Are they playing league regularly beside the cup at school? If the game doesn't expand very soon we shall become a nursery for union, already despite Eastmond signing a two year contracy he is talking of going to union where the money is bigger. Because there game is wider spread they automatically get larger tv rights than league. Never forget their international game rakes in the money.
Unfortunately our World Cup last year was a flee bite in revenue compared to union. Also to rub salt into wounds we had a lousy performance which I am sure affected our own super league attendances. One light on the horizon is that even the bosses of union are realising their game is becoming very boring, and with tries also drying up.

Expand or die. If Sky pull out of Superleague then we'd be screwed anyway, we'd be literally forced into a merger with Union or our pro teams would go bust.

If SKY/Media pulled out, wouldn't that be the case for all but all professional sports though . . . . soccer included.

I guess so.

At the end of the day were always going to be second fiddle to Union, they have just moved too far ahead of us profile wise and money wise. IMO a merging of the codes will never happen because in 50 years they'll be the number 1 rugby code across the whole world and we'll effectively have nothing to offer them that they don't already have in abundance.

We'll never expand rapidly because we don't have enough money and Rugby League fans are just too parochial. We can't challenge Union in their strongholds but we can offer people in those areas an alternative. If we stick to our working class/middle class roots and market it as an ordinary mans/family sport like lower league football then we'll attract people who are disenfranchised by the corporate greed of the Premier League and Union.

. . . . hell, I bet you're fun at parties

I like to think of myself as an optimistic pessimist, were all doomed but we'd better make the most of it.

I think there is enough expansion at the moment, except another French SL team would be nice. Crusaders probably should have been given another year or so to prepare for being in SL, maybe that would have made things less farcical.

I think any expansion of the game in the next decade should be at a 'grass roots' level - I'd love to see the lower echelons of RL have far more semi-pro teams from all over the UK, perhaps in partnership with current SL teams.

I noticed that Sam Tomkins was actually born in Milton Keynes and if his family hadn't have relocated to Chorley, than he wouldn't be playing the game at all. There's a whole wealth of potential RL talent out there that needs capitalising on!

And a merger with Rugby Union? never!

So where, exactly, has the game expanded to?

London have had a team for decades and it is struggling. Catalans is in a hot bed of Rugby League anyway (I think they were called Perignan (sp?) before they were given a place in SL). Gateshead has had 'development' status for about a decade and failed miserably. Paris was a complete mess. That leaves the Crusaders... wow, the RFL are really doing well expanding outside the heartlands!

And then there was Sheffield...

Indeed there was. The most ill-conceived admittance to the most ill-prepared club.
Gateshead was little better, though I think Gateshead's attempt to promote the game in the north east was genuine and concerted. At least there still remains some element of RL there, unlike Sheffield, or Paris.
I think we can take Catalans as an expansion success.
London remains a hard nut to crack for RL as it is in the RFU heartland. Harlequins do have their problems but its imperative that they must survive being IMO the most important expansion team for the last 100 years. To loose this toehold would be unthinkable
Crusader's expansion was a proposition with more than reasonable expectations for at least some continuity. That it has not proved so I think is more down to adminisration than being the wrong location.

I cant really fault the RL for trying to expand the game's locations and fail to see what else they could have done otherwise if this was their intent.
Other than perhaps better insistence on fiscal and administative compliance all round.

Withdrawing to the RL heartlands is a valid option, but not I expect, one that will give long term financial security.

How so? Not to understate the work done, but the fact is that this was the 'beefing up' of a club already in a strong RL area - the game has been played in that area since 1934!!! (By 1939 there were around 450 clubs, ok that was possibly its peak, but lets not forget that the game used to be a lot more popular here than it is now as well)

I accept your comments, though the history of RL in south east France in 1939 is hardly material to modern considerations.
More germaine is that 5 years ago there was not a club in that area that were of a comensurate standard to the mid table cubs in the RL 2nd tier.
My point was that Catalans were prepared historically, financially, administratively, and in RL culture to join the SL fraternity.
That they were offered that position without them having to work by promotions through the lower leagues was a risk call by the RFL.
So I say again, It was an expansion success.

