Toronto u20 team could play in the USARL. It's not a great standard I know, but it may help to raise the standards with a team being coached full time.

If away supporters don't like attending a ground because it's not all shiney and sells them some pukka pies and a nice pint of corporate then they can vote with their feet. But if said club's home fans and chairman are still doing enough to keep said club competitive at Super League level and bringing through their own youth then I think they damn well merit their place. Some of the nobbers on here will be the death of Rugby League - happily seeing traditional clubs thrown out at the expense of the clubs with rich little sugar daddies and corporate sponsors. Won't be long until Super League is like the premier league if they have their way. 5 or 6 minted clubs scraping it out at the top and the rest left behind. No doubt they'll advocate the salary cap being abolished as well so their rich little owners can scrape up all the talent. Some excitement that would make for. Expect to start paying football prices not long afterwards for your supposedly working class sport.

In addition to the above really don't understand the excitement around Toronto. They shouldn't play in an English league. Neither should Catalan. They offer nothing to the local community and will bring next to no away fans and I'm not sure why making the game more popular in Toronto/Canada will benefit the English game as a whole. Our international squad is now etting towards a level of competing with Australia and I don't see how Toronto will help us develop English talent. For me it is experimentation for experimentation's sake. If Toronto would like to create a league then they should pump money into building the sport on Canada but shoehorning them into the Super League at the potential loss of hard working clubs with passionate fans who will add to the coffers like Featherstone and Bradford e.t.c? It's a no from me.

Toulouse have been playing in a stadium with a capacity of around 4,000, with crowds generally less than half of that. I'm not sure whether they run an academy or not? For Toronto, how can you say that they "maintain" good crowds after just one season? I'm pretty sure that they haven't been running an academy this year, and they don't even have a stadium to play in at the moment. How do you work out that they should both gain "protection" based on your criteria above???

What do you mean "won't be long"? It's always been Leeds, Saints and Wigan....well at least for the last dozen years, with Wire and Hull the only other 2 clubs with anything like consistency.

I am all for expansion. I think the fact that we have 11 of the top 12 clubs all based along one part of the country prevents us from attracting fans, sponsors and media attention.....I also believe the resurgence in the England side we've seen over the last few years is almost entirely down to the period of Franchising when clubs didn't have to worry about relegation but could instead worry about development of both players and as businesses......I believe it "failed" because the RFL didn't know how to run it and if it does return, it needs to be run as an independent business and overseen by an independent management structure.

I see no benefit in Wakefield being 11 miles from Huddersfield or 7 miles from Castleford which itself is only 11 miles from Leeds, with a similar breakdown of the 5 sides on the other side of the Pennines and the other 2 clubs being at the end of the road and 4 miles apart..........the game is great but the way it is run and the geographic limitations mean it either needs to expand by making some hard choices (Licencing/Mergers) or we need to accept we are pretty much as big as we are going to ever be

A return to 14 is a good idea. 12 clubs was too few for the home games clubs needed to be viable. So we ended up creating various mechanisms to increase the number of games against the same 12 clubs, hence the play-off 8s and (to a lesser extent) Magic weekend. The problem is that familiarity starts to breed contempt, as we've seen in the attendances for the super 8 fixtures. As a Saints fan, I love a Wigan derby, but in theory we could play them 6 times in a season: twice in the normal league, once at Millenium magic, once in the challenge cup, once more in Super 8s and again in the final. That's too many. As it is, it's certain that we'll play most of the teams three times, and one four times, even before the final is decided. 14 teams allows for much less repetition while maintaining the number of games required by club finances.

Moving to 14 also means that the Super 8 play-off isn't as stupid as it is at present. A play-off which only excludes four clubs from it almost renders the entire regular season irrelevant, because you only have to avoid that bottom four to be in the play-off. With 14 teams I still think an 8-team play-off insufficiently rewards good regular season form, because there'll still be more in the play-offs than out of them, but it's not quite as daft. I would much prefer a switch back to the original five team play-off structure, with weeks off and second chances for the top two, which gave much more incentive to finish highly, and meant only those teams which were in the top third of the competition would be playing for the title.

