[url=https://www.totalrl.com/rugby-league-in-france-has-to-get-its-act-together/THIS IS A DEPRESSING READ[/url

It seems that even after over a decade of Catalans being in SL, the French game is still a shambles and fewer than 2,000 people attended the Elite 1 Final, down from 12k a decade ago.
It's obvious that Catalans being in SL and Toulouse in the Championship is not having the desired impact on the game at grassroots level and it seems that the infighting is still going on.

How can we assist France?

I'd like to see English clubs take their "home" games v Catalans to other French towns. The NRL clubs sometimes do this for their home games v the Warriors and they receive incentives from local councils for doing so. This coming season, the Bunnies are playing the Warriors in Queensland......it would be good if a side like Warrington took their Home game to somewhere like Avignon and fill the 17k stadium there.....surely better than the 8k they usually get and no doubt the local council would appreciate a few thousand visitors?

In the Championship, Bradford could look to take their home Toulouse game to another City o the South of France.

What's obvious is that if the game in France isn't given urgent help, it'll continue to shrink

How can France RL assist France RL, that really is the question.

Why should English clubs have their home games at Catalan/Toulouse, wouldnt they lose much needed revenue?

Well for a start every league club in this country could have a sister one in France. Hold exchange visits to share experience on all aspects of running a Rugby League club both commercially and on the field. For example Batley share with Albi their experience of sound financial management on modest budgets etc. Bradford tell Carpentras how to go bust every other year (ok not best example), but they could share their positive track record of identifying talented young lads despite being in the lower leagues.If my club Bradford had a sister club in France I'd look out for their results, I might even buy a shirt. I know its not an earth-shattering idea but it seems a relatively simple and practical measure.

Thats a really good idea IMO.

Agreed, I'm bored of French RL, it offers nothing at International level and can't run a domestic competition to save its life. It's not our job to save them and how much longer are they going to blame Vichy?

I know they have issues but they have to take responsibility for themselves before I'd be willing to help, its just good money after bad.

Kick out all the English clubs in SL.

The French RL is a perfect example of how not to run a sport . It makes us look competent. Every season one of the most interesting things in the competition is the annual who will fail to complete their fixtures sweep. As I always post, when this subject comes up, other minority sports manage to get TV coverage and sponsorship but French RL teams seem happy to take cash from the local town hall and an occasional fattish cat. Imagine a sport created by The league of gentlemen and you have a fair indication RL in the South West of France.

"Loal sport, for Local peeple"...

The OP is a spoof post to wind up the wind up king Jean, Roy. I really do think the ignore function would be the best way to wind him up. Well wind him down and out.

There's absolutely no question of helping the French at professional level, several English clubs have struggled in Superleague and if they struggle enough then they go down to the Championship. It's up to Gausch and his board along with the French governing body to sort themselves out. Helping the French would be "positive discrimination"....

2006 and Catalans took the field with a number of French talents, Casty, Bosch, Verges, Rinaldi, Fakir, Fellous, Mounis, Fraysinnous, Sadouis, Guigue etc.....Players like Baile, Fellous, stacul, Ferriol, Elima and Duport were following on to stake their places in the French team Les Catalans.

2020 and here's a pretty much first choice Catalans side - Mead, Tierney, Langi, Maloney, Drinkwater, McIlorum, Moa, Whiteley, Tomkins J. Davies, Tomkins S. and Kasiano. no french players at allWe just need a token Frenchman to captain it - The great but 34 year old Remy Casty.

Add to that the disbanding of the Catalans Academy and you have total failure of the original policy and reason for Catalans to be in Superleague and that was to build the game in France enough to resurrect France as a bona fide first class International side. Laughably people want Toulouse in Superleague, hysterically McManus preferred Toulouse over Toronto for promotion. It's quite clear he didn't do that because he thought Toulouse would add anything to the game here, they wouldn't, they would ship in Aussies and English players, McManus made that choice as Toronto were even worse than Toulouse on player development and International credentials.

The English game needs to help itself and stop opening doors to it's player pool to leave the country. Axey loves his Jean wind ups, he's too smart to mean what he says in his OP....

There are many different ways to help French RL and there is no doubt that, if we could wave the proverbial magic wand, having a strong French side would be good for the game, as we need as many genuine top level sides to improve the international game.

I dont know too much about the set up over there but, when you take out the best side from the national league, who became Catalan Dragons, the national league would always suffer.
Having said that, perhaps it's up to the French to work out which path they want their sport to go down and then work our how to get there.
The one certainty is that having one FT pro side in France + Toulouse, isn't ever going to allow them to compete with the big boys.
For this to happen, there would need to be 5 or 6 SL standard clubs over there, which, quite frankly, is never going to happen.

