in australia if you arent in the nrl it means zero.

a central coast team is an expansion team

heck the gold coast titans are an expansion team

but to moronic english posters if you have a RL club an hour away then the whole area is "heartlands"

around tripple the population and one of the fastest growing population in australia (around 300,000)

has a brand new ground purpose built for RL

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... tadium.jpg that ground was purpose built for RL

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... tadium.jpg that ground was purpose built for RL

central coast is not a part of sydney

That ground looks naff..

It'll be nice when it's finished!

Expansion - not while we spend all our efforts looking backwards and slagging off other sports. We should focus on what is good about League, where its played, where its supported and evolve. Someone with a brain in the RL would help.

Even we we do it, its done badly ala (Celtic) Crusaders.

Yes, strictly speaking it is. However, since Australia is 31 times the size of England, a corresponding "expansion" in England would be somewhat less than 1.5 miles away from an existing SL club.

Quote ="Barnacle Bill"Yes, strictly speaking it is. However, since Australia is 31 times the size of England, a corresponding "expansion" in England would be somewhat less than 1.5 miles away from an existing SL club.'" There's going to be none in Australia anyway! The're putting the Turkeys in charge of Christmas with the new commision so it is unlikely there will be any expansion for at least a decade+ www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/n ... 5805908912

Quote ="Barnacle Bill"Yes, strictly speaking it is. However, since Australia is 31 times the size of England, a corresponding "expansion" in England would be somewhat less than 1.5 miles away from an existing SL club.'" There's going to be none in Australia anyway! The're putting the Turkeys in charge of Christmas with the new commision so it is unlikely there will be any expansion for at least a decade+ www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/n ... 5805908912

Quote ="JB Down Under":2iymhe9gThere's going to be none in Australia anyway! The're putting the Turkeys in charge of Christmas with the new commision so it is unlikely there will be any expansion for at least a decade+ www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/n ... 5805908912'" immediate plans." If the house of cards isn't quite collapsing yet, there's certainly a stiff breeze on the way.

Quote ="JB Down Under":2iymhe9gThere's going to be none in Australia anyway! The're putting the Turkeys in charge of Christmas with the new commision so it is unlikely there will be any expansion for at least a decade+ www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/n ... 5805908912'" immediate plans." If the house of cards isn't quite collapsing yet, there's certainly a stiff breeze on the way.

Existing clubs say "money should be given to existing clubs" shock. Gosh, who'd have seen that coming ?

In any case, I'm not sure that anyone who talks of "growing the existing pie" can be described as talking sense.

"so that we can increase revenue for the existing clubs, increase payments for players and increase the amount we can invest in junior development,"

Yep, that's just crazy talk.





"You can't do those things and invest in expansion ... and until there is a strong business case for any expansion contributing to the growth of the competition, then it will not be part of [the NRL's immediate plans."

I think this is what irritates you the most because it doesn't pander to the expansion! expansion! expansion! approach that you espouse.

No, this is fairly straightforward. I think that if our game doesn't grow, it will die. Here's how this works :

I started teaching in a girls school in SE London. No rugby of either sort. Me and another teacher start up a girls' RL team. They love it, having never been aware of RL's existence before. They compete in the Carnegie Champion Schools, with a little help from the development officers down here. They become the third best team in the country in their age group, beating Wigan and Cumbria, because - astonishingly, kids in London are just as likely to be good at RL as kids in the M62. We have festivals, parents come, we take them to the Stoop, and they buy merchandise. It's a lovely case of expansion, right ?

Now, guess who turns up tonight at training : a RU development officer. They've heard there's "rugby" at my school, and they've secured funding to provide a coach once a week. He talks to the girls, offers them coaching, matches, match tickets to local RU clubs. But I and the other teacher leave at the end of the year. What's going to happen, I wonder ?

I come home, feeling fairly downbeat at knowing that I've laid the groundwork for RU to come in and takeover, and I read a thread from people who are clearly unable to contain their enthusiasm for the idea that RL should pull up the drawbridge, because of come spurious idea that there's all this untapped talent and support in the M62 corridor which we've somehow been ignoring all this time, and in the long term we can come back to the rest of the country. There is no long term. RU is out there now. So are any number of other sports, actively competing for players and fans. The only one of those sports which says that it doesn't really want to expand, as soon as possible, as far as possible, is RL.

The school in Essex which received an Independent article has been cited on here as a success story of expansion, even by those who like to think that this is "right" expansion, over "wrong" expansion (Crusaders). I'm hope they do well (not too well, though, as we're playing them after Christmas), but they are also motivated mainly by the enthusiasm of a particular teacher who happens to be there at this time. Without a self-sustaining structure of competitions, support for PE departments and - crucially - a local profile which allows kids to see this is part of their ongoing life, rather than an oddity at school, then when that teacher moves on, the sport will die out.

Contrast RL with the RU method - they seek out areas they're not strong, and they put cash in. If it doesn't work, they see that as a risk worth taking. But they stay, and they set up leagues, and they provide coaches, and they push and push and push. We say (a) don't do it in the first place and (b) oh , it's not a roaring success after 10 months - bin it and pull the curtains.

