Are they playing league regularly beside the cup at school? If the game doesn't expand very soon we shall become a nursery for union, already despite Eastmond signing a two year contracy he is talking of going to union where the money is bigger. Because there game is wider spread they automatically get larger tv rights than league. Never forget their international game rakes in the money.

Unfortunately our World Cup last year was a flee bite in revenue compared to union. Also to rub salt into wounds we had a lousy performance which I am sure affected our own super league attendances. One light on the horizon is that even the bosses of union are realising their game is becoming very boring, and with tries also drying up.

Expand or die. If Sky pull out of Superleague then we'd be screwed anyway, we'd be literally forced into a merger with Union or our pro teams would go bust.

If SKY/Media pulled out, wouldn't that be the case for all but all professional sports though . . . . soccer included.

I guess so.



At the end of the day were always going to be second fiddle to Union, they have just moved too far ahead of us profile wise and money wise. IMO a merging of the codes will never happen because in 50 years they'll be the number 1 rugby code across the whole world and we'll effectively have nothing to offer them that they don't already have in abundance.



We'll never expand rapidly because we don't have enough money and Rugby League fans are just too parochial. We can't challenge Union in their strongholds but we can offer people in those areas an alternative. If we stick to our working class/middle class roots and market it as an ordinary mans/family sport like lower league football then we'll attract people who are disenfranchised by the corporate greed of the Premier League and Union.

. . . . hell, I bet you're fun at parties

I like to think of myself as an optimistic pessimist, were all doomed but we'd better make the most of it.

I think there is enough expansion at the moment, except another French SL team would be nice. Crusaders probably should have been given another year or so to prepare for being in SL, maybe that would have made things less farcical.



I think any expansion of the game in the next decade should be at a 'grass roots' level - I'd love to see the lower echelons of RL have far more semi-pro teams from all over the UK, perhaps in partnership with current SL teams.



I noticed that Sam Tomkins was actually born in Milton Keynes and if his family hadn't have relocated to Chorley, than he wouldn't be playing the game at all. There's a whole wealth of potential RL talent out there that needs capitalising on!



And a merger with Rugby Union? never!

So where, exactly, has the game expanded to?



London have had a team for decades and it is struggling. Catalans is in a hot bed of Rugby League anyway (I think they were called Perignan (sp?) before they were given a place in SL). Gateshead has had 'development' status for about a decade and failed miserably. Paris was a complete mess. That leaves the Crusaders... wow, the RFL are really doing well expanding outside the heartlands!

And then there was Sheffield...

Indeed there was. The most ill-conceived admittance to the most ill-prepared club.

Gateshead was little better, though I think Gateshead's attempt to promote the game in the north east was genuine and concerted. At least there still remains some element of RL there, unlike Sheffield, or Paris.

I think we can take Catalans as an expansion success.

London remains a hard nut to crack for RL as it is in the RFU heartland. Harlequins do have their problems but its imperative that they must survive being IMO the most important expansion team for the last 100 years. To loose this toehold would be unthinkable

Crusader's expansion was a proposition with more than reasonable expectations for at least some continuity. That it has not proved so I think is more down to adminisration than being the wrong location.



I cant really fault the RL for trying to expand the game's locations and fail to see what else they could have done otherwise if this was their intent.

Other than perhaps better insistence on fiscal and administative compliance all round.



Withdrawing to the RL heartlands is a valid option, but not I expect, one that will give long term financial security.

How so? Not to understate the work done, but the fact is that this was the 'beefing up' of a club already in a strong RL area - the game has been played in that area since 1934!!! (By 1939 there were around 450 clubs, ok that was possibly its peak, but lets not forget that the game used to be a lot more popular here than it is now as well)