There is certainly an irony in hoping that new foreign teams will help improve the game here.

It's astonishing how for three years a group of people think that shipping English players abroad to make up a team in Perpignan or Toronto somehow expands the game and brings us riches? What their brains completely miss is that for Catalans to go up Widnes had to go down. For TWP to come up London had to go down. You could not blame either club if they just shut their academies. Why the heck should they continue to try do develop SL players in such circumstances? The answer lies in the longer game. This TV contract unfortunately allows access to Superleague on "merit" and not on any sensible "planning", thus TWP and Les Cats can survive merely on buying in players from here.

The next TV contract will remove the influence of the RFL on Superleague's make up and leave that decision to Superleague. Already we hear that Bradford, Widnes, London Leigh and Newcastle are chomping at the bit for a 2022 SL place. In contrast the reserves league appears to have swallowed up all the spare English and Aussie playing talent such that poor old Toronto and Catalans are struggling to recruit......what a mean but delicious trick to play!!

Meaning Ottawa, New York Toulouse and Timbuktoo have gone very quiet. "Helping the French" is a ridiculous notion. Currently we are helping ourselves to repel predatory overseas clubs who really should concentrate on building their own game not on destroying ours.

Irony is, that under ''planning'' imo Toronto and Catalans would be two of the first teams chosen. In that scenario I would worry about Cas, Wakefield and Salford.

Any plan has to underpin the two things that SL have been very clear about for years, and the RFL cannot disagree with, that clubs need to underpin a TV deal and develop players.

Toronto and Les Catalans do neither. Workington Town and West Wales would meet these criteria better? Please explain?

IF there could ever be a strong French national side, it would help our national side, by giving them some "local" opposition to face - mind you, with the form of Great Britain on tour, it may be us dripping to their standard instead.
The ideal situation would be for there to be sufficient players in France, no doubt topped up with a few Aussies, for them to have an equivalent to SL but, that is possibly more far fetched than some of the expansion dreamers on here - as I said "an ideal".

As things stand, Catalan, much as they give decent value to the comp and allow a summer break to the south of France, are never going to produce enough players to make French international rugby any kind of major force.

Should we abandon ship and accept that RL is just an M62 sport - would this really be good for the sport ?

It could be argued that SL, including say London and Leigh or Fev, may be a decent competition and maybe, we should forget any kind of expansion, other than any "natural" growth but, I really dont think that this would help improve any TV deal, in fact, it could nail the coffin lid down and we could then be left with a semi pro sport, devoid of any national profile.

For me, it's expand or die, although, a transatlantic league just isn't the right move.

There is an argument that Valencia and Belgrade would be better off in the French structure.

Both seem concerned with developing talent rather than throwing money about. The standard in the French second tier could be better for them.

This is the plan, we need France to be able to give GB a game. Ideally we need the other home nations to be strong to give England a good game also.

Catalans lack of French players at present is frustrating. Brexit should actually help Rugby League in this respect, once the league are able to force Cats to discriminate against UK players the more likely they are to get in some French players in the team. However is is still annoying Catalan need to be forced to sign local talent.

I agree with your sentiment but, despite their often mediocre performances, I do believe that their president is ambitious and like other CEO's, he walks the fine line between ambition and "doing the right thing". Most chase on field success and yet, as we see with the successful sides over here, most, if not all, gain that success by having a strong nucleolus of young, club trained players and with first pick of all of the young French players, they should be more than capable of this. Toulouse, seem to be doing things "the right way", albeit in the Championship.

Regarding Valencia and Serbia, your idea does sound sensible, although, it may not be worth their while to play in the French National league, both in terms of quality and maybe it wouldn't suit their ambition and who knows what politics may be at work.

Is the French national league the same standard, or similar, to the Championship? If so it might make sense to develop the French league as a European league and have a play off between their winner and the English Championship winner for a place in SL.

That is an excellent post on the face of it.

