Re: Loop Fixtures : Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:13 pm  

Egg Chasing wrote:

It all depends on how many games sky are willing to pay for.

Personally I would watch wigan play saints, leeds or wire 5 times a season as they are usually the best games to watch. Not sure wigan v saints can be blamed for crowds dropping either.

But would you prefer that to replacing loop fixtures with regular annual international or regional (SoO-like) fixtures??

Re: Loop Fixtures : Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:21 pm  

shinymcshine wrote:

There's a bit of rose tinting here - even pre SL you could well end up playing the same team several times per season: twice in the league, Challenge Cup, John Player/Regal Trophy and County Cup (Lancashire/Yorkshire), Premiership play-offs, Floodlit Trophy, etc.

i recognise that drawing a team in a knockout is slightly different than a predetermined "loop" fixture, but given the relatively small pool of teams, together with more knockout cups, repetition did happen in the past.

Yes, as said before, surely this is all the more reason to get rid of loop fixtures? If you get repeat fixtures between the best teams via cups and playoffs anyway, surely the loop fixture is just a less exciting way of doing this?

Re: Loop Fixtures : Tue Jan 26, 2021 7:12 pm  

MillennialRhino wrote:

But would you prefer that to replacing loop fixtures with regular annual international or regional (SoO-like) fixtures??

Big fan of Internationals, but wouldn't swap it for England 50+ point wins against France, Wales etc.

Roses clashes definitely if given the right marketing/importance

Re: Loop Fixtures : Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:53 am  

Egg Chasing wrote:

Big fan of Internationals, but wouldn't swap it for England 50+ point wins against France, Wales etc.

Roses clashes definitely if given the right marketing/importance

oofff..... They were terrible games when they ran them, the players had little enthusiasm... So the fans had no real entertainment.

The least bothered of the two teams always won the game

Nobody wanted to be injured unlike State of origin where winning is important to the players and crowds. If RL was split between London clubs and the M62 clubs maybe......

Historically I think North.v.South worked pre the 1896 split

Re: Loop Fixtures : Wed Jan 27, 2021 10:44 pm  

Donnyman wrote:

oofff..... They were terrible games when they ran them, the players had little enthusiasm... So the fans had no real entertainment.

The least bothered of the two teams always won the game

Nobody wanted to be injured unlike State of origin where winning is important to the players and crowds. If RL was split between London clubs and the M62 clubs maybe......

Historically I think North.v.South worked pre the 1896 split

Hence why they need to build it right.

Re: Loop Fixtures : Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:18 am  

MillennialRhino wrote:

Yes, as said before, surely this is all the more reason to get rid of loop fixtures? If you get repeat fixtures between the best teams via cups and playoffs anyway, surely the loop fixture is just a less exciting way of doing this?

Well I go right back, so I can easily recall the early 2000's.........

In the seasons 2003, 2004 and 2005 Bradford and Leeds played each other a tiresome 14 times

However the average attendance per game was 29,000

So if it's about bums on seats ...................... And it is................................

Re: Loop Fixtures : Fri Jan 29, 2021 11:20 am  

Donnyman wrote:

Well I go right back, so I can easily recall the early 2000's.........

In the seasons 2003, 2004 and 2005 Bradford and Leeds played each other a tiresome 14 times

However the [b]average attendance per game was 29,000[/b]

So if it's about bums on seats ...................... And it is................................

Unless that's skewed by CC Final or GF attendances too I very much doubt a 29k average for fixtures played at Headingly / Odsal, where they did get just over 20k for some of their games.

Re: Loop Fixtures : Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:06 am  

shinymcshine wrote:

Unless that's skewed by CC Final or GF attendances too I very much doubt a 29k average for fixtures played at Headingly / Odsal, where they did get just over 20k for some of their games.

It's not "skewed" even though it does contain the cup finals.

The cup finals count because these repeat fixtures between these top clubs attracted big cup final crowds despite the same fixture being played again.

Cup finals are capable of low crowds as well, they certainly aren't sell outs as we saw with Calalans...........

The point stands that loop fixtures are in theory unattractive but not in practice when you see the third or fourth "derby" crowd

What do you think the average crowds would be if we added London and Toulouse to SL and removed he boring loop fixtures?

Re: Loop Fixtures : Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:08 am  

Egg Chasing wrote:

Hence why they need to build it right.

How??

Re: Loop Fixtures : Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:43 am  

Donnyman wrote:

How??

That's for them to decide, but I would set out from the start that it's the trials for the England side similar to rep footy in Oz. Don't play in this and you don't get picked for England.

Players always seem to pull out of a mid-season international but are fit to play for their club in the game before and after. In Australia a handful of them back-up at the weekend. Why can't they do that here?

We need to make sure that the best 34 players are on show to start with. The rivalry between the counties should help to market things.

We then need to stick with it for more than 2 seasons.