Got to say I agree. Catalans could be a massive club once they get their new stadium and get more fans in. Throw in Toulouse a few years down the line and we could have 2 genuine big clubs outside the country. There is also possibility of a big team in Paris.

But they don't show any signs of doing it one season to the next and in any case Warrington have never exactly been a badly supported club or one who were ever mentioned in the same bracket as the like of Cas and Wakey.

Dave

You could but that would be stretching the imagination a bit too far IMO.

Point taken about Les Cats being in the French heartland but that just makes the failure of our heartland clubs all the more depressing. Les Cats may have been given an advantage with their playing roster but the club was effectively brand new and so needed running properly and it does seem to be properly run to the extent I don't think anyone would consider their position under threat when the franchises come around. They are successful in franchising terms both on and off the pitch and offer a stark contrast to some of our sides and there is more to it than just getting hold of some decent players.

Dave

I see this term or similar ones so many times on here , would you care to actually explain how clubs should be run ' properly '

I've made a couple of posts on this now but imo it should all be about moving to 12 teams and consolidating what we've got in order to make the comp stronger. You can’t consolidate if you want to expand as well as the quality of the comp suffers as we saw last season with the two new teams.

Whilst I agree that the progress made by the likes of Wakey, Cas & Salford isn’t acceptable in the case of Wakey and Cas I’d still much prefer them and their SL ready teams in the league next season compared to moving a championship side up and having to deal with the bedding in period that follows.

In regards to the progress of Wakey and Cas they desperately need new stadiums to kick them, cas especially, onto a new level. Hopefully they can see the sense in joining together stadium wise as it would also if thought out correctly double up as RL’s national stadium. Also

Don’t get me wrong I’m not a flap capper as I would love to see a truly national SL but imo the quickest way to do this is by strengthening and improving on what we have. Make SL more competitive by having 12 strong teams, with home grown players and quality grounds.

Reduce it to 12 teams and you will still have 2 teams at the bottom that hardly win any games. Why not reduce it to 5. How many years is this sport going to carry on trying to emulate the NRL. SL has made the gap between the leagues a brige too far now and teams coming up from the Championship will be just stuck at the bottom of it. The Austrailians don't beat us every year because of our league system. They beat us because they train better and are guided better at an early age. They concentrate on skills more. Ball handling. Team awareness which is a major downfall of our nation team. I have to agree - and if it makes me a flat capper so be it - the majority of this games money needs to be chanelled into the heartland clubs and areas like France that have heartland clubs themselves. I think the gap between the leagues needs to be reduced. Not at the expense of SL but by investing more into the lower leagues. If we had very strong lower leagues the SL clubs would still be able cherry pick the best players because thats what they would be aspiring to become, SL players. Finally I think P&R should be back with 3 leagues of 12 and 1 up/down every season and no rubish like having more overseas players or not being relegated because you are expansionist. If you have reached SL you have done it because you deserve to be in it.

It's actually quite easy. Read the franchise criteria and conform to that. Les Cats are, some SL teams are not.

Dave

Can't disagree with any of that.




Why? There is as you say a big gap between SL and the lower leagues but the big difference between here and Oz is that their lower leagues which are the country sides never get promoted to the NRL. It's not on the agenda. It never happens. We are obsessed in this country with looking at teams in the lower leagues and giving them the chance to get into SL. This does not happen in Oz. The NRL is a closed shop unless they decide to do something like expand and admit Melbourne.

The franchise system was (past tense) a move toward that kind of working but now they have promised an NL1 side will be promoted come what may, the RFL clearly have not got the balls to enforce the system properly.



None of that happens in Oz apart from the cherry picking of players from country sides to NRL sides but even that is not the norm because the NRL sides produce most of their own players.

We just have to accept that Dewsbury and similar are never going to be SL sides and holding out a carrot that they possibly could be is just stupid IMO.

Dave

Some good points there Dave I feel.

There we go again chasing the Australian dream. It will never happen over here. Expansion teams need the lower leagues to find their feet and build a fan base. It has been proved year after year that throwing money at places like Cardiff, Newcastle, Londondon even Scotland wont make people go and watch this sport. Building a team from scratch with top wage earners is a recipe for a disaster when you have no one coming through the gates. I bet that by the end of next season Crusaders and Gateshead are no more. What a waste of money. In order for SL to keep going it needs to be stronger and competative and expansion is just diluting it. The only way I see expansion working is in France.

It's not about chasing an Austrian dream but merely pointing out how different the two countries deal with their 2nd tier competitions. They just do not consider it sensible to promote country sides to the NRL because they won the competition and if we had any brains we would do the same thing which is what franchising is supposed to be about.



