I love the way you never miss a chance to try and stir things.

As I said its what I heard (voices in my head). When in January would it be played then?





As per my original comments it looks like a load of "chanchers" just trying to get some free press for their hare-brained scheme (is that hare-brained or hair-brained?)

it'll be interesting to see if we get a union representative to help with rules, insights and training.....Edwards would be nice.

In fact Saracens have a game every weekend in January.



So a mid-week date at Wembley against Saracens reserves appears to be on the cards. I'm hearing Saracens are pushing Wigan for Thursday 19th January.





There is no way this fixture in any meaningful form (which is a term loosely used for this whole Billy Smart's promotion) is going ahead in January.

It's really peeing you off, all this, isn't it? You clearly care more than we do.

As a fan of sport in general, I sometimes think that things like this are just pure publicity stunts but I would be interested to see how a game played to these hybrid rules went:



13 men, essentially RL rules except:-

Contested scrums

1 "power play" allowed per set of six. The timing would be chosen by the attacking team and they would essentially be able to ruck and maul RU style.

If the ball is kicked to touch from a power play, the attacking side can choose a lineout.

2 points for a drop goal.



2 refs, one RU one RL.



Gives both sides a fair chance to play to their strengths.

Thursday 19th January is O'Loughlin's testimonial.

Not bad, but I can't see the League side ever choosing the power play option because it plays to their weaknesses. The Union side, conversely, would be likely to choose the power play on tackle 1, meaning they can ruck/maul through various phases (not sure of my terminology here), until eventually kicking it.



So what you have is the League team playing League, and the Union team playing Union, all in the same game.



Ultimately, any game like this will be half-d - particularly if you've got less than 2 months to sort out the logistics. I'd far rather we concentrated on preparing for the next Super League season & steered clear of these distractions.

I think it's going to be a massive waste of time. And I'll be honest, something that I'm personally not really interested in going all the way to Wembley to watch. The hybrid rules to me seem much more in favour of yawnion and either way it's only going to be a half d effort and something that very few people will actually understand whats going on.

You make some fair comments but at the end of the day games like this are pointless (apart from publicity). There is no fair system, only some compromise that at least gives each side a chance to play to their strengths. They key for each side would be to make their opponents game break down so they can then play their familiar game. There would need to be a limit on the number of times a ball could be re-cycled.



The only other way is a different game. It would be interesting to see them play "shinty"

What about pitch markings? Is going League or Union or something new.

What socks will they wear?