But you must remember Valencia and Belgrade are probably not even up to the standard of Elite 2, and there would be high travel costs - how would they afford them?. The idea of putting Toulouse and Les Catalans into Elite One would knock these clubs backwards and lose thousands of French fans who turn out because Les Catalans are playing in the highest league and Toulouse are aspiring to do the same. Do we really really see such a set up creating growth? Growth only comes from TV deals and more quality players.

At the level a Europe league would be playing at it would do neither of these things. OK IF playing RL is something that more and more people want to do across Europe then build it and they will come. But less and less people want to play rugby, and the lower the standard the less speccies they will get.

Millom smashed Belgrade in the Challenge cup. We are starting to view low level amateur clubs as potential Superleague clubs one day. If any of them can find a $$Billionaire fair enough other wise we need to try and resist this "Expansion Fever"....

Nowhere near Kev. Try league one?

I would suggest that there isn't a conveyor belt of quality young French Players.

All our English SL clubs run foundations upon which £300K is spent per club per year to encourage kids to play RL and to play at school and they channel the best and most enthusiastic to junior sections of amateur clubs, which then provides enough talented and ambitious lads so that we can supply and run a substantial academy league.

AFAIK this isn't the case in France hence you can count the number of SL quality first choice French pro players on your fingers. Toulouse only sign French players Les Catalans don't want. Les Catalans abandoned their Academy team AFAIK. The French game is weak and getting weaker. You only have to look back on the early years of Les Cats when they were a French team, now they are sliding towards being a wholly English/Aussie team.

It saddens me to say Les Catalans have been a failure, the measure of success*** being the development of quality players attracting TV deals so the population can pay to watch the spectacle. All Catalans are is an English team which French TV aren't interested in anymore who are blocking proper English clubs like Bulls, Vikings, Thunder and Leigh.......

*** the measure of success is not attendances BTW, TWP claim it is then fib about their attendances but TBF Catalans don't trumpet their 8,500 crowds

I'll start by saying that you need geographical spread across the competition. The sport will not thrive if it contracts to small English towns playing in front of a few thousand people. No sport that contracts back to it's heartlands and reduces teams is a healthy sport, just look at Aussie rugby union, the super league is nowhere near as dire as that. And to think you want to get rid of the only 2 successful expansion teams that super league has ever had?

Catalan does produce players, just maybe not as many as you would like. Why is their player pool less important than others to make you think are indespensible?

The irony is that no current super league club if they were to start tomorrow would be able to secure a tv deal by themselves, yet we expect new clubs to. It's the chicken before the egg argument. So please provide a source that confirms Sky's preference? Not from biased Chairmen, but from Sky themselves. If you can't, then all we are doing is speculating and my opinion is as correct as yours.

Well we are off again. I am supposed to provide hard documentary evidence to back anything I say whilst everyone else on the other side of the debate can wallow in an unsubstantiated dreamland. Not only that you seem to command me to provide "evidence" then you discount that evidence before I even give you it on the basis it is supposedly lies from "biased chairmen" you show me proof they are lying?? whilst they ring their Lawyers...

Let's start with "geographical spread" you say we need that? Do we really?? In 1896 the clubs who underpinned the game were Warrington, Saints, Widnes, Wigan, Leigh, Salford, Hull, Leeds, Bradford, Castleford, Huddersfield, Wakefield with HKR expanding the game to east Hull in 1899. That [i"Geographical narrowness"[/i has served us well for 124 years. So you are wrong on that one. 50 attempts have been made to spread the game geographically and none have worked so you could not be more wrong.

Let's now go onto Catalans player production. Their 2006 entry was based primarily on producing International class pro players to revive France as a professional test match level International side. If you want proof of that get of your lazy backside and go look it up. They failed badly.

On the TV deal you need to look that up. Les Catalans DID get a paying TV deal by themselves. Go do your own research because without it your talking unsubstantiated rubbish..

