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)

I accept your comments, though the history of RL in south east France in 1939 is hardly material to modern considerations.
More germaine is that 5 years ago there was not a club in that area that were of a comensurate standard to the mid table cubs in the RL 2nd tier.
My point was that Catalans were prepared historically, financially, administratively, and in RL culture to join the SL fraternity.
That they were offered that position without them having to work by promotions through the lower leagues was a risk call by the RFL.
So I say again, It was an expansion success.

Ditto, it was a geographical expansion of Superleague. I can't help but notice that some people try to undermine attempts to expand the game by saying that Catalans were never really an expansion team anyway because the game has been played in the south of France for a long time. When i then ask these same people if Lezignan and Lyon should have just as much chance of getting in SL as Widnes, Leigh and Halifax because after all by their definition they are heartlands teams, the answer is usually "but thats different".

I think you hit the nail on the head 'expansion of Superleague'. But why not give it its full title of 'Super League (Europe) Limited'? After the demise of Paris the 'Europe' bit was a bit superfluous. So, despite what any of us think, SLE felt compelled to 'expand' the game somewhere outside England and, preferably, outside GB. A success, well, maybe, but what sort of a hand-up did they have?...

[list
three years to prepare
the right to field a team in the French national tournaments
an exemption from relegation for three years
the right to buy any French player without paying a transfer fee
[/list

Having said that I can't begrudge the French this 'success' as at least RL in this country wasn't officially banned! (Which is what happened in France under the Vichy Gov't : the players were 'invited' to play Union and RL assets were seized. As far as I can find out, the assets have never been returned. Oh, and it is still impossible for anyone studying to become a state registered sports instructor to take rugby league as their main option).

Well rlSouth Walesrl did not work. We now have another SL club within commuting distance of Warrington & Widnes.

What a disgrace this is.

We might as well kick the franchise system into touch if this deemed acceptable.

Feckin rubbish.

tbh, I could not agree more.

And they must be gutted down in South Wales. What a kick in the nuts for the game down there.

Completely.

If I were them I might be tempted think " to this, I'm off"

Just as a reminder...

"A five-man RFL panel assessed the 19 applications based on four key criteria: stadium facilities, finance and business performance, commercial and marketing, and playing strength, including junior player production development."

So much for their 'qualification process', at my count they've actually produced on maybe (generously) two of them...

I wonder how many of the criteria were a case of 'talk the talk' ? I don't know about you guys but I've seen plenty of 'strong' business plans based on superficial statements like 'we will get x% of the market' without ever actually stating how! Yes, bloated, impressively pompous sounding, waffle does it for some people every time