London Broncos League Placings : 2000-21

Rugby league in London has been an interesting journey. It's been a disruptive nomadic life, played in a city that for the most part doesn't know it exists, yet developing young talent as well. It's no longer in the elite Super League as seen below but still has a small but dedicated following. The club was called Harlequins RL between 2006 and 2011.

The coach back in 2000 was John Monie, who did a one year stint after finishing at Wigan. He was replaced by another Australian, Tony Rea who had concluded his playing career in London and been a temporary dual coach for a brief time in 1999. This first period as full coach lasted six seasons and 153 matches. It was a reasonably successful time with the Broncos getting to as high as 4th in the League. 

Brian McDermott arrived for his first top flight coaching job. He finished the last few games in 2006 and continued until 2010 when he departed after a slide in fortunes wasn't arrested. His replacement, Rob Powell came out of relative obscurity to take on the job. 

Despite spending heavily in 2012, results didn't match expectations and Tony Rea stepped in at the end of the season and for the next two seasons. The slide continued as the club was relegated from the top flight in 2014, ending 19 consecutive years at the top. One season back in 2019 under Danny Ward ended with a return to the Championship. He did remarkably well with the squad that he had at his disposal. 

The issue the club faced was where to play in the future as they were informed that the ground they were using would stop them from gaining re-entry into Super League if given the opportunity. That is still being worked out. Some things never change. 

Nothing Changes In Gaga Land

RL has a great product but at every other level.... The World Cup was delayed a year due to the Corona virus. Understandable. Provided the pandemic is sufficiently under control, there is no reason that the event shouldn't go ahead in 2021. In a normal sport at least, but in RL's gaga land things are rarely that simple.

Is a 14 day quarantine period for NRL players returning home which slightly disrupts their preseason training is sufficient grounds to postpone the biggest event in RL? Apparently so. The pro clubs in the sport are the biggest liability to expanding the game. While clubs have the whip hand, self-interest will prevail.

Would people still go to a WC without certain major nations participating? I know it wouldn't dampen my interest in the tournament one jot. I would actually enjoy a WC without Australia and possibly NZ as well. RL has enough nations willing to play, so it can be held. It would be more interesting and less one sided.

If we compare how FIFA handled the early WC tournaments. The first three tournaments had various top nations refusing to play. They were barely worth holding, but FIFA went ahead with them anyway.  FIFA has never cancelled a WC due to the refusal of certain nations to participate. Everyone got the message. 

The IRL body could ahead anyway and show the RL community it can still put on a tournament even if some of the big names stay away. I just don't think the IRL has the confidence to do so. It seems to be subservient to Australia and its navel gazing, myopic attitude. I don't call RL gaga land without reason. 

Bradford Bulls League Placings : 2000-21

What can you say about the Bradford Bulls without turning it into a saga? It's a tragedy of epic proportions. They were one of the elite clubs, winning trophies. So what happened? We'll get there. Be patient.

Going back to 2000, Matthew Elliott completed his fourth year as coach, over 132 games in all. He moved back to Australia and was replaced by Brian Noble in 2001. The success continued, winning the league leaders shield in 2001 and 2003. Nobel moved on during the 2006 season and in came a youthful Steve McNamara. 

Things were going downhill and after a mutual separation, Lee St Hilaire became interim coach. Then Mick Potter was installed as head honcho in 2011. In early 2012 the club announced it was in serious financial difficulty. Efforts to save the club failed and it was placed in receivership. Mick stayed on as an unpaid coach for the remainder of the season.

Francis Cummins came in for the 2013 season and in 2014 the club was deducted six points for entering administration early in the season. Two teams went that year with the reintroduction of promotion-relegation and Bradford left the top flight for the first time in four decades. Cummins was shown the door and in came new coach James Lowes. 

In 2015, Bradford played in the Championship (division two) and then progressed to the qualifiers tournament. It ended up in a so-called Million Pound game to regain Super League status. It narrowly lost 16-24 and remained in the Championship. They failed to make the qualifiers in 2016 and by the end of the year, entered their third administration since 2012. Liquidation followed in January 2017. 

A new club was formed still using the name and team colours but has not been able to regain Super League status. It even relocated and played out of town for a couple of years as the ground it was at was proving too expensive. It's back home now at its famous Odsal ground but is now only a shadow of its former self on the playing field. Sad. 