I do like the idea of English clubs "twinning with the French though and in the long term, with better coaching and development, their game would improve and more importantly, the number of potential SL players would increase, which could only be good for the sport.

It makes sense to build on something that currently exists, rather than planting RL clubs in no mans land or, halfway around the world

Well the Dragons aren't in the academy league anymore so there's no pathway for players to Superleague via their own backyard. Currently the Dragons have 12 English and Aussie players in their team and are chasing Wigan cast-offs as they head for a wholly non French team. They do not seem to have any regard for their original mission which was to be the conduit for the best players in France to professionalise and thereby make for a professional French International side.

Therefore there is no actual point to them any more, but its very kind of you to suggest that whilst Catalans stop bothering with French players somehow English clubs have to do this work for them? I note (as always) another of your interesting points that it may need "5-6 SL clubs in France" to get the game cooking there, both the development of players and a TV deal no doubt.

Takes me back to when Perez said that there would also need to be 5-6 north american clubs in Superleague to get a NATV deal and spark the grass roots there too.

How we fit 10-12 Superleague clubs from France and America into SL I dunno. Maybe we should stop being so insular and selfish? I say scrub Superleague and go for a Franco-American league



.

Wow, 2=2 does equal 12



I suggest that you read my post again and this time try not to jump to too many of your own conclusions.
In replying to the question posted by the op, I was merely suggesting what may be required for the French to compete at international level.

Despite a certain posters dreams, there isn't a hope in hell of there being 6 super league quality sides in France in my life time, although Toulouse do certainly have the potential to step up (assuming that they can develop a few more players.

Despite you jumping to numerous conclusions, I was merely suggesting some of what may be needed to have a competitive French national side and as stated, it's first of all up to the French governing body to decide what they would like to happen.
However, helping the French increase their player pool would be good for the WHOLE sport and not just the French.

Moving onto whether there should be additional French clubs in SL - for me they would have to be in addition to the current 10 British clubs in SL and why SL isn't a 14 club comp, without loop fixtures is just a mystery and this points to the poor health of the sport in the UK (and France), something that has to be addressed - whether you believe in any form of expansion or not.

Getting back to "twinning" with French clubs, I really dont see your problem with this.
Lots of SL clubs are already helping other UK clubs I the lower leagues so, why not help some others.

Remember, a strong sport is good for all of us, unless you have some personal reasons for disliking people who live beyond the M62 corridor ?

I think we should just let more teams into our league structure. The argument against this in the past has been that hardly any of the clubs in France do not have the resources to hack it in Super League.

This has been a good reason on the assumption we are just making them jump though some hoops on the way to Super League. However looking at the applications of Ottawa and Belgrade neither of these club have "getting to Super League" as their top priority. Instead they have said that the production of talent, Canadian and Serbian respectively, is the main goal. Even the early talk coming from Valencia Hurricanes is that they want to have a Spanish club with Spanish players even if this means they will be a League 1 club for a long time.

Getting back to the OP the way the RFL can help these clubs is for the RFL to pay for all travel between European club centrally regardless if it is a coach over the Pennines or a plane over the channel. This has always been a big expense for any French club that wants to play in the UK, with the likes of Toulouse just swallowing the cost until they can get up into Super League and get more money.

So why don't we get the Carcassonne, Limoux, Lézignan, etc. into League 1 and help them pay for them and their visitors travel. That sounds simple enough to me.

What's required is International quality players like those 30 guys at the top of the English pyramid over those 200 guys below them in the pyramid playing pro, then below that 800 semi pro players and thousands of amateurs. France only has a handful of pro players so how exactly would clubs here "help" them find and train up the thousands of French players needed to find the hundreds that could play semi pro to find the dozens who could play Pro and enough talent at the top of that to play International??

The inference anyone "dislikes" the french does you no favours!! Maybe my post was mean spirited for which I apologise, but I assure you I don't dislike people who live beyond the M62 at all, I just think that we have to stop dreaming players will appear from nowhere with little expense and effort whether that is in Doncaster, France or Canada.

Then what's the fuss about joining the leagues here about?

They need to start a junior development system in their own countries where they have development officers and coaches going round the towns organising the game in schools and taking that on to junior and amateur level locally.

Perez was told to develop players at TWP so he had a bit of a go with grid iron lads, quickly packed that in and conveniently forgot about development and bought Leigh's players on their relegation. The evidence is these clubs talk about development to try to blag their way in. They get blocked because SL know they aren't serious or capable of it and will end up chasing English players.

