We will never be able to compete on the international stage as long as the Aussies continue to pump millions of $’s a year into their amateur game.

We will always be behind them in that respect, we will always be the poorer cousin.

A vast majority (virtually all) of RL income is generated within the heartlands so why bother wasting valuable time and resources trying to tout for business elsewhere?

A very idealistic view but outside the heartlands there is very little interest in our sport so why not concentrate generating further interest where there is already some.

The ‘Welsh experiment’ is nothing but pure folly by the RFL and will inevitably result in failure while also denying a team with genuine potential from reaching it.

How long RU fans will continue to support the game at the turnstiles if the dross on offer doesn't improve is a concern (or should be) to the administrators & press.
We have the better product IMO but not the clout nationally to exploit this.
Had any RU player scored the try made by Billy Slater we'd never hear the end of it.

At what point did the position right here, right now become what it will always be?

The challenge for the RFL is to generate and build that interest outside the heartlands where effectively the game is already operating at saturation point. How many more people in Castleford who aren't already interested in the game do you think the Tigers could attract for example?

Denying a team with real potential? Such as who? Widnes? Leigh? Halifax?

Take a look at what happened to those clubs when they were given the opportunity to "reach their potential" in SL. Add Workington and Oldham to your list too. They simply were not able to attract revenue sufficient to make them competitive, and drove themselves into financial ruin attempting to do so. Why should they, and indeed why would they want to, expose themselves to the same situation again?

Castleford already has a full time team – Widnes is currently in a viable financial position and have a business plan in place, there is already interest in RL within the town but they get ignored to try and generate interest in a geographical area traditionally dominated by RU.

I went to Newport this year and saw nothing but a handful of RL fans, a couple of hundred RU fans with free tickets and a couple of thousand Leeds fans. If that is the model that the RFL is basing it’s expansion on then the sport will wither and die.

How many expansion attempts will the RFL try before they realise that they are wasting time and money that should have been spent try to rekindle existing interest rather than trying to light a fire with damp matches and wet newspaper?

Widnes had a full time team as recently as what, four or five years ago?

It wasn't financially viable then, what's changed?

Even in the club's heyday of the 70s and 80s, they were struggling to attract what would now be considered "big" crowds to Naughton Park. So where are these extra fans going to come from that weren't around the last time they were in SL to make it a viable proposition again?

The ‘extra fans’ will be more difficult to find in a area that doesn’t even know there is another Rugby code than in a town where their friends and family already may have season tickets.


I believe that there is more security in our sport by nurturing its existing interest.

You believe the sports resources would be better spent looking into ‘untapped’ areas.

I think we could dance this dance all day so will have to agree to disagree.


[size=42But I’m right.[/size

You ought to have a look at the dates some of the apparently heartland clubs were founded in.

Or indeed at how many clubs who switched to RL in it's early years fared.

Failing to expand is nonsense. It completely ignores the changing dynamics of rugby league's place in the sporting market.

Take out the Welsh folly, scrap the Catalans, ditch Harlequins. I wonder how that might effect bargaining power with Sky? Would they even be interested in a parochial little sport at all? What would happen to the amateur scene or youth development in these areas? How many talented youngsters from the heartlands would stick with a parochial, possibly un-publicised and bankrupt rugby league over a completely dominant rich rugby union?

The alternative to expansion is a relentless decline in playing standards, spectator levels and revenue to the point where professional RL would cease to exist.

If I may.

There is a school of thought that the Australians pump millions of dollars into the amateur game. I believe this to be true.

Question is who? The taxpayer? I doubt it. Industry, again I doubt it. The [iconsumer[/i, there you go.

But how?

Casinos, bars, hotels, cinema's etc, all owned and operated by the clubs.

So effectively the clubs have formed themselves into somewhere the consumer wants to spend both time and money. There is a community in these places. A sense of belonging, or a sense of ownership?

The player development is all part of that, people want to be part of the club because the club is their social life, their entertainment, not just in terms of RL but everything else that goes with it.

IF, one single RL club could get the planning permission for something like [url=http://penrith.panthers.com.au/Homethis[/url then maybe we could start about engaging the whole of the surrounding area in the experiment, make it the centre of everyones universe.

What have we got, the FAE? Come on. The problem isn't with the RFL it's with the games attitude to progress and development.

RU has got to where it is now largely thanks to the fact its played in nearly every school in the country, whereas League are only now starting to try and expand school participation.
It gets kids interested from a young age without having had to make an effort to go to a club.

As for RU having clubs having more teams, York RU when I used to play for them had 3 mens teams, a Cavaliers team, a Colts team, an U17 and god knows how many kids teams and in all the teams it seemed much friendlier and more approachable than the vast majority of RL clubs that I've been to.