Widnes Vikings League Placings : 2000-21

With promotion and relegation in UK Rugby league, teams can have a patchy record in the top flight. A few simply haven't done enough to figure in this series but the Widnes Viking just made the cut. A club with a fine legacy has fallen somewhat in recent times. From the mid 70's to the early 90's it was one of the best.

It fell out of the top flight in 1995 but returned in 2002. That year it was one place short of a finals berth but from there it was a steady decline, ending with relegation in 2005. Neil Kelly had taken charge in 2001 and was Super League coach of the year in 2002 but had to go due to the deteriorating on-field results. Frank Endacott stepped in for the 2005 season but to no avail.

Denis Betts came to the club with it in the second division Championship and while they got the wooden spoon in 2012, they were spared the drop because promotion-relegation wasn't operational at that time. By 2017, a system known as the Qualifiers was being used and although coming last in the league that year, survived the drop. It wasn't as fortunate in 2018, unable to stave off relegation in the playoffs. 

Francis Cummins took charge for the last nine games of the 2018 season but couldn't save them. Early in 2019, the club went into administration and while narrowly avoiding liquidation had 12 points deducted as a penalty. The club is nowhere near getting back into Super League in the foreseeable future. 

France Elite 1 : 2020-21

Carcassonne vs Avignon

The ten-team league has been completed and the final table is below. The previous season was null and void due to the coronavirus. Eighteen matches made up the season with six teams moving on to the finals. Below colour is used to show the sides who progressed and those who can contemplate next season. 

Carcassonne won the last league title played in 2019 (2020 was cancelled) as well as 2016 and 2015. So winning the league is getting to be a habit. Lézignan last won in 2017. St Estève was victorious in 2018 so that covers the past six years the league was completed.  

As for the playoffs, Avignon and St Estève advanced from the first round of knock-out rounds. Unfortunately for both of them, neither advanced from the semi-final phase, with the top two sides from the league defeating them. This set up a classic encounter between the two top sides of the season. 

The scores were locked at 12-12 at half time before the Lézignan Sangliers squeaked home 16-12. The last time Lézignan won the grand final was in 2011, although they were losing finalists in 2014 and 2017. Carcassonne won in 2012 and losing finalists 2015, 2016 and 2019. They can add 2021 to that painful list. There was no grand final in 2020. 

As the two 2021 grand final teams haven't been winning grand finals of late, who were? St Estève in 2019, Avignon (2018) and Limoux (2016 and 2017), Toulouse (2014 & 2015) and Pia (2013). 

Lézignan celebrate the grand final victory

Australia Attendance Comparison 2019 - 2021 (half year)

It would normally make sense to compare one year to the next but as we all know Covid put pay to any meaningful comparison in that regard. So going back a year earlier and we can make a case for a reasonable contrast in fortunes. 

The first thing of note is that crowds are down 9% on a year to date basis after thirteen rounds. With a year off for people going to games, have some lost the habit? Is the threat of Covid still holding some folk back? Are there local issues that affect some teams? Looking down the list will answer that more conclusively.

First up, the Brisbane Broncos are the big one and they are down 20%. They are second from bottom with just three wins from thirteen starts. They were the bottom side in 2020 so the incumbent wooden spoon holders. Minus 356 as points differential in twenty games (in 2020) was a disaster. Has eighteen months of failure affected numbers. For such a proud club with a fine history, probably.

Penrith is doing the opposite regarding form compared to the Broncos and that shows with numbers up 18%. North Queensland has a nice new stadium so you would expect some gain there. The Gold Coast team has shown some promise so maybe that has helped. The NZ Warriors are playing on the Central Coast, Australia so can't compete with home game attendances. 

What is showing up is that Sydney clubs are in many cases well down. South Sydney has always had yo-yo crowd numbers so only by year's end will we know for sure. Canterbury (-17) St George (-29), Cronulla (-48) and Manly (-42) all are enduring hefty drops. Some are performing better on the field than others but the attendance figures don't follow form in this case. Is Covid a factor, especially with traveling fans within the city? 

With the total down nearly 140,000 or -8% isn't great but all things considered, it could have been worse. 2021 isn't going to be great with crowd numbers. Maybe 2022 would be a better year to compare if Covid has gone by then but for now we do get a picture of what's happening in the now. 

Please note that Magic Weekend figures are included in the total but not in the club averages.