That doesn't actually prove anything except expansion in the UK has been gone about the wrong way. You are right lower league teams are needed to generate a fan base but it does not follow that the ultimate aim should be the elevation of a lower league side from that area to SL by winning promotion on the field or by being fast tracked.

The Aussies don't get it right all the time either as Perth and Adelaide found out but they did manage to plonk an NRL side in Victoria and Melbourne have been very successful in the heart of Aussie rules country. I don't know how they went about it but they clearly managed it. What they didn't do was pick an existing RL team in the area and push that into the NRL. They gave the entire city a new team all could follow.



It wasn't a recipe for disaster in Melbourne or Les Cats.

Gateshead did have the gates and the whole Gates-Hull fiasco was just that. I also doubt the Crusaders will last long. I only live down the road in Chester and I have not heard a peep about them in the local press for example but the Crusaders are a fine example of the RFL not having a clue about how to expand the game. Them being in Wrexham is a panic measure whereas what the RFL should have been doing is making sure they were viable in South Wales. Instead it seems to me the way the RFL work is pick an area, promote a team to SL, give them a dispensation on overseas recruitment and then walk away and leave them too it as if that is all they need to do.

The Crusaders is a huge black mark for the RFL in my opinion but it doesn't mean expansion into a new area like that is impossible. It just seems that way because we have a pretty inept administration.

Dave

SL should stay at 14 teams. Leave alone for once!

I feel the Super League should be cut down to 12 teams. Despite being just 16, and compared to the majority of users on this and indeed any other fans forum lack experience in the expansion and buisness side of the game, I feel 14 teams is not the way forward for the game IMO. Being a Barrow fan aswell as a Wigan follower, I will be first to admit it would be fantastic if the winner of the Championship become the newest member of the Super League, and up to a certain degree I still believe this should be the case. However, what Barrow dont have is the facilities and infastructure. Our ground certainly has the size to showcase top flight rugby, but the facilities and surrouding facilities are simply not good enough (as many of you may have witnessed when down here for the challenge cup match). Additionally, despite the consistent investment of Des Johnston, it is going to take millions of pounds to get the club up to where we want it, money meaning time. If we are to talk about clubs from the Championship who deserve to be in the Super League at this moment in time due to their quality of rugby, I'd say Barrow, but if we are to judge it on what really matters, the critea, Widnes have to be the team for me. Ok, they aren't the strongest team in the league (IMO), but they certainly have the fabrications and support to become a super league team. Admittadly, it is a sad notion to think that the winner of the league below doesnt have the free ticket to the Super League, but reality is, this can't happen, not to Barrow anyway. My thoughts on the Crusaders seem to reflect the majority of Rugby League fans so I wont waste time repeating the opinions of others. However I strongly believe that the RFL simply have to admit their miss-doings and mistakes and send Cetlic into the Championship. Ok, if they develop and grow as a club in the Championship, by all means bring them back up. But overall I feel its time the RFL start to regard Celtic as a rugby league club, not an on-going experiment that seems to be jeapordising the sports itself.

No it wouldn.t be, both these areas already had a good RL base anyway. It's only that ARL is more popular. I personally think that the idea of no P&R in our game is a very selfish attitude. How the hell is the game supposed to grow with only 14 teams playing it at a decent level. I would love to here your views if you get dropped to our league and then they scrapped it for good. Please dont keep saying it works in Australia they dont have the amount of different sports like we do to compete with RL. It says so by the fact that it is their nation sport with only 14 teams. RL has a lot to offer this country but a single 14 team sport is not offering anyone anything.

The RFL should leave Crusaders and see how they develop - they're in SL whether people like it or not, and I have to agree their move to Wrexham/not having a playing squad is nothing short of a shambles - which is why I think the RFL rushed them in when they weren't quite ready - Widnes/Leigh would of been a better choice.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

The difference between Les Cats and the Crusaders is that Catalans already had a strong playing squad, with some very good and experience imports from the NRL (Stacey Jones but to name one).

I don't buy into the notion that compares Catalans to Crusaders - Catalans were given 3 years(?) to prepare for SL. Crusaders 6months (ish). The RFL should of denied Celtics place, but instructed them to prepare for the next round of SL licences as they stand an extremely good chance of getting one.

It seems to me the RFL threw Crusaders in at the deep-end, and their irresponsible gamble appears to have faltered.

Are you sure your only 16. My son can hardly string a sentance together. nevermind an articulate sensible and well thought out paragraph. All i get is grunt grunt and a tut. good post young un