im sure I heard somewhere they spend/use all available cap as well if that's true im shocked there must be some average at best players on outrageous money down there.

Spot on, he seems to have been the big difference to the side yesterday. Well done them, I do think there will be a few extra thousands at Wembley now than if the wire had won.

Travelling between the RL towns in cumbria is too time consuming to create any sort of combined local support.

I do think they could push Cumbria better as a rep side, though. They gave England a good game not so long ago and could very possibly turn over the likes of France and Wales. More rep opportunities would give the cumbrian championship/semi-pro stars more exposure to the opportunities of full time.

Cumbria is an area that has real RL passion - that's something that should not be underestimated.

Regarding London, a friend and I were chatting the other day and discussing the fact that trying to promote a RL club in such a RU strong area seems flawed.
I know there is lots of junior, grass roots RL giong on n London, but is this centred around the twickenham area - i doubt it (please feel free to correct me). Would we be better trying to promote RL to an audience that has less rugby bias? Rugby league started as a working class sport - would we be better looking at a less affluent area of london that has only had football in the past and trying to convert them instead?

The issue with a representitive side for cumbria, is that it's another made up side, it would have the same issues as PSG, London.

You can't just invent a side and expect it to get support. Those who turn up to watch RL already watch Whitehaven, Barrow and Workington.

It's the same issue as making a club in say Liverpool the representitive side for St Helens, Warrington and Widnes.

It would get little to no support from the feeder clubs and would die very soon.

Cumbrian teams just need a promotion path, everything else will come if they market themselves and play well.

RL has tried to create, merge and drop in teams before and all without question have failed.

Catalan is the exception that proves the rule, but they were merged before SL.

I wasn't suggesting replacing the club sides, I was thinking an occasional representative side to give extra oppotunities for cumbrian players, an extra "occasion" for cumbrian fans. Not every area can support a SL club, but that doesn't mean they can't improve rugby league in the area in terms of a spectacle and player development.

If you consider other sports and their attempts at artificially influencing the spread of their game I cant think of any examples of success. Wendyball hasn't taken off in the USA, American football hasn't taken off in Europe, Cricket is limited to the old British empire countries etc etc. Consequently, the 30-year experiment in London was bound to fail.