Whilst the Aussies are cashed up, then there is no need/desire for them to play internationals other than the Kiwi ANZAC tests.



The result of this is that when England run out against Australia in Cardiff in 2 months time, it will have been 706 days since they will have played an international against a higher ranked team. 24 days short of 2 years is a farcical amount of time to wait between "meaningful" international games and places England at a massive disadvantage at the RLWC.



In a normal season, Players return to their clubs around the 2nd week of November, so I see no harm in running the Challenge Cup from December to Easter, with a final on Easter Saturday. The new 12 team SL could start and finish earlier feeing uptime for international series to be played.



I would also invest heavily in sending the England Knights and the 2nd tier of the other 2 out to developing nations.



The return of GB will do little to enhance the game outside of the heartlands unless when they are away touring, the home nations + Englands 2/3rd tier and France1/2nd play a regular 5 nations tournament at the same time.





BTW.....I'd have this 5 nations and anything else possible available of FTA TV..........being on satellite TV only is killing the game.

Maybe if London had a world class stadium, 20,000 fans and increased finals viewing by 400-900,000 then they would get the same treatment as Storm have? (Although you seem to miss the point that until this year the NRL did not fund the Storm any extra, their owners covered the shortfall)

That was England's fault. If they had wanted to they could have toured PNG and NZ at the end of last year but chose not to. MAybe it was a financial decision but it was still a decision made by England irrelevant of the fact Australia decided to rest its players.

The storm don't own their stadium and there are plenty of better stadiums in London



2013 isn't a formative year....they've had 16 years of additional funding. London doesn't even get an allowance or London weighting to offset the cost of living in the area.



Melbourne storm are how you should promote an expansion team into the top tier. London Broncos, PSG and Celtic Crusaders are how not to....simplez.

Playing Australia once or twice a year is hardly an international fixture list. By all means let the top 3 play amongst themselves, but send development squads out around the world to grow the game.......because without a decent international set up, then RL has assuredly put the cart before the horse. It isn't soccer, it isn't NFL either...it's a sport with only 30 professional teams with only 5 or 6 of them making a profit.....if the RFL could fill Wembley twice a year, then there's be close to 40,000,000 quid a year for 'development".....instead, they make 95% of their coin from TV.....if uncle Rupert gets bored, then god help the Pro game in the UK.



RL fans in the UK have shown in recent years that if a game isn't included in a season ticket, then they just aren't bothered.......the reliance on TV and the stagnation of the game over the regular season are hardly a great bargaining tool next time the rights are up.

Fact Storm play in a world class stadium, have been funded up until this year by rich owners not the governing body, have drawn crowds over 20k, have pulled in viewing audiences up to 900k people from their city and have won titles. Any suggestion that the meagre amount of money the RFL could afford to give London extra would have acheived any of those things is ludicrous to say the least. You can polish a turd all you like but it remains a turd. There is not the amount of public interest in RL in London to sustain a top flight RL team, sad but those are the facts.





I would also say that the Storm are def not the model for expanding the game. Despite all their success and over a 15yrs of existence the impact on the jnr participation and grass roots in Victoria has been minimal, to the point where the VRL state side is in real danger of dropping to third in the affiliated states rankings,falling behind the NT. Wait till the WARL owns an NRL team then you will see how the game can be grown from the bottom and the top at the same time to get max benefit for the whole game.

I have a feeling I have inadvertently derailed this thread.

Barely any change to the pricing and price bands for next year, which is disappointing. In fact all by one band has gone up in price by £1.



apart from that the only other change I can see is that the bottom row(s) of the lower tier are now lower in price.



2013:







2014:







Maybe the pricing had already been worked out long ago, but you'd have thought the poor crowd at the weekend would have prompted a bit of a re-think.



I also can't understand why they are selling the whole ground so early on, surely the bottom tier and one stand of the upper tier (facing the TV cameras) would have done for now.



also as mentioned before I don't see the need for so many price bands, are the Sky Blue and Royal Blue seats on the top tier for example really that different in terms of view? and does that £6 really alter people's ticket choice? why not just keep it simple and meet in the middle and charge £23/24 quid for the entire block?

£40m where do you get that figure from - if they got the whole attendance money net that would be £210 per person!!



Given most ticket are sold at under £50 where do you get the balance of the monies from? Also you omitted the cost of renting the stadium etc!!

Maybe there was an extra 0 in that figure.



£4 million



is an average of £24 a ticket for 2 games.

my bad...I hit an extra 0

Well i'm all for going back to Cardiff. Play it at night with the roof closed.