Truth is only the M62 has a sizeable established player development system in the Northern Hemisphere, that hardly supplies our own game. To have 12 professional clubs we have to import going on for 100 Antipodeans. It's not that I detest people south of Doncaster and north of Newcastle, I can just see the realities of the situation.

I don't think a certain "foreign" club had a better chance of developing players when they set up just south of the M62. Led by a great RL administrator and innovator this club attracted a lot of admiration, especially when they went all the way to Superleague and then blew the mighty Wigan away to win the cup.

If that club failed to develop any players in their 36 year history what chance do all these other clubs above have?

The reason that Nrl clubs take their games away is because those towns offer financial incentives. If English clubs were forward thinking they might see that these opportunities could be out there.

Yes, because they are awash with surplus cash.

So, are we happy to try and help France grow their game ?

Absolutely not if any time or effort expended is at the expense of the game here.

For instance Toulouse and Catalans in SL means two English clubs NOT in SL.

For instance you send 2 development offices to France all expenses paid, these lads could have gone to Newcastle instead or Cumbria.

How do you justify sending any resources when Les Catalans have virtually abandoned development?

Even in the heartlands we struggle as badly as the French, so why forget those clubs and those amateur and schools leagues and go help the French game?

Cumbria = tried and failed
Newcastle = tried and failed
Nottingham = tried and failed
Sheffield = tried and failed

the "heartlands" are dead.

Not sure the "Heartlands" were ever any where but along the M62 apart from the west Cumbria coast. One things for sure the M62 "works" just about, Hence the SKY deal.

Even player and fan numbers have been dropping here along the M62 which supports that deal. You don't sail off to rescue another ship when your own is slowly sinking.

You certainly don't go off helping the game in places where people like Gausch and Argyle can't be even bothered helping themselves except to our players. Imagine helping the French only for Superleague to dump Catalans 2022.

The question raised by the op was "how" we help the French game and not "whether" we should help them.
Cumbria is part of the hotbed of RL. However, due to all those hills and lakes, a Cumbrian super club, which has been muted so many times, is never going to happen.
However, Barrow used to be a top flight and Whitehaen possibly should've been given a go in SL but, the ships have now sailed.
You use a decent analogy about sinking ships and looking after ourselves first. However, it IS possible to do both things here and they could be mutually beneficial.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why on earth were Toulouse not promoted along with Toronto at the last re structure and move to a 14 club top flight - this still remains a huge opportunity missed and it could have given the French game a huge boost - alas, we shall never know what could have been.
Certainly as far as TV is concerned, they could have alternated between the 2 clubs, depending who was at home AND helped broaden the appeal of the game, both in France and to the wider world and THE most disappointing aspect of this would be that, either Super League didn't think the product was strong enough to hold out their hand and ask for "more" or, that they did ask but, were rejected by Sky - neither scenario is a good one.

1.All questions end up with the debate widening things out a bit and I think we should consider "whether" we should help the French, you don't have to reply to that. I think West Cumbria is a pale shadow of it's former self and for me the sad thing is how the junior game there has shrunk so much. Last I looked the age groups had to double up to make up leagues and the content of each league was but a handful of teams. Not sure how many Cumbrians now play pro. a few years back I could count a dozen good 'uns. Donaldson and Lunt seem almost like the last two. For me the game is "West Cumbria" and always has been and it was built on an Industrial base like West Yorkshire. Steel and coal. Not Holiday cottages.

2. The reason "Why" was that Les Catalans were not wanted by Superleague in 2006, but the then RFL CEO Richard Lewis was determined to do two things:-

a. Help the French International side catch up with GB. NZ and Australia ......Now how did that go? The French were slaughtered in the first test, then slaughtered every year to the point the game lost test status, then slaughtered so much the game ended up not been played anymore....

b. Help SL expand to new places like France, Wales and the south of England to get more new players and more TV money into RL. Now how did that go? Wales collapsed, London have simply hung on, and Les Catalans can't get a TV deal and can't develop French SL players any more. When Catalans started the team had nine first choice Frenchmenn now that's down to only two.

In short my good friend it's all been tried and tried since 2006 to expand the game beyond the M62 and never mind not knowing "what could have been" we know now it doesn't work, and it's all failed so we are now left with trying to keep the M62 alive and you don't do that putting Toulouse, Whitehaven or Toronto in Superleague? You don't respond to a drop in quality players by making the game 14 clubs? last time we had 14 London, Bradford and Wakefield collapsed..........

MATE - we are all cracked records on here don't worry about it!!

RL Expansion - the very definition of insanity