I believe there must be a mechanism for clubs to move in to and out of Super League. However, I think the method of deciding that entry based solely on playing results is pointless for the clubs (who will simply go back down) and pointless, or even harmful, for the game. The Championship, while not acting in any way as an effective nursery for genuinely challenging SL clubs, does act as an effective wall which potential challenger clubs find it impossible to overcome. There are clubs who can potentially add new crowds, players and media to Super League, and can compete when in that competition, yet who cannot do so in the championship - London, Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto, Bradford, would all be able to contribute to SL, but will be unable to get past Leigh, Hull KR, Widnes, Wakefield and Salford who don't offer as much potential in Super League, but have the advantages of established position at championship level.

A results-only system will continue to protect the position of that group of clubs whose potential is strictly limited, and will continue to exclude clubs whose potential is greater. It is ridiculous that we have the potential - for once - of stealing a march on RU and gaining the first foothold in the north American professional sport market for Rugby League, and we'd ignore that opportunity to protect the continued irrelevance of Salford failing to do anything of note in front of 2,000 people.

A licensing system is essential, and if the smaller clubs continue to resist that, then the bigger clubs, upon whom the entire super league depends: Leeds, Wigan, Saints, Warrington, Hull and Catalans, should secede and form their own competition, inviting other clubs to join them in a new professional SL. That would be a nuclear option, but we have to stop running our game in the interests of uncompetitive clubs with small crowds and a limited or non-existent playing and financial base.

People will, of course, complain about tradition, although plenty have extremely selective memories when choosing which traditions to support (yes, play-offs ARE our most traditional way of choosing champions). However, traditionally, RL was supported by communities who worked in reasonably well-paid factories and mines. Traditionally, team sports were the main entertainment for many, because TV was black and white, and the internet didn't exist. Traditionally, RU was amateur, so we could access that potential player base whenever we chose. Traditionally, the Aussies didn't exist on another financial planet to us in the UK. Traditionally, soccer wasn't the world-eating behemoth it now is, sucking up a huge percentage of the shrinking base of active athletes, media attention and sponsorship cash. Traditionally, we didn't have full-time professional teams, so we didn't need to generate big crowds and sponsorship in order to continue to exist. What is and was "traditional" is irrelevant. What matter, bluntly, is survival as a professional sport, or even an amateur sport.

We are contracting at a dramatic rate. Playing numbers have halved in ten years. We cannot land a decent sponsor for our top competitions. Our main TV broadcaster offers us a fraction of what it offers other sports with similar viewing figures, because it knows there are no other suitors keen to televise Widnes versus Salford in front of 4,000 fans. Attendances are at best stagnant and at worst beginning to decline. One of our biggest clubs, Bradford, is hanging on for grim life. Our presence in the capital has been reduced to two struggling semi-pro outfits and a handful of amateur teams made up of as many antipodeans as Brits. We almost threw away the whole of France this year for the pleasure of keeping a second team in the borough of Wigan, which would have seen us with the smallest geographic footprint in the top flight since the game went professional in 1996. The days of full-time or even majority RL journalists in our national media are long gone, as RL drops off the nation's sporting radar. The Aussies don't give a stuff, and would be content if RL became another version of Aussie Rules, played only on their continent. The RFU doesn't even bother to attack us any more, because we're too small to notice by comparison.

Yet along comes the Yanks and the Canadians, offering millions of quid and the chance to get cash from American TV networks, to access the massive North American athlete pool, and to gain a foothold in the largest sports marketplace on the planet, and what is the response of many RL fans? "Don't let them in, they might bugger up the chances of Halifax getting a year being hammered in the top flight in front of tiny crowds. That's traditional, don't you know?"

Get the yanks and the French in. Stuff your fingers in your ears at all the moaning from small-time teams in small-time towns. If it works, nobody will care. If it doesn't work, those small-time clubs will still be there to pointlessly make up the numbers for the few remaining professional years we have left before SKY finally decide they can get cheaper fillers with more interest in more places, and drop us into terminal semi-pro decline. At least we'll have died trying, instead of making our own coffin and climbing inside, telling people to nail the lid shut because it's bloody traditional.

