£135k for Westerman? Don't get that.

Take Melbourne as an example of an expansion side - in 20 years how many genuine Victorians have come through & played for them?

I'm sure TWP would love to see genuine Canadians playing for them, in fact they did this year in Quinn Ngawati (plus a handful of other North Americans are in the squad). But it does take time for those grassroots structures to develop & yougsters to come through. You only have to look around at some heartland SL/Championship clubs who've been around for 100+ years and note the lack of talent they bring through.

I believe Perez said he wanted an academy within 3 years, so that's something. They also had "The Last Tackle" this year, which enabled them to trial a number of North Americans.

I admire your optimism!

In relation to the salary cap and overseas players, as I've seen this brought up a lot now, particularly amongst Leigh fans:

They adhere by the same Salary Cap as the other sides in the structure (as requested by Derek Beaumont a couple of years ago), and have the same Non-Fed player restrictions as the other clubs. Canada, France & England are all part of the same Federation, the RLEF.

They need to throw some money at Canadian Rugby Union players.
Canada have a very strong rugby union side - in 2011 they were ranked 12th in the world.
I doubt many of them would be on huge bucks, and from memory they had some very fast backs when they were doing well.

You honestly believe that? If it takes off in NA they won't need any UK clubs, although I suppose they may have token sides from the UK ie 'London' and Australia, ie 'Sydney').

Forgot about him.

Seems strange that Westerman has now managed to attract three 6 figure transfer fees, clubs must see something that I don't.

As we know it's been done once so it could be done again. The Cas fans are probably still fuming about it.

Would be great to see some Canadians come through but for me its not the most important thing. Like you said it isn't easy. I have no doubt the Storm and the NRL run all the coaching programmes and do their best to get kids playing the game in Victoria but Rugby League is so much smaller than the AFL in Victoria so the best athletes will tend to gravitate towards that sport.

Fascinating isn't it.

Joe Westerman is a gifted player and Athlete. He's also lacking a bit of ambition IMHO and has a poor attitude I'm told. Very typical of far to many British players. That said 250 SL games shows he is as you say a decent solid player.

What has made Westerman so apparently valuable especially to the gullible was his time at Cas, combined with one of Eddie and Stevo's ridiculous love ins.

Can fans made him out to be the best British player of his era whilst they were still kicking around in the Championship!. Very Cas typical but in this case it went into overdrive.

Then Eddie Hemmings (especially) did his kings new cloth act and if I recall in his first season in SL (literally only weeks into) was touting him as the future GB captain and our very own SBW!! The former was never likely with his attitude, the latter wasn't even remotely true.

Most SL teams would still take Western warts and all, can't however think of any who are still daft enough to pay for the dubious privilege.

Your' right he had two great agents, Cas fans and Sky.

You can understand the Cas fans - almost admire it but the SKY team and assorted media, shows where much of the trouble in SL lays.

Iestyn harris, 350k to lleds, 400k to union. 1 m illiion to bradford, via courts.

lol brilliant

The funny thing is it's true, Eddie and steve must have being having a relationship with Westerman

I'll add more

They also touted him as "the next Paul Shorpe "

Perfectly agree on the potential perspective front, if it takes off big style they will have there own Superleague with a salary cap far more greater that it will make ours like selling socks in Barrow. Once established they will no longer look back across the atlantic as Superleague in the UK will be insignificant.
If people think we will get enormous benefits of exposure, marketing, sponsors in the UK on the growth of the game in Canada/America thats fine..........for me its a bit La La Land with the vision of our top clubs playing in a different league in a different continent.

Is this where I bring up Dale Ferguson?

If you have 7000/8000 people in Toronto watching Rugby League, what does the nationality of the players matter?

Getting amateur clubs and schools playing the game should be priority number 1. Hopefully Canada can get some money from the World Cup profits.

Given the amount of American football athletes that don't make it out of the college leagues or in the NFL, I'd say they should try and get some of those players to give RL a try.

You can if you want. Dale has almost certainly been better value for money and far less bother.

You do realise Westerman isn't a Cas player anymore so you don't really need to be so defensive.

Apologies. It was meant as a light-hearted quip about a pointless childish argument that I never took part in. Your small club paranoia is noted however.

We could really do with some publicity to go with the growth of Toronto. I could see a major film release for the tale of the 1953 All American Allstars. It could do for rugby league in America what The Full Monty did for Sheffield.

Ultimately success in Toronto will keep grabbing headlines for RL globally. If and its a big if another team could be established in North America then there could be real legs in expansion. The RU have tried and failed to establish themselves in the the US and I believe Ireland are pushing there next World Cup bid on the back of creating interest in the US!

I don't see the issue of Toronto fielding a team of overseas players in the short term as long as they focus on grass routes in the long term to make the talent pool sustainable.

That's the problem in the UK grass roots RL is failing with participation numbers in decline and the player/talent pool dwindling. You only have to look at the quality of SL over the last couple of years to see this? Even the predicted played exodus to RU has stopped!!!

We have top tier teams not running reserves or academy setups, how is that a sustainable model.......and people are concerned about a new Canadian team not producing local talent!

As is your small deprived suburb of Wakefield mentality.

That's what makes it so funny, even if you do win it the Cup belongs to Wakefield as Cas isn't really a place

A Catalan v Toronto Cup or Grand final would be interesting.

That's a warm feeling. As well as it being the only chance you'll ever have of getting a cup.

It would be a marketing man's nightmare.......and would only then pour more petrol in the flames of the idiotic "away fans debate".

On the topic of the Wolfpack signings, London Broncos permitted Andy Ackers to leave his contract early, because the poor little mite was "Homesick"......bless.

He immediately signed for the Wolfpack.....which begs the questions:

1. Is this indicative of the player having no morals, or his new coach doing what he always does.....and
2. Should, as we seem to be becoming a more "global" sport stamp on this sort of behaviour now?

Fair play to Toronto for showing the ambition. They initially stated that they wanted to be a superleague team within 5 years but they could be very serious contenders at the end of this season. As a Warrington fan getting that kind of transfer fee for a player coming into the last year of his contract was an offer we couldn't refuse. For Toronto they obviously decided that they needed to strengthen the loose forward position. If they had managed to get the deal for Sean o loughlin over the line then I would have made them almost certainties for promotion this year.