Super League 2014

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

As someone who has lived in London* all my life I feel I am probably in quite a good position to comment on this.

Rugby (both codes) isn't really played here.
Unless you go to a private or grammar school you aren't going to play rugby because state schools in the city don't have the facilities to play.
That's a pretty big issue - kids can't play the sport unless their parents sign them up to a club (and there aren't that many clubs).

The "London" Clubs aren't really based in the city.
Domestic rugby league and union have practically zero profile in the city.

That's not going to change anytime soon unless teams start to locate themselves inside the city (not in Barnet or High Wycombe) and domestic rugby gets decent terrestrial tv exposure.

Why is that?

 

[ratsapprentice]

Why is what?

 

[TRF_Cymro]

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

Why is what?

Why is rugby so unpopular in London.

Don't you also support Bath?

 

[ratsapprentice]

Part of the reason I'm a Bath fan is because there isn't a club local to me. Wasps' training ground is actually about about 15 minutes drive from my house - but they play in ****ing Wycombe.
I do - as a West Londoner - follow Wasps and Quins... but I want Bath to win when they play each other. I started supporting Bath because I liked their squad, and no other team felt local to me.
By all accounts I should be a Sarries fan... I went to the same school as Wray and another of their chairmen, and had Richard Hill and the like come to do coaching sessions on their behalf. BUT **** THAT ****!

On rugby in London...
Rugby isn't unpopular - it's just a bit of a relative non-entity.

London has 6 EPL clubs and 4 championship clubs.
To put that in perspective - that's 10 major football clubs in an area that could comfortably fit inbetween Leicester and Northampton.

Try marketing a sport that isn't shown on TV unless you have pay-tv, you didn't play at school (unless you went to a suburban grammar or private secondary) and you have no local team.
You can begin to see why no-one has a ****ing clue about the sport. I'm not saying it can't be done - on the contrary, I think NW London is ripe for the picking - but no-one has at this point.

Wasps are the only club to have been anywhere close to being centrally located in recent times.
Richmond and Twickenham are awesome areas, but South West London (south of the river in general) is quite detached from the city proper and is very suburban.
I don't have a real problem with Sarries being called a London club, because Barnet is a London borough... but essentially Barnet and Mill Hill are small towns in south Hertfordshire.

 

[Peat]

Same as it's ever been: Lot's of interest up north, little-to-none everywhere else.

Correct me if wrong, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say the M62 corridor? South Yorkshire's only got two teams in top three divisions, North Yorkshire's only got one, just the one in the North East...

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Correct me if wrong, but wouldn't it be more accurate to say the M62 corridor? South Yorkshire's only got two teams in top three divisions, North Yorkshire's only got one, just the one in the North East...

Fine, you pedant!
Replace North with North-West-to-Mid-North.

To be fair even that's really only popularity of the professional game. Union is much stronger as an amateur sport, and it's not unusual for people to play Union of a Saturday/Sunday but go off and watch Wigan/Leeds/whoever afterwards.

 

[Peat]

Fine, you pedant!
Replace North with North-West-to-Mid-North.

To be fair even that's really only popularity of the professional game. Union is much stronger as an amateur sport, and it's not unusual for people to play Union of a Saturday/Sunday but go off and watch Wigan/Leeds/whoever afterwards.

One apologises for the pedantry but feel it is also a vital point; the sport has a very narrow geographic base which I think doesn't help its attempts at expanding. If they had the support of the whole north, I think they'd have a far better shot than they currently do.

p.s. Most of what Rats has said is right, but Union is marketed in parts of the capital. Anyone who uses the major commuter stations will see ads for rugby and BT made a rather big show of "Get us, get football and rugby" when they got the rights. I've not really seen them anywhere else, but they're there in the train stations i.e. where you get big concentrations of people from private and grammar schools. There's no critical mass of likely League fans.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I'd like to encourage any Union guys to watch sky's SL coverage. I'd be interested to know what you make of it.

Two good games on tomorrow and Friday - Saints vs Warrington and Wigan vs Leeds.
I think they do a lot of things very well.

Anyone up for it? Whether you normally watch SL or not...

 

[TRF_Olyy]

BT Sport need a margin metre.

 

[Saints1]

Everyone I know HATES the Sky Super League coverage and I do too.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I don't necessarily dislike it, but it's not brilliant.
A million times better than the BBC Coverage though, where they wheel out Jiffy who sounds like he's half asleep and doesn't seem to understand what's happening half the time.

 

[ratsapprentice]

I'm talking specifically about during the game, and not even referring to the quality of analysis - literally just the presentation.

 

[Saints1]

I'm talking specifically about during the game, and not even referring to the quality of analysis - literally just the presentation.

Do you not think that the "analysis" that is provided by those bumbling cretins (Brian Carney and Jon Wells, you are excused) is a big part of said presentation? Their coverage hasn't changed in about ten years and that was probably when the commentators hit their sell by date.

 

[ratsapprentice]

TBH I'm not well versed enough in league (never played it) to really comment on their analysis either way.

I think what I like about it (as a contrast to Sky/BT's union coverage) is that they have people who sound different (from each other).
I know it's a little bit OTT and I rarely watch the pre-game stuff except on fast-forward, but I think there are definitely some elements which I'd like to see in Premiership coverage.

I think the variety of accents and number of pundits is quite a big one - I notice it on the BBC 6N commentary too... there's less chance for someone to become annoying over the course of the game because the show is shared amongst several people.
On BT you basically hear the same 3-4 people for the entire show, when there are 5-6 people then no-one really dominates. I think the director for SL is quite good too, pretty much always using the best camera angle etc.
Far too often I find in Union the camera is zoomed in the whole ****ing time, or using a view that completely compromises the view of the action.

 

[Saints1]

Super League coverage is way too gimmicky for my liking.

"Super Zoom"

"Margin Meter"

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Silverwood really doesn't want Catalans to win this - two absolutely terrible calls in the first 20mins, including ignoring a perfectly good try.


Edit: Somewhat made up for it by the bizarre rules saying the TMO can't rule on a forward pass, which Bosc's offload definitely was!

 

[Thingimubob]

Silverwood really doesn't want Catalans to win this - two absolutely terrible calls in the first 20mins, including ignoring a perfectly good try.


Edit: Somewhat made up for it by the bizarre rules saying the TMO can't rule on a forward pass, which Bosc's offload definitely was!

Eh? Since when is that a rule in League? I thought the whole reason Union has recently brought it in was because it had worked in league?

 

[TRF_Olyy]

That really was the worst officiating I've ever seen in a game of rugby league.
I'm not just saying that because Cats lost: We should've had a guy marched, and our first try wasn't.

Really embarrassing for the sport.

 

[Saints1]

The first half from the referee was amongst the worst I can recall. He was unspeakably bad.