On player production they don't run an academy nor a reserves so no they do not produce players, the Elite League does that but after 14 years only a handful of French players are first pick in SL sides, and I mean a handful - go look it up the SL squads and first X111's are all listed for this year. It's just a fact SKY don't get subscriptions from France or North America so SKY don't need these glamorous overseas clubs, but you don't seem to do facts..........Apart from fact denial....

Quote ="The Silent H"I'll start by saying that you need geographical spread across the competition. The sport will not thrive if it contracts to small English towns playing in front of a few thousand people. No sport that contracts back to it's heartlands and reduces teams is a healthy sport, just look at Aussie rugby union, the super league is nowhere near as dire as that. And to think you want to get rid of the only 2 successful expansion teams that super league has ever had? =#FF0040 Catalan does produce players, just maybe not as many as you would like. Why is their player pool less important than others to make you think are indespensible? The irony is that no current super league club if they were to start tomorrow would be able to secure a tv deal by themselves, yet we expect new clubs to. It's the chicken before the egg argument. So please provide a source that confirms Sky's preference? Not from biased Chairmen, but from Sky themselves. If you can't, then all we are doing is speculating and my opinion is as correct as yours.'" Anglo-French relations at Catalanshttps://www.loverugbyleague.com ... ossip-194/ Catalans are keen to add more English (or Welsh) players to their squad, as they look to shrug off their travelling woes, as well as helping their growing contingent of English players to settle in France. They risked the irk of Salford last week by making a move for Wales international prop Gil Dudson, a stand out in the Red Devils’ run to the Super League Grand Final. Of Catalans 26-man squad for the new season, 14 are French and six are English.

Quote ="The Silent H"I'll start by saying that you need geographical spread across the competition. The sport will not thrive if it contracts to small English towns playing in front of a few thousand people. No sport that contracts back to it's heartlands and reduces teams is a healthy sport, just look at Aussie rugby union, the super league is nowhere near as dire as that. And to think you want to get rid of the only 2 successful expansion teams that super league has ever had? =#FF0040 Catalan does produce players, just maybe not as many as you would like. Why is their player pool less important than others to make you think are indespensible? The irony is that no current super league club if they were to start tomorrow would be able to secure a tv deal by themselves, yet we expect new clubs to. It's the chicken before the egg argument. So please provide a source that confirms Sky's preference? Not from biased Chairmen, but from Sky themselves. If you can't, then all we are doing is speculating and my opinion is as correct as yours.'" Anglo-French relations at Catalanshttps://www.loverugbyleague.com ... ossip-194/ Catalans are keen to add more English (or Welsh) players to their squad, as they look to shrug off their travelling woes, as well as helping their growing contingent of English players to settle in France. They risked the irk of Salford last week by making a move for Wales international prop Gil Dudson, a stand out in the Red Devils’ run to the Super League Grand Final. Of Catalans 26-man squad for the new season, 14 are French and six are English.

Quote ="snowie"Anglo-French relations at Catalanshttps://www.loverugbyleague.com ... ossip-194/ Catalans are keen to add more English (or Welsh) players to their squad, as they look to shrug off their travelling woes, as well as helping their growing contingent of English players to settle in France. They risked the irk of Salford last week by making a move for Wales international prop Gil Dudson, a stand out in the Red Devils’ run to the Super League Grand Final. Of Catalans 26-man squad for the new season, 14 are French and six are English.'" Erm 14 + 6 doesn't equal 26. The number of first choice French players in Catalans first ever game was 9 out of the 17, that is down to 6 out of the 17. Should they get the Wigan centre they have enquired about and Gil Dudson that will drop to only 4 out of the 17 being French....... Current imports are listed as Mead, Tierney, S,Tomkins, Langi, J. Tomkins, Davies, Whitley, Moa, McCrone, Maloney and Drinkwater, as above their recent recruitment drive saw them enquire at Wigan for a centre and now Dudson for prop. If successful that will give them a whole overseas X111. The plan was for the Catalans to be pretty much the French International side. The plan is now for Catalans to be another Anglo-Aussie side. SO sentiment apart mon ami's what should we do with them?

