I'm all for another sustainable French club, Les Catalans have been great for SL imo. However it should not be at the expense of Cas or any other sustainable club and nor should it happen until the French production line is strong enough to support two clubs. The NRL pool is drying up and SL needs to come to terms with that fact.

No club needs to be promoted at the expense of any other club. Cas failing doesn’t make Toulouse a better bet, Cas succeeding doesn’t make them any worse.

If Toulouse are ready, they are ready, get them in. If they aren’t, they aren’t, and don’t. Cas have nothing to do with it.

What planet are some of you on? toulouse have no facilities no fan base no backers,there are amatuer teams in this country which have a bigger set up,lets get real.

Oh and if its to build up the french who is going to build us up when our teams are full of over the hill aussies and never been new zealanders?

Why on earth have you linked those two things?

What has Toulouse got to do with the amount of Aussies and Kiwis that are playing for English clubs?

We should be telling clubs that in 2015 we will have two tens, the top 10 in SL 2014 retain their place with London guaranteed a spot so should they finish 11-14 then 10 loses out.
SL 2 should have Toulouse, Cardiff/Swansea, 4 SL clubs and 4 current championship clubs. 1up/down.

I have heard bullSheeite about Sky not covering it, have you seen the Championship RU garbage they show now!!!

Get £700k to SL 2 clubs and enforce a minimum £1m cap with 50% of income for max, you then have a level to build from on the up or down, and something for PT clubs to realistically build for.

Expansion is good, exclusion and self preservation is not.

When their stadium is ' rebuilt ' and they are getting it half filled for Elite 13 games , and drawing in good sponsorship , and have a sugar daddy to guarantee full SC spend for several years bumping along the bottom of SL , then and only then will they be ready , until then everything is just ' speculative , and the RFL dont ' do ' speculative , unless you are already IN SL

Why? Thats not the process that the unmitigated success that is Les Catalans went through. Why would you not want them to copy a formula that proved to work?

So what was the process they went through ? , not forgetting they requested an extra year to prepare , I'd suggest it was quite close to my formula

Stadium , fans ,sponsorship and finance

They were given 2 (which turned to three) years to prepare, they went out and sourced what they needed, didnt set themselves to rely on a sugar daddy or bump along the bottom for a few years, and guess what they didnt bump along the bottom for a few years.
unparrelled insight there.

Which was ?

How things change ? , it seems to be a prerequisite now

Without a SD , its probably a good job they didn't

I know , mystic Meg me

It seems like your argument here is that Toulouse should stay in the French elite until they have (and I quote) their “Stadium , fans ,sponsorship and finance” in place.

Well good news, The RFL agree with you and have put in place a system where clubs can get there stadium, fans, sponsorship and finance in place in the lower leagues and move up when they are ready. They have called it ‘franchising’ or ‘Licensing’

to double check all that stuff , we dont want any financial meltdowns months after inspecting the figures





No seriously , Toulouse are the next , in fact only club in a position to get the next shot at SL , I'd give the nod to them right now and tell them to get ready

So you don’t want them to go through the successful process as Les Catalans.

But you do want them to be treated the same as Leigh, even though you admit that different clubs need to be treated in different ways?

But yes, they do seem to be among the front runners

Well I assume they already had a stadium , and it is only the stadium that is relevant to the 2 clubs being discussed , after that I assume they would go through the same process as the Catalans

So a no brainer really , although why they need an updated stadium when it was the RU stadium they were going to use , and it is easily up to SL standard right now , the other 2 they have already used in the Championship certainly are not

You must have been on the pop Nat, they've got seated stands along both touchlines and a small terrace in front of the clubhouse


Nowhere near 'SL standard' though.


Not in my experience. I've been to Toulouse three times and on each occasion have had to try and explain in pigeon French the actual existence of rugby league on several occasions when people have asked about our shirts etc with no rugby union game on.

Which stadium though Matt , the one we played at that 1 st year isn't Toulouse's home ground

And I also struggled to find anybody within half a mile of their home stadium who knew where it was , mention " Toulouse Olympic " and all you got was the gallic ' shrug '

You really dont give up on ths 2 leagues of 10 thing do you ?

But keep London in and assume for now that Les Cats will remain top 10 and dont forget the all new Bulls, we must give them a place.
If we need more Englis, Full time pro's in the game to aid our international team, why is there such a clamour to reduce full time pro teams, which is what would most likely happen in your 2 x 10 team divisions.

As we have a play off system to decide the Champions, wht not just expand the top flighrt as teams get up to standard.
There doesnt need to be a full home and away fixture programme as the play offs will give the top 8 teams chance to prove themselves at the end of the season.

Ok, each club would have a reduced share of Sky monies (unless we can negotiate a better package from Sky but, this is preferable to another cull , especially when there are protected teams within your Super 10.

If we change the structure at all. It should be to conferences, with the playoffs deciding the champions.

Either on the pop or never been.I was just about to say the same. 2 seated stands down the sides with terracing at the side of the smaller stand as well. The stands are in decent nick though not like some that we have visited this year in Champ 1 that are dropping to bits (e.g Worky).The little barbeque/ale area next to the club house is lovely though on a sunny day!!

East & West (we can fit London an Les Cats in somewhere) and then we have a potential basis for "County of Origin" games to help with International selection.This could improve attendances if there were more "local" games, providing that there wasn't too much apathy among the supporters.
There would be savings in trael costs for both the clubs and the supporters but, there would be an increase in "c" grade fixtures.

Fairly sure we played at the Ernest Argeles stadium in blagnac , and not the stadium Minimes, which is Toulouses home

Couldn't they use the union one? Looks a decent modern stadium and perfect size.

Yes they can use that stadium (Stade Ernest Wallon) , which holds 19,000, for the big games against the glamour clubs (Wigan, Warrington, St Helens, Leeds, Hull FC, Les Catalans and perhaps Bradford). For the other six or seven games the rugby league ground (Stade des Minimes) will be big enough.

Jean, have they used the Ernest Argeles for some Championship fixtures?

I'd like to see the RFL promote Halifax, Fev and Leigh in 2015 to make a 17 team SL, each week one team has a bye. Hopefully by then the RFL will of got an even better deal for both the tv and sponsorship rights. More cash allowing for more teams.

Plus you've got three teams there with good English coaches.

Promoting these 3 would inprove the competitiveness of the bottom half of SL which everyone seems to think is becoming stagnent and boring.

Then with the remaining CC and CC1 teams merge them in to one competition. And get both leagues on the tv.

**This is what I'd like to see but I know there is pretty much no way it's going to happen.**