All these play on words are starting to wear a Lille thin now...

The RFL should carry on their highly successful policy of blindfolding a heavily vodka'd Nigel Wood, spinning him around and then having him put a pin in a world map and giving whichever land mass he hits first a super league license.

On a seperate note I look forward to seeing the Gdansk Shipyarders at the Stobart Stadium next year.

Well I personally hope that the RFL have learnt their lesson about fast tracking teams up to SL level when the clubs don't have the necessary infrastructure to survive and build the game in their area.

Really, I'd prefer that instead of bringing in another team into SL, the time and money was spent on improving the French league and the grassroots in France

That would be a nice little dream, but in the real world that won't happen any time soon.

For a start, what infrastructure to survive are you talking about? And what "fast track" are you talking about? Super League is a licensed league. The teams in the French league have just as much right to go up into it as they do in the Championship. There are some clubs in that league that are older than some clubs in the Championship and have long established infrastructures, traditions and fan bases. Any club that goes up would need a huge overhaul anyway.

As for spending time and money on the French League, what money are you talking about? Are you suggesting Sky money goes to the French League? Sponsor money (that wouldn't be there without a SL club)? What money?
And the time it would most likely be longer to develop the game in France to just try and improve the French League on its own than it would putting a French team in SL anyway. Look at how much process simply having Catalans in the league has done.

Crusaders were fast tracked into SL. The club hadn't been around for longer than a cup of tea. Admittedly, it was more the Crusader's board promising the moon and not even being able to deliver cheese.

I'm not suggesting we look at how old the club is in regards to letting them into SL. What I'm suggesting is that the club prove they can consistently hit manageable targets in terms of revenue and crowd figures.

And I'm not saying that Catalans don't have a place in SL. They clearly do as they've improved pretty much year on year.

Crusaders was a poor decision (which many people said at the time) believed to be based on the owner pulling out if he didn't get SL (and then he pulled out after a year anyway and they relocated).

Not sure what that's got to do with anything though. Crusaders aren't French. And they weren't necessarily fast-tracked either, because had their been P&R that team, two teams would have gone up and since Crusaders were in the top two and drew the GF (lost in extra time), it's fair to say they'd have gone up on the field as well (we didn't know about all the dodgy imports until the year after, so let's not bring that into it).


And that's what the license system is all about.


So what are you saying then? That we improve the French League but keep Catalans? Why can't we improve the French League AND bring in another French team to get up to the level of Catalans? Or would that be counter-productive to improving the French League? In which case why not send the Catalans back?