Agree 100% with Luke’s article and with your comments Crosscoder.

He is collecting all the information before making a comment – something alot of these journalists fail to do on a weekly basis.

He is putting the structure in place to make the NRL – as a business – run efficently and effectively. Good grief, he was saying on radio last night that none of the staff previously had any performance measures! Are you serious?! So when the aforementioned journalists are running stories that there are grumblings from staff inside the NRL, its no wonder, they are actually going to have to do work now. Well if they don’t like to work they will be soon found out or moved on, which will only help the game.

As for the Greenberg signing, there is an old saying the “A’s hirer A’s and B’s hirer C’s and D’s”. If Greenberg is an A, and most think he is, (not to mention Jim Doyle), then I think that bodes well for Smith’s status.

While I know A-League has no matches shown on FTA, it is comparing the Fox ratings of the two sports

I think these figures are ones that the FFA could spin to a positive, while others will look at it as pretty disapointing considering all the “hype”.

I watched a lot more AFL over the weekend than I can normally fit in.

The Test needs to move, simple as that. If they want the City v Country to succeed, both in the eyes of fans, and in its value to growing the game and improving the rep sides, then they need to have the best players playing with the best players, then you have something, otherwise you may as well throw it in the bin.

Side note: I was a bit bemused by Ch 9 throwing the people of Coffs Harbour under the bus for not supporting City v Country when they themselves cared so little about it that they send their back -up to the back-up’s back-up commentator in Tim Gilbert to call the game. Personally, I had the game paused to come in at 4:30 and watch (it’s my Sunday game plan as I fast forward through the ad’s and watch the game in more of a real time). but when I heard Gilbert, i switched over to the AFL on 7Mate. It was bad enough the game had NSW Cup players in what is supposed to be an Origin trial, but Gilbert tips me over the edge.

Your arguement befuddles me.

You seem to be muddling the issue of playing in oversized, unsuitable stadiums (the choice your club made, not the NRL) and the lack of atmosphere that creates, with the need to create more entertainment at a short sporting fixture. Why can’t you have “rides, jumping castles, bands, video packages, great moments of the past” echoing through Parramatta Stadium,” If you want people to make the 90min drive up to Newcastle, or treck across the god awful Sydney road system, pay good money and get just 80 minutes of entertainment you’re going to be disapointed. You need to give people a few hours of entertianment to make that travel and cost, worthwhile.

On a not unrelated note, I have heard Gus Gould say he, where he can, wants to play NSW Cup games as the lead up to Penrith home NRL matches instead of NYC (the glorified Jersey Flegg) – I think you will see that become the norm going forward.

Good Luck to WSW on Sunday.

I wonder if this success will actually stunt their growth as people who attempt to join the clubs fan base next year get labelled “bandwagoners” and forzen out by those who have been in from day 1?

Hey woh woh woh! I never said the Yankees was the gold standard in sports uniforms – Go Sox 😉

But seriously, the Americans recognise the value of the brand much better than we do with our constant jersey changes to pick up a quick buck because marketers think everyone is going to buy a new jersey everytime you change the stripes.

The one advantage they have in the US (apart from the no sponsorship on the jerseys), is they are not constricted to positional numbers like league and union, so people will buy multiple jerseys representing their fav basketball, football or baseball players.

I’d like to know the difference in the numbers of jerseys sold between the AFL and NRL with one who has minimal changes to jerseys and the other where clubs change their jerseys every three years.

Not getting defensive mate, but it was just a blog with some dude mucking around with jerseys, i just didn’t see the relevance or that because 1 guy was playing around on his website that it represented any sort of trend. But whatever, no biggy.

I don’t think that article has anything to do with football in regard to its visibility. Just a bored dude who likes both baseball and soccer and is into design putting 1 and 1 together.

Baseball, and MLB of all the US sports, would never change their jersey styles. I’m sitting hear watching the Red Sox, their traditional away “Boston” jersey and I can’t imagine anyone every going away from that brand to a different design – nor can I imagine the control freaks that are MLB allowing it.

Congratulations and thanks for the read. You’re a lucky man, and as long as you won’t the douche screaming “ridonkulous” after players it tee shots, your a good fan to troop and run through all the weather (i would have done the same mind you as Augusta stands well a top my bucketlist).

It was funny, i got to work early had the TV on in the Borad room and even the staff who would come in and say “you call this a sport?!” were there cheering the final putt in.

But he doesn’t care about seven straight losses or two games in Sydney. It might matter to you, but it doesn’t to him. He doesn’t care if NSW lose 20 straight series. Though I am far from his biggest fan, I’m not having a go at him for that, its just the way he is and has always been.

Agree on Maloney. Reynolds tries hard no question, but he relies on that space created by decoys to run around people and I don’t see that same space being available in Origin (there also seems to be some unpleasent rumors floating around him at the moment, so best stay away). Maloney has been excellent and defence seems to be on the improve

I don’t get the Sutton suggestion. Has he improved? Of course. But he had to. His starting base was very low. I can’t help but think he would be a spectator in Origin and his kicking game simply isn’t up to scratch (and you need kickers both side of the ruck in Origin).