Quote ="snowie"Anglo-French relations at Catalanshttps://www.loverugbyleague.com ... ossip-194/ Catalans are keen to add more English (or Welsh) players to their squad, as they look to shrug off their travelling woes, as well as helping their growing contingent of English players to settle in France. They risked the irk of Salford last week by making a move for Wales international prop Gil Dudson, a stand out in the Red Devils’ run to the Super League Grand Final. Of Catalans 26-man squad for the new season, 14 are French and six are English.'" Erm 14 + 6 doesn't equal 26. The number of first choice French players in Catalans first ever game was 9 out of the 17, that is down to 6 out of the 17. Should they get the Wigan centre they have enquired about and Gil Dudson that will drop to only 4 out of the 17 being French....... Current imports are listed as Mead, Tierney, S,Tomkins, Langi, J. Tomkins, Davies, Whitley, Moa, McCrone, Maloney and Drinkwater, as above their recent recruitment drive saw them enquire at Wigan for a centre and now Dudson for prop. If successful that will give them a whole overseas X111. The plan was for the Catalans to be pretty much the French International side. The plan is now for Catalans to be another Anglo-Aussie side. SO sentiment apart mon ami's what should we do with them?

Come on, you're just making stuff up to suit your own agenda.

There is no PLAN for Catalan to become an Anglo-Aussie side, although, just like EVERY other SL club, they are trying to be successful.
If there was, why would they have so many "Frenchies" in their squad and as for Catalan being" pretty much the French International side", nonsense. Of course they will provide the nucleus of the side but, again, you are twisting stuff to try and fit your narrative and as for " The plan is now for Catalans to be another Anglo-Aussie side", more nonsense.
Their PLAN is to be a successful Catalan Dragons side and just like EVERY other SL club, if this means signing more non French players, they will of course do so.
I agree that they perhaps should increase the number of "local" players in their squad and maybe they are working to do so, whilst at the same time, trying to be the best side that they can be.
I presume that your wish/plan is to jettison them from SL and replace them with Fev or Leigh, which is ok but, I think the comp would be poorer without them.

It would be interesting to know Donnyman's thoughts on football in England, especially the Premier League.....

I have no real Agenda apart from wishing to see the North American dream be finished with, on the basis that they never delivered what they promised. They now pretend that they bring massive worldwide publicity to the game here and a series of equally mega rich NA clubs are still in the pipeline to complete that dream. I think you share my sentiments here......

As for Les Catalans they were accepted into Superleague with the primary aim of reviving international test match RL in Europe. In 2005 Aussie. Kiwis and Great Britain played out a six match "Tri-Nations" during which the French were given Test match status fixtures against Australia and New Zealand. The games were in Perpignan and Toulouse. The following year Les Catalans came into Superleague.

So if I am [i"making it up that they came in to bolster the French International team"[/i... then I had better add that France were duly invited to play England at Headingley in 2007 to re-establish the International game between Great Britain and France. The French were poor on the day and went down 42-14 before nearly 13,000 spectators of which I was one.

Things never got better for the French, any complaints made to Les Catalans as regards their habit of not concentrating on French players or withdrawing them for selection for France was met with a reply that they had to compete in Superleague and could not possibly play an all French side otherwise they would just get relegated. The fact is the plan as formulated by Richard Lewis to have one French SL club so France could develop international players failed.

But there was no going back or kicking them out as the fans were having a great time on their "away days" to Perpignan, and Catalans were building a good club. Over the seasons we see less and less quality French players and at 34 Remi Casty will be the next to go. As the French game continues it's decline eventually it could be there are no French players in a team Catalans turn out as the balance between French and non french players slides towards that.

And the point is this, there are now enough imports for Catalans to put 13 players on the pitch and two on the subs bench if their intended signings come off who just aren't French.

