If any business doesn't expand and look to exploit new markets it will wither and die.

By expanding outside its geographical heartlands, rugby league will attract larger spectator and player bases generating increased revenue. A larger player base potentially presents a greater opportunity of being competitive, maybe even dominant at international level giving the profile of the sport a massive boost.

The financial results being posted at all levels of the game would suggest that remaining as things are is simply not a viable long term option.

We will never be able to compete on the international stage as long as the Aussies continue to pump millions of $’s a year into their amateur game.

We will always be behind them in that respect, we will always be the poorer cousin.

A vast majority (virtually all) of RL income is generated within the heartlands so why bother wasting valuable time and resources trying to tout for business elsewhere?

A very idealistic view but outside the heartlands there is very little interest in our sport so why not concentrate generating further interest where there is already some.

The ‘Welsh experiment’ is nothing but pure folly by the RFL and will inevitably result in failure while also denying a team with genuine potential from reaching it.

How long RU fans will continue to support the game at the turnstiles if the dross on offer doesn't improve is a concern (or should be) to the administrators & press.
We have the better product IMO but not the clout nationally to exploit this.
Had any RU player scored the try made by Billy Slater we'd never hear the end of it.

At what point did the position right here, right now become what it will always be?

The challenge for the RFL is to generate and build that interest outside the heartlands where effectively the game is already operating at saturation point. How many more people in Castleford who aren't already interested in the game do you think the Tigers could attract for example?

Denying a team with real potential? Such as who? Widnes? Leigh? Halifax?

Take a look at what happened to those clubs when they were given the opportunity to "reach their potential" in SL. Add Workington and Oldham to your list too. They simply were not able to attract revenue sufficient to make them competitive, and drove themselves into financial ruin attempting to do so. Why should they, and indeed why would they want to, expose themselves to the same situation again?

Castleford already has a full time team – Widnes is currently in a viable financial position and have a business plan in place, there is already interest in RL within the town but they get ignored to try and generate interest in a geographical area traditionally dominated by RU.

I went to Newport this year and saw nothing but a handful of RL fans, a couple of hundred RU fans with free tickets and a couple of thousand Leeds fans. If that is the model that the RFL is basing it’s expansion on then the sport will wither and die.

How many expansion attempts will the RFL try before they realise that they are wasting time and money that should have been spent try to rekindle existing interest rather than trying to light a fire with damp matches and wet newspaper?

Widnes had a full time team as recently as what, four or five years ago?

It wasn't financially viable then, what's changed?

Even in the club's heyday of the 70s and 80s, they were struggling to attract what would now be considered "big" crowds to Naughton Park. So where are these extra fans going to come from that weren't around the last time they were in SL to make it a viable proposition again?

The ‘extra fans’ will be more difficult to find in a area that doesn’t even know there is another Rugby code than in a town where their friends and family already may have season tickets.


I believe that there is more security in our sport by nurturing its existing interest.

You believe the sports resources would be better spent looking into ‘untapped’ areas.

I think we could dance this dance all day so will have to agree to disagree.


[size=42But I’m right.[/size

You ought to have a look at the dates some of the apparently heartland clubs were founded in.

Or indeed at how many clubs who switched to RL in it's early years fared.

Failing to expand is nonsense. It completely ignores the changing dynamics of rugby league's place in the sporting market.

Take out the Welsh folly, scrap the Catalans, ditch Harlequins. I wonder how that might effect bargaining power with Sky? Would they even be interested in a parochial little sport at all? What would happen to the amateur scene or youth development in these areas? How many talented youngsters from the heartlands would stick with a parochial, possibly un-publicised and bankrupt rugby league over a completely dominant rich rugby union?

The alternative to expansion is a relentless decline in playing standards, spectator levels and revenue to the point where professional RL would cease to exist.

If I may.

There is a school of thought that the Australians pump millions of dollars into the amateur game. I believe this to be true.

Question is who? The taxpayer? I doubt it. Industry, again I doubt it. The [iconsumer[/i, there you go.

But how?

Casinos, bars, hotels, cinema's etc, all owned and operated by the clubs.

So effectively the clubs have formed themselves into somewhere the consumer wants to spend both time and money. There is a community in these places. A sense of belonging, or a sense of ownership?

The player development is all part of that, people want to be part of the club because the club is their social life, their entertainment, not just in terms of RL but everything else that goes with it.

IF, one single RL club could get the planning permission for something like [url=http://penrith.panthers.com.au/Homethis[/url then maybe we could start about engaging the whole of the surrounding area in the experiment, make it the centre of everyones universe.

What have we got, the FAE? Come on. The problem isn't with the RFL it's with the games attitude to progress and development.

RU has got to where it is now largely thanks to the fact its played in nearly every school in the country, whereas League are only now starting to try and expand school participation.
It gets kids interested from a young age without having had to make an effort to go to a club.

As for RU having clubs having more teams, York RU when I used to play for them had 3 mens teams, a Cavaliers team, a Colts team, an U17 and god knows how many kids teams and in all the teams it seemed much friendlier and more approachable than the vast majority of RL clubs that I've been to.

If I could be @rsed to get up and play again I know which code it would be, and I would have much less chance of being involved in a fight, have a brick thrown at me or have some backward ex convict elbow me in the face.