If I could be @rsed to get up and play again I know which code it would be, and I would have much less chance of being involved in a fight, have a brick thrown at me or have some backward ex convict elbow me in the face.

...and there you have it.

There is very little option for communities in Oz. They don’t have a pub on every corner so the ONLY choices for social drinking they have is either picking a case of tinnys from the bottle shop or heading down to the local sports club – surfing, cricket or maybe their only ‘local’ just happens to be a RL clubhouse.

It’s just the way it is out there and as long as they have this evolved social culture we will never be able to compete on an international level.

The war is over.

The more dominant code has won.

Hypothetical prognosis indeed and the only way to test your theory would be to test it, i.e. get rid of Welsh and London teams (although I deliberately did not mention the French club as it sits in its own heartland) and concentrate on developing heartland clubs.

Although I do concede that there may be some pressure on the RFL to expand by its commercial sponsors although once again this is an assumption.

I don't know why sports bother to expand.

Its not like some of the European football giants sign players just to cash in on the potential from the Asian market is it now?

20 years ago, football in the likes of S.Korea, Japan and China was nowhere, but the right marketting has made it a huge money spinner.

There is no reason why RL can't do this on a smaller scale.

Having seen the effect RL has had on people from outside the heartland, I can say that expansion can work, but it won't happen overnight.

We get little to no national coverage as it is in the media, we go back to being a purely northern sport watch how quickly the southern based media dump RL even further down their priority lists.
The only way to get national recognition is to get a national side that wins trophies.
The only way to win trophies is to beat the Aussies.
The only way to beat the Aussies is to expand our player pool.
The only way to expand the player pool is to expand the game.

I'd say better utilise the game we have. For every player we secure at youth level theres generally another sat at home on the games console (either sex) Engage the parents in the club, we get both kids. Keep those kids engaged to adulthood, we get their kids too.

it's for the clubs that have the money at the top to do what it takes to be successful. When they have sufficient capital to support feeder clubs the money cascades. It's a simple model and it works in ARL and RU across the board. Question is, are any of the moeny men in the British game forward thinking enough to try it, and is the British RL fans willing to buy in?

Let's ask a question. If GH built an establishment such as the one in my link above. Would you use it exclusively knowing you were doing your bit for the club. (Open question to all those nearer to HQ)

Considering its location, I daresay it would be a student haven and as such probably very rarely empty.

I'd agree, but we have to expand as well simply to get the bigger national recognition, the media doesnt take note of anything until its going well in London or if the rest of the country are playing it.
If we simply stay as a sport around the M62 we'll never be taken seriously.

Ok let’s just get this right.

I’m not an anti- expansionist at all – I simply believe that the limited resources/income that the RFL have should be concentrated on an established market instead of unproven markets.

With unlimited finances I’d love to see RL as a national sport and love to see it played in every school in the country but as there is such strong competition in Football and RU I just think we’re setting ourselves up for a fall.

My last words on the matter, so there

I was at a Halifax game where they had a crossbar challenge, but you had to hit it twice in three attempts from forty yards. The bloke hit it with the first one, but missed with the rest.

Thanks for that.

They have a crossbar challenge in football (on Soccer AM) and all you win is a bloody t-shirt. And even then, it's not a supporter who has the chance to hit the bar.

Agree with all of that.

LS16 -Mate, you are in the minority here and I agree with everything everyone is saying.

We do have to remember some things about our game and these are the things that the RFU and IRB are most worried about. Our game is the better spectator game and is more consistent in the delivery of its product to that audience especially at club level. RU is a little more accessible as a game and can be played at an amateur level by a broad a range of abilities shapes and sizes and is in many cases the only choice at school. Also RU is complicated when it comes to rules and even people at a high level in the game don't know all of the rules. RL is easier to learn and play but gets tougher to play as kids get older unless you are, in general, large and quick!

We also have to remember that up until just maybe 4 or 5 years ago the top flight of club RU was attracting less people to watch than SL and RL was the countries second biggest weekly spectator sport after Soccer. Even now it is not by much the the Zurich Premiership beats SL in terms of average seasons crowds and we do this based on far less national media coverage and limited areas in which the game is played.

The biggest issue we do face is that until 15 years ago we did face almost institutional prejudice and persecution. However, that has gone now and it is going to take a long time to shake that off and also convince a London centric media we are worth talking about.

I have no doubt we will get there and also that if the RU is to continue to develop as it has in the last 15 years, then the game needs to become a better spectacle at club level. The Aussie RU know this and that is why they want the rules changing. I do believe that we will end up with one game again and it might take another 100 years but I also know they will be playing a game nearer to RL and not the game we RU now... so do the RFU!