Sorry, vut this has been a depressing day. Between RU who are trying to kill us off, and RL fans who are quite happy to bang the nails in the coffin, I'm no longer sure why I bother trying to support or develop this game at all.

I'll read the rest later.

Your argument is, if the game doesn't grow in the way YOU want it to it will die, yes?

Couldn't agree more, and your efforts with your school shouldn't go unnoticed however frustrating it is that RU are coming in.

If you haven't read his post, how do you presume to know what his argument is?

Because I've been reading and responding to his posts up until that point and I'm clever.

I was right aswell.

His argument is like all the others , RL is underfunded , therefore we are willing to let anybody ' bearing gifts ' into it

But we cannot cover everywhere

We have to decide where the investment will pay most dividends and do it properly , at the moment that is in South Wales , as much as I disagreed with things that went on to get the Celtic Crusaders into SL , now they are in , it must continue and if that means funding it via the sports governing body then so be it

No, I'm saying if the game doesn't grow, it will die. I think anyone who says there's an infallible blueprint is clearly someone who only has a passing relationship with intelligence. What I do believe is that we have to try, and retreating to the castle in the hope the walls hold, when the opposition have already developed gunpowder, is simply inviting defeat.

I'm also saying that I am percisely the sort of person RL relies on to grow in any way - a volunteer who has set up two new teams and run three, and who referees matches at all ages for free at my own expense, because I don't believe I should be earning cash out of the amateur game, but putting it in. I've given up countless hours and pounds to get more people playing and enjoying the sport. I [iam [/iyour "right" way of expanding, from "bottom up", and all the other platitudes spouted on these boards by people who may or may not have ever lifted a finger to develop RL in their area. And I am telling you, from that standpoint, that every time I read another comment from someone clearly gloating over the difficulties of Crusaders, salivating over the prospect of Quins following, and demanding a retreat to the M62, I feel a very strong compulsion to give up, because why expend that effort and time on a sport whose other fans clearly don't want you involved? And if I'm feeling like that, as one of the most active RL volunteers in SE England, then imagine how my equivalents in Wales are feeling now ?

Maybe a few folks need to pause their dancing on the coffin of Crusaders long enough to consider why they seem so jubilant that members of their own sporting family are dying ?

Well posted Roy.
Don't really have a lot to say on the matter but you're 100% right.
The chances are your efforts will bear nothing from the sounds of it but the more people like yourself doing this sort of thing the better chance the sport has. Quite frankly id just go and shoot the union bloke but seriously you need to get someone to take up the reigns, contact the development officer etc
Good luck with it, you'll need it imo

I'd suggest they are peeved that their best opportunity of getting the game going in their region has gone tits up.

There aren't people dancing on the coffin of the Crusaders there are people pointing out that it was a poor decision to go with them in the first place and it was. What didn't help matters is that they were ridiculed for even suggesting this for months and months. I personally find it massively frustrating that they looked to have blown an opportunity that if handled well could have worked.

Don't try and blame the doubters for this one.

Great post. We need more people like you in RL.

I know the development officers well (as you'd expect), and I know they simnply don't have the capacity to run individual school sides. The RU guy was attached to a RU club, but funded from the RFU and accessing their cash. It's a brighter story for us out in West London around Quins, where the RL development officers are based and can spend more time doing stuff (rather than travelling half a day to visit east London). That's quite a good indication of why a pro club is important for expansion. It provides a focus and a base for everything else.

The union guy said to the girls, in front of me, that he coached "proper" rugby. One of the girls asked me why we don't play RU. I said that if I wanted to be that bored, I'd teach maths.

If it rains you'll get wet. This has about as much relevance as your statement.



Brave of you to admit. I salute you.



Your devotion to RL is admirable.



However your sweeping generalisations are not.

Why make up such nonsense. No one is:

Gloating over the difficulties of the Crusaders
Salivating over the prospect of Quins following
Demanding a retreat to the M62
Dancing on the coffin of Crusaders
Jubilant that members of their own sporting family are dying

You made all that up! Because it doesn't suit your aganda that there actually may be other ways to expand that do not demand rushing clubs into SL built on foundations of sand. An opinion shared by NRL chief executive David Gallop!

You sir are a Drama queen and a hypocrite.

If you genuinely read all these threads on Crusaders and expansion and didn't see anyone, at any point, expressing any views to this effect, then I put it to you, while we're adopting 19th Century duelling language, that you cannot read, or you are intellectually incapable of understanding what you can.

Now we can go on cutting and pasting choice quotes, either in or out of context, for a few pages if you like, and turn this into one of those threads which nobody ever bothers to read again, because it's so far up its own backside that it's disappeared, or we can simply accept that our worldviews, and our understanding of English, are so different that we may as well be speaking different languages, and we can both continue to wish heartily that the other was supporting a different sport.

If you do wish to continue, then I would suggest you provide a quote from me which states that I believe there is an infallible blueprint for expansion. Because you rather strongly imply that I do. And that would be a lie which rather proves my point about you not understanding posts.