Rugby League

[Jemmo]

Dons game away at Oldham, which was originally scheduled for Friday at Boundary Park, but was then moved to Sunday at Sedgely Park. Has now been moved back to Friday at Boundary Park, with 2 days notice. The Championship really is in a mess at the moment, but I am particularly annoyed at both clubs for not even hinting the game might move again before coaches were booked and paid for, or train/other travel arrangements were made for the Sunday. The one thing the Dons seem to be consistently awful at is social media and online engagement, not sure if the Rovers have the same issues?

Also, we have some players unavailable for work commitments. The Dons have naively player right into Oldham's hands here and seem to be happy about it.

[Jemmo]

North Wales Crusaders have been taken over now and expect to play the remainder of the season, the Dons have been awarded a 48-0 victory for the game NWC failed to raise a team for. This puts us back 2nd in the table, above Fridays opponents Oldham on points difference

[tyke1962]

Dons game away at Oldham, which was originally scheduled for Friday at Boundary Park, but was then moved to Sunday at Sedgely Park. Has now been moved back to Friday at Boundary Park, with 2 days notice. The Championship really is in a mess at the moment, but I am particularly annoyed at both clubs for not even hinting the game might move again before coaches were booked and paid for, or train/other travel arrangements were made for the Sunday. The one thing the Dons seem to be consistently awful at is social media and online engagement, not sure if the Rovers have the same issues?

Also, we have some players unavailable for work commitments. The Dons have naively player right into Oldham's hands here and seem to be happy about it.

Whilst I understand the problems below Super League , it's difficult i know that , but the championship isn't helping itself either .

The Oldham club and Featherstone are prime examples , spending money they clearly couldn't sustain in order to buy the Super League status .

The Championship competition structure leaves much to be desired too .

This isn't going to land too well and I perfectly understand it won't for obvious reasons but for the game to survive there's a debate about feeder clubs to be had .

This is how it works in Australia with  competitions such as The Queensland Cup .

The feeder clubs to the Brisbane Broncos include Burleigh Bears , South Logan Magpies and Sunshine Coast Falcons who all compete in the Queensland Cup below the NRL .

This is repeated across Australia and particularly New South Wales and the Sydney NRL franchises .

It goes without saying that the Dons becoming a feeder club and only kept alive to develop players for the Castleford Tigers wouldn't be popular .

But unless a tv deal can be found and pretty sharpish too the championship is in very serious trouble and that puts Super League in trouble too .

We are vast approaching a serious conversation about this because there aren't too many alternatives .

[Jemmo]

I can see a good number of clubs being interested it. I'd be surprised if the Dons were one of them. There would be no point to them being part of Club Doncaster if they were (for example) Castleford's reserves. The general feeling I get when talking to Dons fans about it is, they wouldn't bother anymore. These are people who have had season tickets for decades.

On a personal note, if I wanted to watch shit second rate Castleford players, I'd be watching Castleford

[Jemmo]

Oldham 18 Dons 10

The advantages we handed them bit us in the arse. Too many players unavailable meant we had a make shift set of backs. So not bad effort considering.

[BobG]

bloody irritating though. Was there a gpod reason that meant we  had to play with half a team?

BobG

[Jemmo]

Not a good reason no...the game got moved at late (officially announced on Wednesday) and when you have part time players that means some have work commitments

[BobG]

Thanks Jemmo. Poor do all round I reckon. Why pick on Oldham v Dons for Friday night? Plenty of other matches available if somebody HAD to have a game on Friday. The whole thing devalues the game.

BobG

[Jemmo]

Sorry I should say; there was a good reason for Oldham. They had not been allowed to play at Boundary Park most of the season due to politics. That issue had been resolved so they wanted to move it back (the game was scheduled for Sedgeley Park outside old Oldham) and change the day.

[Jemmo]

Eco power looking good in the sun on the BBC today

[Jemmo]

Fun fact; before today the Eco Power Stadium was the only ground in British Rugby League that Willie Peters had coached games at but never won at. He won today in what would be his last chance before heading to PNG at the end of the season

[Jemmo]

Reports are saying that Championship Clubs have voted to implement a salary cap of £250k starting next season, in response to the number if clubs facing financial difficulties this year. There will however be a mechanism for clubs to spend over that if the club places the extra finances in a bond, so that if the club collapses that money is already there to pay the players etc. There will be a number if clubs already spending above that (way above that in some cases), most of which I assume will go do the bind route.

The amount is laughable to me though, and for a squad of 25 players equates to less than £200 a week on average (compared to the average of £1400 a week in SL)