm  

I think we're on the cusp of a very worrying period for rugby league. The finances at most clubs are a massive concern, even the smug 'big' clubs are unsustainable as businesses in their current format and rely entirely on the input of a wealthy owner. I think we're about to start losing teams quite regularly from the lower leagues as the central funding drops and costs keep increasing. Salford worry me a lot as well, as do both of the clubs who could potentially come up. Neither have anything like a squad capable of being competitive in Super League and do either of them have the money to sign players of sufficient quality in such a short period of time?

The quality of the product on the field is at it's lowest point ever as well. The semi finals were so, so bad as entertainment spectacles. Tomkins knocking Saints out will have brought great joy to most RL fans in this country, but the game itself was turgid, anyone watching as a casual sports fan or a potential fan of Rugby League would have been turned away. There was no attempt to score points or attack, just Catalans desperately searching for penalties all game and Saints lacking any attacking quality at all. When they are two of the best three teams in the competition it's very worrying. In a way I hope Wigan win the title by scoring a few tries and it encourages more sides to play the game a bit more rather than obsessing over diving and cheating their way to six agains and penalties like most of them do.

Then you look at the Young Player of the Year award nominee list. It's gone from Jack Welsby, Harry Smith, Morgan Gannon to Jack Welsby, Mikey Lewis, Jarrad O'Connor to Thewlis, O'Neill and Nicholson. The winner of the award is a winger from a mid table side that had a terrible season for their level of ambition who has 8 tries in 21 games, no assists, misses 25%+ of his tackles and makes errors on more than 10% of his carries. He's a player with decent potential, but if he's the best young player this season, it's a worrying sign as well. I'm sure he'd admit himself he's got way more to give than he's shown this season.

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Wed Oct 11, 2023 12:53 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

I think we're on the cusp of a very worrying period for rugby league. The finances at most clubs are a massive concern, even the smug 'big' clubs are unsustainable as businesses in their current format and rely entirely on the input of a wealthy owner. I think we're about to start losing teams quite regularly from the lower leagues as the central funding drops and costs keep increasing. Salford worry me a lot as well, as do both of the clubs who could potentially come up. Neither have anything like a squad capable of being competitive in Super League and do either of them have the money to sign players of sufficient quality in such a short period of time?

The quality of the product on the field is at it's lowest point ever as well. The semi finals were so, so bad as entertainment spectacles. Tomkins knocking Saints out will have brought great joy to most RL fans in this country, but the game itself was turgid, anyone watching as a casual sports fan or a potential fan of Rugby League would have been turned away. There was no attempt to score points or attack, just Catalans desperately searching for penalties all game and Saints lacking any attacking quality at all. When they are two of the best three teams in the competition it's very worrying. In a way I hope Wigan win the title by scoring a few tries and it encourages more sides to play the game a bit more rather than obsessing over diving and cheating their way to six agains and penalties like most of them do.

Then you look at the Young Player of the Year award nominee list. It's gone from Jack Welsby, Harry Smith, Morgan Gannon to Jack Welsby, Mikey Lewis, Jarrad O'Connor to Thewlis, O'Neill and Nicholson. The winner of the award is a winger from a mid table side that had a terrible season for their level of ambition who has 8 tries in 21 games, no assists, misses 25%+ of his tackles and makes errors on more than 10% of his carries. He's a player with decent potential, but if he's the best young player this season, it's a worrying sign as well. I'm sure he'd admit himself he's got way more to give than he's shown this season.

I need to sit down, there’s almost a complement to Wigan in there. I’d agree with some points but disagree with others.

If there were any casual RU supporters watching they probably would have enjoyed the Catalan v St Helens semi. A lot of kicks at goal and 2 sides largely devoid of attacking enterprise. It was, never the less brutal, 100% commitment and exciting (or at least I thought it was).

I think recent rule changes intended to speed the game up have slowed it down. I like the 6 again but 1st or 2nd tackle should be a penalty. Lees was the prime example, he just lay there waiting for the defence to get set and the ref to call 6 again.

I’m cautiously optimistic about the next few years and hope IMG can flex some muscle to propel the sport to where it needs to be. If that fails I’ll begin to worry.

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Wed Oct 11, 2023 4:04 pm  

Trainman wrote:

I need to sit down, there’s almost a complement to Wigan in there..

Always full of praise for Wigan outside of the usual rivalry banter. A proper RL club and now Peet is the coach and has brought a massive amount of class with him, there's not much to dislike now.

Re: Has this been the best super league season ever? : Wed Oct 11, 2023 5:30 pm  

Saddened! wrote:

I think we're on the cusp of a very worrying period for rugby league. The finances at most clubs are a massive concern, even the smug 'big' clubs are unsustainable as businesses in their current format and rely entirely on the input of a wealthy owner. I think we're about to start losing teams quite regularly from the lower leagues as the central funding drops and costs keep increasing. Salford worry me a lot as well, as do both of the clubs who could potentially come up. Neither have anything like a squad capable of being competitive in Super League and do either of them have the money to sign players of sufficient quality in such a short period of time?

The quality of the product on the field is at it's lowest point ever as well. The semi finals were so, so bad as entertainment spectacles. Tomkins knocking Saints out will have brought great joy to most RL fans in this country, but the game itself was turgid, anyone watching as a casual sports fan or a potential fan of Rugby League would have been turned away. There was no attempt to score points or attack, just Catalans desperately searching for penalties all game and Saints lacking any attacking quality at all. When they are two of the best three teams in the competition it's very worrying. In a way I hope Wigan win the title by scoring a few tries and it encourages more sides to play the game a bit more rather than obsessing over diving and cheating their way to six agains and penalties like most of them do.

Then you look at the Young Player of the Year award nominee list. It's gone from Jack Welsby, Harry Smith, Morgan Gannon to Jack Welsby, Mikey Lewis, Jarrad O'Connor to Thewlis, O'Neill and Nicholson. The winner of the award is a winger from a mid table side that had a terrible season for their level of ambition who has 8 tries in 21 games, no assists, misses 25%+ of his tackles and makes errors on more than 10% of his carries. He's a player with decent potential, but if he's the best young player this season, it's a worrying sign as well. I'm sure he'd admit himself he's got way more to give than he's shown this season.

It’s funny, I’ve been rabbiting on about the quality of super league for years, and how saints were basically winning it almost by default on account of being the only top club who wasn’t a total basket case (just look, look at the absolute state of some of the Leeds and Wigan teams over the past 5 years). Suddenly, now saints are no longer top dogs it’s well, look at the state of super league. I get it. When Leeds were top dogs the competition was stronger than ever in my eyes.