Castleford? Wakefield in the top 5? Huddersfield before that? Salford were breaking that mould as well early on.

If clubs can sustain themselves being 4/5 miles from each other than that is the club's business. And is testament to how they are run. I do not believe people in suits should play God with our game. Neither do I believe we are being "left behind". Licensing ahhhh the successful Crusaders And oh how it stopped the Bulls from going bust. Any respectable sport needs to have promotion and relegation. It means on field matters have a say in success. I'd rather have 14 teams 10 miles from each other in an English league than some 2000 miles away. I think some ought to be careful what they wish for. But if the sport heads the way of the Premier League in football then I for one will certainly not be as enthused as I currently am. Also, you've only really reinforced my point really - if clubs like the likes of Leeds e.t.c have been so dominant with a salary cap you only have to wonder what it might result in without one. There's a reason football players are being sold at ridiculous prices and entrance fees are extortionate. I feel the culture of rugby league will die a death if the expansionists get their way. And forgive me if i'm misguided but for me, it's the culture of the game that makes it so worth watching. Also, let me make it clear: i'm not against expansion within the country the league is based in. I'm against expansion to a country that adds nothing to the development of English talent or he financial benefit of English clubs who play in said league. (This coming from someone who is not into the whole nationalist schtick at all.)

THEY not WE, THEY,THEY nearly threw it away themselves.



Roy Haggerty = I'm alright jack.

"We" as in "Rugby League, the whole sport".

It's a well-known phenomenon that people attribute their own values to other people: crooks think everyone else is crooked, sociopaths think everyone else is a sociopath.

In rugby league, you'll never get a clearer example of this than supporters of clubs who would rather see the entire sport cease to exist than their own club be denied the chance to hoover some crumbs from the table for a few more months, accusing those whose interests are the game as a whole of thinking similarly.

None of us are alright, Jack. And one reason we're not is because we have a large number of 'supporters' whose support is limited strictly to their own club, even if that harms the entire game. There was never a more depressing thread on this website than the one before the World Cup which asked people whether they prioritised club or country. The number of people who couldn't see how the national team's success is so much more important that their own club was staggering.

Fax aren't ready for SL, and they openly state that. However, with a new Chairman at the helm, they do have ambitions and the crux of the matter is that they shouldn't be prevented from elevating themselves if and when they're ready, both on and off the field.

Btw, Bradford aren't "one of our biggest clubs" now. Just like Fax, they find themselves in a lower division and they need to live with that.

You say "London, Catalans, Toulouse, Toronto, Bradford, would all be able to contribute to SL, but will be unable to get past Leigh, Hull KR, Widnes, Wakefield and Salford who don't offer as much potential in Super League, but have the advantages of established position at championship level".

London, of course, have been a SL team and are pretty established in the Championship now. Bradford, ditto, but went into freefall.

Widnes, Wakefield and Salford established at championship level? They're still in SL last time I looked!

Catalans have indeed established themselves as a credible SL team, and whilst Toulouse and Toronto may have potential, they still have to prove themselves.

RL is a great sport to watch, but needs a competitive edge for all clubs involved to make it have some meaning for the fans. Clubs need to have enough income coming in to pay their players and other expenses, but this doesn't have to mean selling our soul.

You can replace 'moan' with 'leave', I think. SL is not a prison and those unprotected clubs have options. They might not be good options, but they're better than that.




We could save a lot of time and money by not even having first team squads and games. Just hand out trophies based on an RFL assessment of facilities.

I too am unsure of the worth of Toronto or French teams in a UK comp, but if you are as happy as you say with "bus-pass" accessible top flight RL, then don't be surprised when SKY eventually decide that their 18 million a year can be better spent elsewhere, because darts out rates us now and the fans at Darts on a Thursday night can't be counted on the fingers and toes of one bloke......