Sorry IPL? That stands for Interplanetary Physics Laboratory right?

I listened to talk back radio from Boston for much of yesterday. So much sadness, and a lot of anger just waiting to be directed at the person(s) responsible. I felt the same anger and later in the day when i happened to be in a Council library, looking at all the kids having so much fun rumidging around, my thoughts went to Sandy Hook and the child killed in Boston, and the many other children injured and wondered how anyone could contemplate harming a child.

I have been to Boston several times. It is a great city, my favourite in the US. The mix of the history and the culture through the universities in Boston with the blue collar working class that have driven the city for so many years. The diversity with the Italians and the Irish and the strong sports culture, just make it a fantastic place. On the whole people in Boston, in all of my experiences are real friendly. Tough people, but friendly. I was so mad this happened to them and on Patriots Day. But I will be back there in September, sitting on the Green Monster at Fenway and more determined than ever to celebrate all that is great about living and loving being in a free choice-filled society.

Ben Smith is one of those players and there are others from other clubs like Jackson from the Bulldogs who despite appearing to be clean, well behaved players, seem to get penalised every time they are involved in a tackle, and often they have done little if anything wrong. The referee’s clearly have players they target and will penalise them for being slow off the tackler because they have a preconceived idea to ping them. Even though you can watch Ryan James (as an example) take a week to get up every time he makes a tackle, and nothing.

As for the ref’s themselves, I don’t think anyone in the officials fraternity is looking to defend Robinson anytime soon, given his recent behaviour, and perhaps that is why the Ref’s boss hasn’t gone too hard to defend him. He (Robinson) needs to go.

How has he fed the story? He was asked what happened, he said he wanted to leave it on the field! How can that possibly be construed as “feeding the story”? If he says somethign stupid like “i don’t know what you are talking about”, it will create a bigger story. We all saw they had words, you are inviting the media to make things up with that sort of answer.

Funny how Ricky Stuart gets hammered by the above posters.

Mick Potter did the same thing last week and no article or 30 posts condeming the bloke…

As for Robinson, it is amazing that he is still refereeing given his off field indiscretions. He has shown himself to be completely lacking in any moral fibre, so how he can hold a job as an official and work with the other officials who he has let down, staggers me.

You won’t get hammered by me.

His short kicking game is great. But his long kicking game is just average. Finding the ground with your kicking game and winning the field position battle is critical in Origin and Reynolds has not shown he can do this at club level yet.

Souths have scored the majority of their tries in the last two years off of the back of penalties (can’t remember the exact stat but they were the only team over 50% last year – infact they were over 50% and no one elese was over 33% from memory), not from building sustained pressure or playing posession football.

Ryan, with all due respeect, and your not the first to write about it. People carrying on about Origin picks this far out from Origin is no more or less absurd than coaches making picks this far out?

We would still get the Olympics on our screens, it would just be that we get the IOC feed. In other words we would get lots of live sport and wouldn’t be subject to replays of the same Australian high profile, over exposed athlete, countless repeats of the same race, and interviews telling us about how hard “insert Aussie athlete name” had to fight the adversity of growing up in a house with a broken fence pailing and other over sensationalised stories…

Would that be soo bad?

So I have already stated I hate Origin articles at this stage of the year, but to clarify your position;

One should Pick on form so Daley is wrong for having picked his halfback this far out from Origin 1

But you, who has not played in the halves for NSW, can pick Adam Reynolds for halfback this far out from Origin 1?

makes sense….

What else could go wrong?

Well if the NRL enforced the obstruction rule where a player can’t recieve the ball behind a decoy runner and then run around him, they would have nothing left!

Their timing is so bad right now in attack. If/when they get that back they will be better. Premiership threat better? Who knows.

Tanginoa certainly made the most of his starting opportunity. I thought he was the best on ground while Luke Kelly’s kicking game was excellent.

Beau Ryan was back to his early days of ineffective cross field crab running and the Sharks need to get Gallen out of the way when they move the ball across the field. You have Luke Lewis as a forward who can ball play, and they should use him better.

Thought Flannagan was poor in that post match presser.

No doubt the ASADA investigation is a major distraction, and no doubt it is hurting his team. But if you want to whinge about it, do it later. I’m sure any reporter would love to do a story on you ranting about it. But given the circumstance under which the game was played, the person and honour in which it was to be played, this was pretty petty from Flanagan.

I was listening to this game on Sydney radio 2GB my way home from the Eels v Sharks match. Mark Levy and Joel Caine were the commentators. I couldn’t stand the way they were glorifying Lui and his return for the entire time he was on the field. More appropriate would have been to acknowledge he was back and just get on with it.

While you don’t wish injury on anyone, i have to say I wasn’t disapointed when he came off early.

Manly are defending very well. Their line speed is amazing, almost unbelievable. They seem to be getting up incredibly quickly.