MASCORD: Roosters' Dubai trip raises plenty of questions

Sports don't have morals but the people within them do! There are those that do the deeds and those who say nothing and do nothing to prevent it happening and happening again and both are equally as guilty! Unfortunately, they don't wear black hats or have DH branded on their foreheads to tell us who they are!

Um actually you did, you likened the use of the laws around sovereignty to Capone and tax implying that there was a lengthy and resource intensive effort by the use to incarcerate him. So either you were massively off base to compare the two (which factually have no similarities outside of vowels in their name) or you beleive it was a deliberate conspiracy

Some people have humanistic morals, some don't, in sporting terms I know what sport does and what sport doesn't, seems the fans of these sports show the actual quality of both the supporters and the sport they follow. Have a nice day.

Karlos there must be a typing or printing error here.... Hasn't Rugby League been dying for 121 years! I'm sure that's what every yawn poster on here has been saying and they must be correct because they always tell the truth just like their journalists!

I like the sound of that.

For 20 years the game is dying. It will never achieve anything like the tv deal it got last time or this time. No matter the evidence these death riders cant let go of their dream. Sorry guys. Rugby League just keeps getting stronger.

This is an RL forum even if some of the people who write things on it are from other sports. In general there are, despite some understandable inaccuracies, very few attempts to mislead, lie or decieve. In general the RL people on here, even the ones it’s hard to agree with at all, do not use the truth as an rather annoying inconvenience. Sol was imprisonned under some very suspect pretext and that is a moral question for anyone who feels strongly about anything wrongful being done to anyone. If you don't recognise yourself here Cadfael just make up something else and you'll get there! The ghosts of G Rowland Hill and the Reverend Frank Marshall will look down and smile in your direction. But thank you for proving my point about the truth being an annoying inconvenience. ;-)

Your comment"there is no absolutely no presence of rl in Sth Africa". I repeat that is bunkum. If you use the big sponsor or no TV ,then you can exclude quite a few countries that have union as a minor sport. Anycase as you have a different interpretation to the Oxford Dictionary, let me mention a few names and clubs that apparently have "absolutely no presence in South Africa",selected for the RLWC qualifier squad . ,Barberton Bulldogs: RLC:Jaime Turbinate Bears RLC: Dries V/d Merwe,Gavin Louw,Gerrit Groenwald,Marcel Viljoen Matthys Erasmus,Robin Howell ,Rudolph Prinsloo,Theo Rhodes Cape Town Hyenas RLC: Shuab Samaai Knights RLC: Jean-Di Oosthuysen,Martin Meyer,Theuris Botha,Wikus Kleinhans,Jeandri Smidth,Junior Laas. UP(university of Pretoria)-Tuks RLC : :Anrich Du Plessis,Attie Joubert,Christo Louw,Dirk Steyn,Dwayne Botma,Johan joubert,Johnathan Hancock,JP Hulbert,Nardus Raubenheimer,Peet Van der Merwe,Ruaan Du Preez,Rupert Wells,Simon Prinsloo,Tommy Joubert Western Vikings RLC: Johan Van Dyk,Michael Fulton In addition to a few Sth Africans playing with Harlequins RLC in England such as .Bernard Vorster,Deon Kramer,Jean Coetzer,Jean Pierre Nel,Mitch Pienaar.Plus others involved in USA/Australia So all these non existent players and non existent clubs,salute you M.They are a figment of ones imagination apparently. Now melad if you had the decency to state,rugby league has a very minimal presence in Sth Africa I would have supported you to the hilt.The trouble is on these rl threads get union people coming here and either generalise,try to point score with a play on words are unable to entertain the fact rl has a presence in some countries they find uncomfortable. I do know Danie Craven despised rugby league.

Your comment"there is no absolutely no presence of rl in Sth Africa". I repeat that is bunkum. If you use the big sponsor or no TV ,then you can exclude quite a few countries that have union as a minor sport. Anycase as you have a different interpretation to the Oxford Dictionary, let me mention a few names and clubs that apparently have "absolutely no presence in South Africa",selected for the RLWC qualifier squad . ,Barberton Bulldogs: RLC:Jaime Turbinate Bears RLC: Dries V/d Merwe,Gavin Louw,Gerrit Groenwald,Marcel Viljoen Matthys Erasmus,Robin Howell ,Rudolph Prinsloo,Theo Rhodes Cape Town Hyenas RLC: Shuab Samaai Knights RLC: Jean-Di Oosthuysen,Martin Meyer,Theuris Botha,Wikus Kleinhans,Jeandri Smidth,Junior Laas. UP(university of Pretoria)-Tuks RLC : :Anrich Du Plessis,Attie Joubert,Christo Louw,Dirk Steyn,Dwayne Botma,Johan joubert,Johnathan Hancock,JP Hulbert,Nardus Raubenheimer,Peet Van der Merwe,Ruaan Du Preez,Rupert Wells,Simon Prinsloo,Tommy Joubert Western Vikings RLC: Johan Van Dyk,Michael Fulton In addition to a few Sth Africans playing with Harlequins RLC in England such as .Bernard Vorster,Deon Kramer,Jean Coetzer,Jean Pierre Nel,Mitch Pienaar.Plus others involved in USA/Australia So all these non existent players and non existent clubs,salute you M.They are a figment of ones imagination apparently. Now melad if you had the decency to state,rugby league has a very minimal presence in Sth Africa I would have supported you to the hilt.The trouble is on these rl threads get union people coming here and either generalise,try to point score with a play on words are unable to entertain the fact rl has a presence in some countries they find uncomfortable.

