Quote: wrencat1873 "
1. The question raised by the op was "how" we help the French game and not "whether" we should help them. Cumbria is part of the hotbed of RL.
2. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, why on earth were Toulouse not promoted along with Toronto at the last re structure and move to a 14 club top flight - this still remains a huge opportunity missed and it could have given the French game a huge boost - alas, we shall never know what could have been.
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1.All questions end up with the debate widening things out a bit and I think we should consider "whether" we should help the French, you don't have to reply to that. I think West Cumbria is a pale shadow of it's former self and for me the sad thing is how the junior game there has shrunk so much. Last I looked the age groups had to double up to make up leagues and the content of each league was but a handful of teams. Not sure how many Cumbrians now play pro. a few years back I could count a dozen good 'uns. Donaldson and Lunt seem almost like the last two. For me the game is "West Cumbria" and always has been and it was built on an Industrial base like West Yorkshire. Steel and coal. Not Holiday cottages.
2. The reason "Why" was that Les Catalans were not wanted by Superleague in 2006, but the then RFL CEO Richard Lewis was determined to do two things:-
a. Help the French International side catch up with GB. NZ and Australia ......Now how did that go? The French were slaughtered in the first test, then slaughtered every year to the point the game lost test status, then slaughtered so much the game ended up not been played anymore....
b. Help SL expand to new places like France, Wales and the south of England to get more new players and more TV money into RL. Now how did that go? Wales collapsed, London have simply hung on, and Les Catalans can't get a TV deal and can't develop French SL players any more. When Catalans started the team had nine first choice Frenchmenn now that's down to only two.
In short my good friend it's all been tried and tried since 2006 to expand the game beyond the M62 and never mind not knowing "what could have been" we know now it doesn't work, and it's all failed so we are now left with trying to keep the M62 alive and you don't do that putting Toulouse, Whitehaven or Toronto in Superleague? You don't respond to a drop in quality players by making the game 14 clubs? last time we had 14 London, Bradford and Wakefield collapsed..........
MATE - we are all cracked records on here don't worry about it!!