[i[uAnd so when do a resurgent Bradford, Leigh, Newcastle or Widnes start to point the finger and say why are they in SL and we are not we are members they are just guests? Why do we have to run reserves and academies and Catalans do not??? . what are they for?[/u[/i I suggest this will come to a head with the new TV deal when the clubs will be after Catalans being removed [i[u- not me -[/u[/i the clubs whom they block from SL, the clubs who develop players when they don't.

Your "Agenda" crack is a very cheap shot and does you no favours. I have set out why I think Catalans will be under enormous pressure to step down under a new English TV deal, maybe you would do me the courtesy of reading why I think this, and replying with a sensible viewpoint.

You've gone from "pretty much make up the French national side" to "bolster".
Bolster, I agree with and some say that, because France are not competitive, Catalan is a failure.
I would argue that without many of their National side being in FT training and without Catalan, they would be further still down the pecking order.

Some of what you say regarding them needing to protect Catalan position, in preference to allowing their "whole squad" represent France is probably right and given some of their recent seasons, they may well have ended up even closer to the trap door of SL, had they not kept a few players back.

The stark reality for France is that, they haven't got a hope in hell of competing with England, maybe not in my lifetime but, with just one club in the top flight, how could they ?

As for the new TV deal, you may be privy to the thinking of Sky and those that run SL, I most certainly aren't.

I agree that, perhaps, Catalan should have a minimum number of local (club trained) players but, how many should this be and will similar rules apply to other clubs (in terms of club based players) or, would you set the bar lower for English clubs.

As for agenda, you do appear to be very strongly against Catalan and some of your spurious reasoning is just made up (for reasons that you are keeping to yourself).

For me, we should be thinking how the game can move forward and certainly not reversing back to being just an "M62" sport

IF and it's a huge IF, the sport needs clubs outside the "heartlands" to secure a sensible TV deal, then, there is a decision for the power brokers to make.
Either, put up the two finger sign and say, take it or leave it or, try and work to try and accommodate their needs

Certainly at it's inception, SL made great play of having a French side (Paris) and London in the comp and there were stated aims regarding attendances and facilities etc.

Attendances have declined, London have gone, come back and gone again and you want rid of The French.
Many clubs have improved their facilities dramatically (apart from Cas & Trinity). However, any plan for improving crowds etc, seemed to disappear long ago.
We had the desire to have X sell out fixtures etc but, this never happened and proved to be nothing more than words on a wish list.

There remains no long term plan for the game and we're left clutching at N. American straws for hope of salvation and without serious thought to how to establish the junior game over there, it will never succeed. For me, France is worth some more effort but, this perhaps needs to be conditional on Catalan working harder on their own production line.

As for Bradford, Leigh, Widnes and Newcastle, if they can make it to the top of the Championship, I'm sure that they will get their chance in SL, something that 3 of these clubs have had (and lost) in the not too distant past.

Also, you dont seem too concerned with some UK clubs sharing academies - why ?

Donnyman making stuff up?? Never!

Who said you need geographical spread for Superleague to work?? Reference please??

How do you know the sport will contract if it's only played across the M62 it seems to have been mainly played there for 124 years?? Reference please??

Who said that RL had contracted back to it's heartlands, when was it ever more than just a northern game? Reference Please??

Your hippocracy knows no bounds, you can spout the garbage above, I can tell you what Superleague bosses are saying.

1. You can have half the League French but if they all field English/Aussie players they won't improve the french International side one bit will they?.

2. Your as privvy as I am to what SL bosses say about the SKY deal and the inclusion of France and Toronto in Superleague - tell me honestly do you buy and read League Express and League Weekly?

3. Reflecting that Superleague bosses have constantly said the French need to bring to the table (said to Toulouse by Lenegan reported in the RL press) home grown players and TV deals (also said to Toronto who promised to do that - Perez article in the RL press) does not make me "strongly against" anything.

Again do you buy the RL press every Monday and read up what is said by those who run the game?? I do read it all up. Maybe it's you that makes it up?