Is it shown on our TV? Who is the major big business sponsor? is it shown in any the numerous sporting websites in South Africa? do people even know what RL is in SA.... its non existent here. Hell even ice hockey has a bigger attendance rate than RL

He has been posting often enough on SA ,to know full well, to say minimal instead of no presence. The no presence comment is used to generate effect but is factually incorrect He knows it or should and you are basically protecting his A. It is a common trick used by some ru fans ,having played the code for 5 years, I have heard some beauties .Close enough is not good enough. I am fully aware of an AFL presence there.The difference is the Sth Africans had to go into a qualifier of the RLWC in which the Kangaroos actually compete in,contrasted to An All Australian side that does not.Additionally there are not the barriers thrown up in SA for AFL as there is for rugby league.One of the reasons rl got to stage 3 acceptance in the CG,was due to growth in Africa. And the comment about any sport in a large country also applies to ru.eg China,India,Indonesia population wise.

I think M meant to say minimal presence. In any large country like Sth Africa, you tend to get just about every sport existing played, even if in small numbers - there is even an AFL presence there!

conor please cut the pompous acolyte description of rl posters here. . Che whilst involved in the removal of the despised totalitarian regime of Batista,was nonetheless hardly a figure of purity.In effect with the removal of the hated Batista regime ,they in fact replaced it with another totalitarian regime in that of Castro. A regime based on Marxist Lenin principles where basically the state decides how you live your life and life is purely a number and can be squashed at a whim. Che has been described in many research documents and witness comments despite being a medical man ,as a harsh disciplinarian,who sometimes shot defectors.So much for medicine and saving of lives. He was feared for his brutality and ruthlessness.He refused to allow dissent.He executed dozens without trial. He may not be of a right wing Fascist regime,but he was part of a left wing Communist totalitarian regime where people were thrown into jail for dissent,and executed for political matters . Of course there are those who consider him a saint.many consider Mao a saint.The peasants who received land etc. Sorry to report Che like many of his ilk,had his good side,but deep down nothing more than a butcher,who put politics above peoples' lives.Just like Fascists and Communists were prone to do.Party first ,people merely numbers. You still don't get the point,sport can be banned by govt at their discretion as in Germany ,did rl push them to do so? No .The big differenece is a sport rugby league was banned due to lobbying by the French rugby union officials.The French Commission into Sport under Vichy set up in 2002,stated unequiocally French ru officials were directly involved.If you believe that to be BS,then challenge the findings. It took until last year 2015,before rl could officially gain Govt approval to access schools and bring in Dos. RU stuck their noses into rl in Italy and Serbia and lately Morocco,either lobbying to ensure the code faded or was able to be played. Ironic when rl tries to get on and play,there is the occasional barrier thrown up by? ...........fill in the dots. With due respects you are just another ru fan,who follows the same line of thought,when it comes to ru and rl history,hear no evil,speak no evil ,see no evil.The ivory tower mentality Touch football is rl without the tackle,you can pretend otherwise. BTW old chap(or is it Fitzy) my descendants came from the South of France,a little place called Nimes.The South of France where resistance to the Vichy Govt was at its strongest and where rl was also once at its strongest.Before rl was banned in Dec 1941, over 200 rl clubs in existence there and the code was booming.RL was also the game of the people. Why was it necessary for a British RL parliamentary group in the 90s to pressure the Govt to remove the barriers preventing rl from being in the Br Armed Services,where it is now booming? Based on some of your understandings and views you are living in dreamland,far from reality.

You might not be sure, eagleJack, but I'm certain that the 2011 article is absolutely what Cathar Treize was talking about, ie: "... remember when the RUWC said it was watched by 3 billion when later it was revealed 35 million watched the final world-wide, of which 95% of viewers came from a handful of countries. The ‘billions’ figure was repeated by many media organisations, even though it was false & misleading, just as the exaggeration was later."

Cadfael.Let me cite a couple of examples.Rugby league was banned in the Br Armed Services for decades until the 90s,and it took Parliamentary pressure from parliamentarians sympathetic to rl,to eventually lobby for its inclusion.Prior to that ru held sway.Suggesting to me rl was also on the receiving end of the stick. And from 1941 to the mid 90s and then until this year in France ,rl was treated as a second class citizen by the French govt amid the lobbying presence of the ru.French rl juniors were snapped up by the so called amateur ru clubs. RU played its part in the demise of rl in Italy via lobbying the Govt as the code was pro and should not be able to secure insurance benefits.And I understand there was pressure exerted in Serbia ATT,such that rl stopped. I note in Morocco,the pressure applied by the local union authorities to ensure rl could not utilise fields in that country. I have never (and I stand corrected) seen examples, where a code(rl) has set out to influence a Govt to have a code banned. Being a pro sport and players want to play to earn,is a different animal.

There is a rl presence is SA.To suggest otherwise is bunkum.

The numbers out of the 2015 RWC were phenomenal. A particular highlight being the 25m Japanese who tuned into the group game v Samoa. Not sure that citing a 2011 article talking about the 2007 numbers has any relevance to what is being spoken about above (and truncated numbers at that).

Your comment on on English television audiences is spot on. The league coverage kills the union, in summer where league is now a summer sport. This saw the end of the traditional tours. Though I do think English football had more to do with league going as a summer sport.

TV viewing figures for rugby union's World Cup in Germany have nothing to do with Steve Mascord's article but, if you must insist, here is a salutary article from the NZ Herald re the previous union World Cup... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=10761073

He said she said, we all know sports organisations fudge figures but the rugby threads in Germany admit something has changed in social recognition since the World Cup.