Ditto, it was a geographical expansion of Superleague. I can't help but notice that some people try to undermine attempts to expand the game by saying that Catalans were never really an expansion team anyway because the game has been played in the south of France for a long time. When i then ask these same people if Lezignan and Lyon should have just as much chance of getting in SL as Widnes, Leigh and Halifax because after all by their definition they are heartlands teams, the answer is usually "but thats different".

I think you hit the nail on the head 'expansion of Superleague'. But why not give it its full title of 'Super League (Europe) Limited'? After the demise of Paris the 'Europe' bit was a bit superfluous. So, despite what any of us think, SLE felt compelled to 'expand' the game somewhere outside England and, preferably, outside GB. A success, well, maybe, but what sort of a hand-up did they have?...

[list
three years to prepare
the right to field a team in the French national tournaments
an exemption from relegation for three years
the right to buy any French player without paying a transfer fee
[/list:u

Having said that I can't begrudge the French this 'success' as at least RL in this country wasn't officially banned! (Which is what happened in France under the Vichy Gov't : the players were 'invited' to play Union and RL assets were seized. As far as I can find out, the assets have never been returned. Oh, and it is still impossible for anyone studying to become a state registered sports instructor to take rugby league as their main option).

Well [url=http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/09/12/07/RUGBYL_Crusaders.htmlSouth Wales[/url did not work. We now have another SL club within commuting distance of Warrington & Widnes.

What a disgrace this is.

We might as well kick the franchise system into touch if this deemed acceptable.

Feckin rubbish.

tbh, I could not agree more.

And they must be gutted down in South Wales. What a kick in the nuts for the game down there.

Completely.

If I were them I might be tempted think " to this, I'm off"

Just as a reminder...

"A five-man RFL panel assessed the 19 applications based on four key criteria: stadium facilities, finance and business performance, commercial and marketing, and playing strength, including junior player production development."

So much for their 'qualification process', at my count they've actually produced on maybe (generously) two of them...

I wonder how many of the criteria were a case of 'talk the talk' ? I don't know about you guys but I've seen plenty of 'strong' business plans based on superficial statements like 'we will get x% of the market' without ever actually stating how! Yes, bloated, impressively pompous sounding, waffle does it for some people every time

Yeah the whole Crusaders thing is a bit of a joke, given the fact they are in SL for expansion and all.....

what I will say though is that we must keep on trying to expand, we can't be a regional game and not expect RU to keep on poaching players....people are on here stating a hybrid game would be accpetable, well it would be anything but a hybrid, we would simply be absorbed by the game that is truly national, has an international game and a stack of money. Can you imagine them being told they must change their rules, break off from the IRB etc....it would never happen.

I would prefer a two-tier Super League, we could probably support 18/20 full time (or at least largely full time) teams...the likes of Leigh, Widnes, Halifax, a cumbrian team, Toulouse should be able to sustain themselves and with promotion and relegation the fans would have something to immediately look forward to...not the hope of a SL place in three years time. All this would cater for the traditionally large teams and hotbeds of rugby league, whilst allowing the scope for all the expansion teams.....I'm sure a succesful Crusaders team in SL2 would make it more appealing than a bottom of the ladder SL1 team year after year? Ah well, who knows, I'm no expert but the RFL doesn't seem to be too clued in either otherwise we wouldn't have this thread!

Oh fekk

At the start I was fully behind what was the 'Bridgend' Crusaders, spreading the game and generally giving them a chance. However now were going to end up with another 'northern' club with even less support! New licences: IN: Halifax and Widnes, OUT: Crusaders and Wakefield.

I think most of this is covered on the 'Expansion' thread mate. It's a good point though, I think a lot of people are a bit annoyed with the whole Crusaders move.

Fair Enough.